Christmas Palm in NYC Disaster - Pls Help!

[Sadplantmom]

Hi all!

Last fall, I acquired a large Christmas Palm that I brought to my apt in NYC. The palm started to rapidly decline, but I believe it was just shocked and getting used to the new environment. By spring it was opening up many new fronds and I was so happy that it wasn’t fully dead.
 

I have been battling spider mites on this thing for months and unfortunately the mites have been winning. I have tried everything - spraying them down with water, neem oil, insecticidal soap, and most recently Nuke Em. Last month I brought the palm outside to begin spraying it with Nuke Em every two- three days, and three of my newest and biggest fronds snapped!!! I am so devastated. Does anyone know why that could have happened?

A plant person I talked to told me that the palm was weak from growing indoors and couldn’t handle being outside in the wind. I was surprised because it’s a tree after all, and I saw a lot of posts in this forum with people living in cold climates bringing their tropicals outside for the summer. I assume there is no saving these fronds, but I bought a bunch of gardening tape to try to graft them / stand them up bc it hurts my heart to have to cut them off since they’re still green and since the palm doesn’t have that many fronds in the first place. 

Of course, the spider mites have not died either… I just can’t get rid of them for almost a year. 

If all this wasn’t enough, I recently discovered that ants have made a home in the pot. Given the huge size of this pot and tree, submerging the pot is not an option here. Any recommendations on getting rid of the ants?

I am thinking of just taking all of the soil out of the pot and cleaning it out, then putting fresh soil in. Any recommendations on what soil mix to buy or use? Anything that is commercially available would be preferable as I am clearly not an experienced plant person :(

Again, appreciate all of your expertise and help  - please do keep your mean words to yourself if you have them, I truly am trying my best to keep this palm alive and save it from all these horrid pests! 

Sincerely,

sandplantmom

[spike]

Unfortunately my best guess is also that it's stretched from being grown indoors and lower light, so the leaves snapped from wind.. As for the ants, my way to get ants out of pots is to flush it with a lot of water. If your potting mix is well draining you might be able to do it, just have a way to control them when they come out. Or get some ant poison but I never do it.

[JohnAndSancho]

Terro organic ant baits. 

[PalmsandLiszt]

For spider mites buy predatory mites that eat the spider mites. Have a look on websites supplying accoutrements for growing marijuana: they have problems with spider mites, too, and thus the free market springs into action (which it unfortunately doesn't for those of us who just want to grow palms). Phytoseiulus persimilis is probably the most voracious, although you need to keep them comfortably warm.

The ants probably won't harm the palm, although they might annoy you. Depending on where the nursery was, you might well have very small, blind, parthenogenetic snakes (Indotyphlops braminus) in there that are eating the ants for you. It would also help to know what sort of ants they are; do they sting? How big/what colour are they?

Have you taken the palm out of its pot to check for rotting roots? I'd do that first. In my experience, no commercial mix is very good, but combined with chunky components such as perlite, pumice and pine bark, you can turn a bad mix into a passable one.

Edited July 28, 2022 by PalmsandLiszt