Well water

[OC2Texaspalmlvr]

So we finally bought our forever home God willing. As this is my first time owing a home with water coming from a well pump system. Well is 425ft deep which I have been told is deep for this area. My question is for those who are on a water well , what are the pluses and minuses for watering palms. I google searched this topic and found nothing for answers. We are thinking of putting a softener system in which will also could have its drawback for watering palms =/ So hopefully yall have some experiences to share. None of my palms will be going in yet so watering them while in pots will be different then when there in the ground. Eventually I'll harvest rain water since this area gets plenty of that =) 

Thanks in advance 

T J 

[mydateplams]

In my area in Palm Springs,  California the water is high in salinity and the Palms seem to get burnt if you water 100% from the well so we off set with city city water that has been filtered.  A water test shouldn't be that much and you would know what you got.

 

 

[KDubU]

First I would do is test the water which I assume you did as part of the house offer. All the homes my adult life have been on wells and currently I water my palms and other plants mostly direct from the spigot on the well itself. I also have a water softener that does not use salt, two filters and an iron removing system. My only concern of that water is that it gets little spurts of chlorine that helps remove the high iron content. 

[PalmatierMeg]

Nice looking house and lot. Congratulations. I agree with @KDubU: get the water tested if you haven't. I don't know the quality of TX well water but in FL I hear of lots of problems, esp. with salt intrusion. We are on city water but have a whole house filter. We are lucky to have a dual water system with irrigation for plants on a separate system using recycled water and canal freshwater to water plants.

[96720]

So jealous I would love to have a well my water bills in summer are greater than $2000/month just think what I could do with that money 

[Fusca]

10 hours ago, OC2Texaspalmlvr said:

So we finally bought our forever home God willing. As this is my first time owing a home with water coming from a well pump system. Well is 425ft deep which I have been told is deep for this area. My question is for those who are on a water well , what are the pluses and minuses for watering palms. I google searched this topic and found nothing for answers. We are thinking of putting a softener system in which will also could have its drawback for watering palms =/ So hopefully yall have some experiences to share. None of my palms will be going in yet so watering them while in pots will be different then when there in the ground. Eventually I'll harvest rain water since this area gets plenty of that =) 

Thanks in advance 

T J 

Well, well, well!    Nice house TJ!  I had a 420' deep well back in Tennessee, but with all the rain I rarely had to water anything and wasn't growing palms there.  Main issue I had was the iron content that stained everything red but that was resolved with special salt pellets for the softener.  With that roof you could easily collect a ton of rainwater to use for all of your irrigation.  What county is this in?  I see many palms in your future...

Edited August 23, 2021 by Fusca

[teddytn]

10 hours ago, 96720 said:

So jealous I would love to have a well my water bills in summer are greater than $2000/month just think what I could do with that money 

Damn that’s crazy!

[96720]

I agree but if you want a jungle in Phoenix you pay the price 

[HtownPalms]

I have had well water my whole life living in southeast Texas. Our wells are in the 300-350 foot range. I have never had a problem with the water. A thousand times better than municipal water. We have great aquifers in Texas!

[Merlyn]

Get your water tested for *everything* and then decide if you need to do anything.  In my case the well water was great...until 2004 with 4 hurricanes hitting FL.  After that my water quickly turned to nasty sulfury junk.  In my test I had extremely high levels of sulfur, manganese (which explained the black fungus in the toilet tanks), moderate iron, and high calcium.  No significant other issues, so I installed a bleach injection system.  It's a Stenner pump with a 30g tank, and a 100g mixing reservoir to precipitate out the iron and manganese.  It took a little while to figure out the correct bleach dose percentage, but now I just put in 2 gallons of bleach to 30g of water, and let it go.  I have a variable speed Stenner pump, and use #2 tubes.  If I did it over I'd get a fixed speed pump (cheaper and easier to service) and just adjust the feed rate by the tube number and bleach concentration.  I check the PPM every once in a while to make sure there's very little chlorine left over after neutralizing the sulfur and manganese.  I used to use a Big Blue 30" 3-filter setup for the house, but it got clogged really fast with the participates.  Changing $50 in filters every 2-3 months was too irritating and didn't make a noticeable difference in shower or wash water.  So I just have an RO filter setup for drinking water and that's it.

