Whether to fertilize my lipstick palm

[MiamiNorm]

Hello

Our potted and very slow-growing red palm from Costa Rica, continues to thrive, or so we think.  We planted it 7 years ago. 

I recently bought 8-4-8 palm fertilizer by Vigoro, and I ask if it would help or hurt this delicate palm. 

Thank you 

[PalmatierMeg]

Have you ever fertilized it? I assume you bring it indoors when temps are below 50F. I assume you fertilized it at some point over the past 7 years although it does look undersized and peak-ed. I grew green and red lipsticks from 3g to over 9' tall in about 5 years before I sold them. They got too heavy for us to roll their carts indoors and were touching the top of the birdcage.

All that aside I suggest you wait until the weather warms in March to fertilize to get best results. During cooler weather the palm takes in fertilizer little or not at all and its growth slows. Fertilizer is too expensive to waste nor do you want to force new growth on this uber tropical palm in mid-winter. If you haven't so far I suggest you heavily research care of this species here or on reliable internet sites. It can grow into a beautiful palm but you have to cater to its tropical needs. We can no longer do so and I decided years ago not to try more lipsticks. I do have a Cyrtostachys loriae - a solitary, robust and cold hardier species - planted in our south facing back yard that backs onto a freshwater canal. It survived Hurricane Ian and I'm hopeful it will survive winter in Cape Coral. Not a chance in h*** I could have planted our lipsticks.

[MiamiNorm]

Thank you @PalmatierMeg

Years ago I posted another question about this palm, and someone schooled me in the slow and delicate ways of the lipstick palms. 

Whenever we go below 50 here in Miami, which isn't often, we bring the pot inside. That baffles us because in Costa Rica it gets chilly/cold and they thrive down there; perhaps it doesn't get 50s cold. 

I haven't fertilized it, but my wife will use new palm soil when repotting it. 

I will wait to add the fertilizer until March, and we'll just keep watching it grow slowly. We brought 7 of them from Costa Rica in 2015,and this is the last of them. 

Edited December 24, 2022 by MiamiNorm

[MiamiNorm]

And yes, we brought it inside last night. 

[PalmatierMeg]

A couple more things about this species: never ever let it dry out. If it does, it's toast. I kept mine sitting in trays of water I monitored almost daily, esp. in dry weather. When/if we went out of town for more than a few days I asked our niece to check on them, which, I'm sure, was a pain to a woman with two businesses and a family. If we traveled in winter I sweated every cold front until we got home. No way could our 5' tall niece roll massive pots weighing 100s of lbs into/out of the house for us. But that's what you have to do because with this palm there are no do-overs. And I wasn't going to risk keeping them indoors in a dry house for a week or two. I don't keep houseplants and these make poor ones. One last tip: we kept these palms on our back lanai under heavy shade cloth. I've read they can take sun and maybe so but grown in shade they are the most gorgeous dark green.

Finally, a palm grower in Homestead told me lipsticks are highly prone to a lethal cold weather fungus. He said I should drench them in a solution of water and Dithane 45 (from Southern Ag) before cool weather arrived, then follow up every 2-3 months until spring. A few people on PT said that wouldn't help but I followed this guy's advice every Nov. and Feb. for all the years I had them. Never had problems with fungus. I also credit my diligence in caring for these uber tropicals. 

[Barry]

37 minutes ago, PalmatierMeg said:

A couple more things about this species: never ever let it dry out. If it does, it's toast. I kept mine sitting in trays of water I monitored almost daily, esp. in dry weather. When/if we went out of town for more than a few days I asked our niece to check on them, which, I'm sure, was a pain to a woman with two businesses and a family. If we traveled in winter I sweated every cold front until we got home. No way could our 5' tall niece roll massive pots weighing 100s of lbs into/out of the house for us. But that's what you have to do because with this palm there are no do-overs. And I wasn't going to risk keeping them indoors in a dry house for a week or two. I don't keep houseplants and these make poor ones. One last tip: we kept these palms on our back lanai under heavy shade cloth. I've read they can take sun and maybe so but grown in shade they are the most gorgeous dark green.

Finally, a palm grower in Homestead told me lipsticks are highly prone to a lethal cold weather fungus. He said I should drench them in a solution of water and Dithane 45 (from Southern Ag) before cool weather arrived, then follow up every 2-3 months until spring. A few people on PT said that wouldn't help but I followed this guy's advice every Nov. and Feb. for all the years I had them. Never had problems with fungus. I also credit my diligence in caring for these uber tropicals. 

I completely agree with Meg’s info to you. I have two over 8 ft, in the garage right now. They were 4” pots 6-7 years ago. Always sitting in tray of water and I use “Florikan” slow release fertilizer on all my palms. Expensive but worth it, usually get the 6 or 9 month bags. Like Meg, might be selling mine next year, going to be too big to fit in garage. I have another one about 4 ft from a sucker off on the bigs ones. To me they have grown pretty fast! We hit 38 degrees last night, they would melt at that temperature. I also have used the Diathane M-45 every month during winter, got the same advice. I had one years ago in Ft Lauderdale, grew great to about 3 ft, then got the fungus and died in the winter. So disappointing.