Hello,

I live in coastal NC and I have a pindo palm in my yard that has a trunk about 7' high and I need to move it.  It is the one on the right in this picture and as you can see it is very close to the one next to it.  I'm wondering what my options are in this situation.  It has probably been there for 20 years, if it is moved will it likely survive?  Will I likely harm the tree next to it?  I was thinking that I could find someone that might want it with the understanding that they would dig it and transport it and they could have it for free but I haven't found any takers yet.  I'd hate to have to cut it down and I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for what to do with it.  I tried to donate it to the town where I live but they weren't interested.  Thanks for any advice.   

I'm on the wrong coast to offer any assistance,  but  Welcome to Palmtalk !  

Thanks Darold!  I hadn't considered there would be a forum on Palms until I stumbled on it when googling "how to move a Pindo".  But I guess why wouldn't there be a palm forum!  

1 hour ago, diverdave said:

Thanks Darold!  I hadn't considered there would be a forum on Palms until I stumbled on it when googling "how to move a Pindo".  But I guess why wouldn't there be a palm forum!  

Yep, I found this place pretty much the same way.  It's a great forum for anything palm-related, and the off-topic forum for other plants is a great spot for info on anything tropical and a bunch of other stuff like cycads, agaves, bananas, etc.

As far as your palm question goes, it looks like both have been "pencil pointing" for a few years.  I'm not sure if that's normal for palms in cold climates.  Pindos are among the hardier types, but they can take some damage in the teens F.  It may be that it's just been hit by a few bad cold fronts over the past few years.  I'd be adding a couple of handfuls of palm-specific fertilizer to them 4x per year.  The unusually short fronds could just be from a lack of fertilizer.

For moving one right now, it's probably the worst time of the year to do it.  A Pindo in the Orlando area would be no problem, but cutting off most (or many) of the roots going into the coldest part of winter in NC *might* kill it.  For a good chance of success you'd want to move it around March or April and get a good sized rootball, i.e. 4-5 feet total diameter.  If you *have* to move it now I guess there are three options:

• Cut the smallest rootball possible on the palm on the right, thereby saving as many roots as possible for the one on the left.  The one on the right would have a good chance of dying, but you'd likely save the one on the left.
• Cut at sort of the halfway point between them and get a big rootball on the transplant.  There's more risk of killing the one on the left, but somewhat better chances of the right one surviving a transplant.
• Cut down the right one and dig out the upper part of the roots.  You'd need to go down about 1 foot to get the top of the trunk and the big roots.  This would help avoid fungal growth in the remaining bits.  A reciprocating saw would go through that like buttah.

If your soil is sand, digging by hand won't be quite as bad as in clay.  But honestly that's a really heavy trunk.  It might be 500-1000lb and you'd probably want a bobcat or tractor to help dig and move.  You could probably do a narrow 6" or 12" trenching bucket on a tractor and get in between them.  A trenching chainsaw thingy would work too, as long as you aren't in solid rock.  I've moved a couple of Sylvesters with 1-2' of trunk by myself, but would definitely need help with something that large.  This is an example of one I moved.  Realistically it needed more roots, but I was more concerned about being stabbed by thorns than keeping all the roots.  It survived ok and looks great today:

And this is the bigger one I transplanted.  It took two of us to rope-haul it out of the 4' diameter hole I dug.  I managed to get it onto a flat dolly and roll it down the driveway...then drag it into the East side yard.  I lucked out planting it, and got the diameter and depth of the new hole exactly right the first try:

So it can be done, but it's definitely going to take something like a tractor or 4 or 5 strong guys to move it.  Trying to move it solo is a good way to get hurt, bad.

Butia odorata (pindo palm) move very easily in my experience but like @Merlyn mentioned it will survive better if it's moved when the ground temps are increasing.  I had bought a smaller one that had really nice bluish leaves that I wanted to keep (most of the ones for sale were quite green) so I transplanted it from house to house.  It only had about 18-20" of trunk and probably would have grown much more had it stayed in one spot.  I ended up moving it 4 times in 5 years!  Here it is in its current spot in San Antonio.

@Fuscatrue, I didn't want to imply that it couldn't work.  I've done some wacky things to Pindos and 100% have survived.  They are certainly one of the toughest palms out there in terms of neglect, transplant and abuse.  I had a double that I bought in a 15g pot, and one of the two got crushed by a huge falling oak branch.  That one died so I lopped it off at ground level with a reciprocating saw.  The other one is totally fine 4 years and 2 transplants later.  And last summer I ended up with 4 clearance 10g Pindos from a local HD.  I planted one in the backyard and made a triple out of the others.  To get the trunks close together I literally hacked off 2/3 of the roots of each one to get them planted.  And I did this in the middle of January.  Then 3 months later I had to dig them up due to a septic system install...and replant them a week later.  Once again...totally fine and growing great!

6 minutes ago, Merlyn said:

@Fuscatrue, I didn't want to imply that it couldn't work.  I've done some wacky things to Pindos and 100% have survived.  They are certainly one of the toughest palms out there in terms of neglect, transplant and abuse.  I had a double that I bought in a 15g pot, and one of the two got crushed by a huge falling oak branch.  That one died so I lopped it off at ground level with a reciprocating saw.  The other one is totally fine 4 years and 2 transplants later.  And last summer I ended up with 4 clearance 10g Pindos from a local HD.  I planted one in the backyard and made a triple out of the others.  To get the trunks close together I literally hacked off 2/3 of the roots of each one to get them planted.  And I did this in the middle of January.  Then 3 months later I had to dig them up due to a septic system install...and replant them a week later.  Once again...totally fine and growing great!

No problem, I was just adding on to the ease of transplant.    I actually had my first failure this year with a Butia I dug up in June from San Antonio to plant here.  Apparently it DID NOT like the high pH soil here or the windy conditions.  It looked very good for the first 6 weeks or so and then started going downhill.  I just pulled it out today.    Perhaps it was a combination of the soil and the fact that it had been recovering from being trunk-cut after completely defoliating at 9° in February 2021.  @diverdave's palm looks healthy but way overpruned and that might cause some problem in a transplant.  At least whoever digs it out won't have so many fronds in the way!

Thanks for the replies!  My experience with pindos over the last 10 years has also been that they are very hardy which was why I thought it might hold up to moving (although I've never moved one this big).  In fact, I moved a smaller pindo (probably 2 gallons) to our other house in Durham, NC with virtually no root ball about 6 years ago just as an experiment to see what would happen and it thrived there through very acidic soil and a 7b climate zone.  It was getting so big that I had to get rid of it b/c it was outgrowing its spot and one of my neighbors gladly took it. 

I pruned these two back pretty hard because we are having our front deck replaced soon and I didn't want the workers fighting the foliage, this is also why I need to move the one on the right b/c that is where the new steps will go.  I frequently prune all of mine back hard and have never had a problem, they just never stop growing.  I have 2 other pindos with one being quite a bit larger than the one on the left, 2 large palmettos, and 2 huge sagos, plus some smaller sagos I planted from pups.  So even minus this guy, I won't be wanting for a palm fix.     

I’d leave it right where it is. There’s nothing wrong with the two palms growing close together. In fact, it’s much more picturesque than just one palm in that planter space. The biggest problem I see in them is severe over-pruning. Cutting green healthy fronds off most palms is detrimental to their health as well as not terribly as pleasing to the eye as palms like that with a full canopy of leaves. The existing fronds are stunted due to the over-pruning. Let them both grow out and they will look fantastic. 
 I understand if the pruning was done due to freeze damage of course. 

Edited December 21, 20223 yr by Jim in Los Altos