[OC2Texaspalmlvr]

TY @PalmatierMeg @Fusca it's Galveston County in Santa Fe. I'm prolly gonna go a lil easy on the front yard with palms but the backyard will be packed with them =) 

10 hours ago, HtownPalms said:

I have had well water my whole life living in southeast Texas. Our wells are in the 300-350 foot range. I have never had a problem with the water. A thousand times better than municipal water. We have great aquifers in Texas!

This is exactly what I wanted to hear but was definitely curious of others experiences. With as much rain as we get and all the shade I have, watering won't be nearly the chore as it was at my last house. Eventually rain harvesting will happen and this will be a mute point haha 

T J 

[D Palm]

I have well water about 60 miles inland in Florida. If your toilet/bath tub turns orange it means iron. Plants/palms don’t mind it, appliances do.  It is probably different in Texas though.

[HtownPalms]

10 hours ago, OC2Texaspalmlvr said:

TY @PalmatierMeg @Fusca it's Galveston County in Santa Fe. I'm prolly gonna go a lil easy on the front yard with palms but the backyard will be packed with them =) 

This is exactly what I wanted to hear but was definitely curious of others experiences. With as much rain as we get and all the shade I have, watering won't be nearly the chore as it was at my last house. Eventually rain harvesting will happen and this will be a mute point haha 

T J 

You are right down the road from me as I am in Angleton. I think if the part of Santa Fe you live in is Gumbo you will be good to go. If you live where it's sandy then you might see some of the issues the folks from Florida are talking about, but I doubt it. I just haven't heard anyone in our area that's ever had bad well water but I guess there are always exceptions. 

Edited August 24, 2021 by HtownPalms

[OC2Texaspalmlvr]

On 8/24/2021 at 7:40 AM, HtownPalms said:

I just haven't heard anyone in our area that's ever had bad well water but I guess there are always exceptions. 

Yeah im not so worried about bad water as I am with maybe giving too much hard water for potted palms. Seems like it will most likely be a non issue =) 

T J 

[sipalms]

On 8/23/2021 at 5:30 AM, OC2Texaspalmlvr said:

So we finally bought our forever home God willing. As this is my first time owing a home with water coming from a well pump system. Well is 425ft deep which I have been told is deep for this area. My question is for those who are on a water well , what are the pluses and minuses for watering palms. I google searched this topic and found nothing for answers. We are thinking of putting a softener system in which will also could have its drawback for watering palms =/ So hopefully yall have some experiences to share. None of my palms will be going in yet so watering them while in pots will be different then when there in the ground. Eventually I'll harvest rain water since this area gets plenty of that =) 

Thanks in advance 

T J 

Sorry, I don't have anything to add water-wise, but just wanted to say congratulations on a very beautiful home and yard in a beautiful state!

Be careful not to over-plant, as nothing beats wide open spaces like that, but with tastefully positioned palms.

Nice truck too, can't get them here 

[amh]

My water source is the trinity aquifer and I have not had any issues with hard water on potted plants.

I believe the gulf coast aquifer has decent water, but you may want to check salinity and you will want to avoid using softened water for plants.

[Palmlover_78]

On 8/22/2021 at 10:55 PM, 96720 said:

So jealous I would love to have a well my water bills in summer are greater than $2000/month just think what I could do with that money 

OMG!!!! and we bitched when ours went up to $244 quarterly I am so sorry lol

[OC2Texaspalmlvr]

23 hours ago, sipalms said:

wanted to say congratulations on a very beautiful home and yard in a beautiful state!

Ty we got out of the rat race and found a lil piece of heaven. 

That's an 05 still going strong =) 

22 hours ago, amh said:

I believe the gulf coast aquifer has decent water, but you may want to check salinity and you will want to avoid using softened water for plants.

This is good info why is softened water bad for plants ? 

T J 

[amh]

52 minutes ago, OC2Texaspalmlvr said:

This is good info why is softened water bad for plants ? 

Salt.

You will want to have a water source that bypasses the softener for irrigation purposes.  

[GottmitAlex]

3 hours ago, amh said:

Salt.

You will want to have a water source that bypasses the softener for irrigation purposes.  

Except if you water cocos nucifera palms 

[amh]

1 hour ago, GottmitAlex said:

Except if you water cocos nucifera palms 

I almost mentioned that and was thinking of your thread when I wrote the response.