Winter season palm recovery

[MarcusH]

I'm counting the days to March . After experiencing a cold winter with an artic blast with lows of 16,21,24,28 and freezing rain recently I like to show you guys the recovery process of our palms. This has been our palms first winter and it definitely was challenging and sad to see what they had to go through.  Some of my palms completely defoliated like my Queen and Wash.Robusta but the good news is they all survived and recovering well thanks to our Texas sun . Our Wash.Filifera in the backyard lost 3 fronds .I'm not going to celebrate yet but I'm not going to expect another severe artic winter since we already got hit several times this winter. Enough is enough.  The sun is already intense, enough to get a sun burn after a while and I see a lot more days in the 60s and 70s now.  The growth of our palms is slightly picking up but nowhere near the growth rate we experience in mid March.  Some of my projects is to replant my Wash.Robusta from the front to the back yard to make space for the Wash.Filifera( still in pot)  that will fill in the empty hole in the front yard . My Queen will change the side from the edge of our front property to the side of the driveway and provide it with a better drainage system since I didn't mix it with top soil  (clay loam where I live) when I planted it in May 2022. There's a lot to do this year to make our yard look nicer.  The extreme drought we had last year burned our grass it looks completely dead.  I'm going to feritilize it and set the lawn mower to a higher position and before the next freeze next winter I'm going to add winter grass to it so it doesn't look all brown and dead in winter. This is an issue I see in most of our Texas yards . We don't get the green lawn for that long . 

Share your experience !! 

 

[Allen]

Yes those are coming back fairly quickly.  Glad the queen made it I thought it could be a goner

Edited February 9 by Allen

[MarcusH]

10 minutes ago, Allen said:

Yes those are coming back fairly quickly

Yes they do .  I give my palms a little water at least once a week but when it gets above 70s I change my water schedule from one to two times.  It worked out for me .  In March I will start the fertilizing process.  I also cut off the dead fronds after they turned brown . 

[MarcusH]

7 hours ago, Allen said:

Yes those are coming back fairly quickly.  Glad the queen made it I thought it could be a goner

I did it again. $20 only . I couldn't say no to it haha . Another Queen 

[Xenon]

8 hours ago, MarcusH said:

My Queen will change the side from the edge of our front property to the side of the driveway and provide it with a better drainage system since I didn't mix it with top soil  (clay loam where I live) when I planted it in May 2022. 

From what I've seen, queens don't mind bad drainage or clay, in fact they seem to love it. I purposely planted mine in a lowspot of Houston "gumbo clay". I don't think it's possible to drown a queen in the summer, they guzzle water and fertilizer. Only issue is high pH (exacerbated by alkaline city water) and associated nutrient lockout/deficiency. Elemental sulfur + ammonium sulfate  + chelated minors (especially iron DPTA or EDDHA) help a lot. Most quality palm fertilizers for Texas or Florida like Palm Gain have some combination of above. For soluble fertilizer, Jack's Petunia FeED will really green things up. Queens love organics/mulch too. 

Edited February 10 by Xenon

[MarcusH]

10 hours ago, Xenon said:

From what I've seen, queens don't mind bad drainage or clay, in fact they seem to love it. I purposely planted mine in a lowspot of Houston "gumbo clay". I don't think it's possible to drown a queen in the summer, they guzzle water and fertilizer. Only issue is high pH (exacerbated by alkaline city water) and associated nutrient lockout/deficiency. Elemental sulfur + ammonium sulfate  + chelated minors (especially iron DPTA or EDDHA) help a lot. Most quality palm fertilizers for Texas or Florida like Palm Gain have some combination of above. For soluble fertilizer, Jack's Petunia FeED will really green things up. Queens love organics/mulch too. 

I'm not an expert like most people here in this forum I started this hobby about a year ago so my knowledge is more basic to advanced and I'm still learning a lot from the behavior of our palms . Of course when I first moved here from Germany I've noticed the huge amount of palms and I fell in love with them. We have space on our property for quite a few palms. Anyway let's get back to the Queen. Last year I saw these light spots on my fronds I showed the pictures to my local nursery guy he said it's all nothing to worry about.  They weren't there when my first Queen was purchased either this one I got yesterday looks all healthy. I use Miracle-Gro slow release fertilizer.  I don't know if it's the perfect one for the Queen . Here are some pictures of the fronds before the artic winter in December maybe you know what's lacking.  Overall it looked good but I see the difference between when I took the picture in late November and in May when I planted it.

[Xenon]

26 minutes ago, MarcusH said:

I'm not an expert like most people here in this forum I started this hobby about a year ago so my knowledge is more basic to advanced and I'm still learning a lot from the behavior of our palms . Of course when I first moved here from Germany I've noticed the huge amount of palms and I fell in love with them. We have space on our property for quite a few palms. Anyway let's get back to the Queen. Last year I saw these light spots on my fronds I showed the pictures to my local nursery guy he said it's all nothing to worry about.  They weren't there when my first Queen was purchased either this one I got yesterday looks all healthy. I use Miracle-Gro slow release fertilizer.  I don't know if it's the perfect one for the Queen . Here are some pictures of the fronds before the artic winter in December maybe you know what's lacking.  Overall it looked good but I see the difference between when I took the picture in late November and in May when I planted it.

Looks like minor potassium deficiency or perhaps just a bit of transplant shock. I would give the queen as much water as you can (queens looooove water and thrive in swamp/clay muck) throughout the warm season and feed it with a palm specific fertilizer like Palm Gain (available at HD). Iron EDDHA (available online) will give it the dark dark green look if that's your preference. 

 

[MarcusH]

46 minutes ago, Xenon said:

Looks like minor potassium deficiency or perhaps just a bit of transplant shock. I would give the queen as much water as you can (queens looooove water and thrive in swamp/clay muck) throughout the warm season and feed it with a palm specific fertilizer like Palm Gain (available at HD). Iron EDDHA (available online) will give it the dark dark green look if that's your preference. 

 

Thank you I always appreciate your very informative feedbacks.  Can't wait for March that's where I'm going to start fertilizing my palms , it will be there second year in the yard. I hope my Queen that got all fronds burned will have at least 3 long fronds in the summer.  I don't know how fast they recover from freezes so far one frond  grew about 3.5 inches since the artic blast in December.  Since you live a lot longer in Texas and probably saw Queens defoliated quite a few times can you give me a rough estimate about what I can expect to grow back by the early summer if I keep fertilizing and water frequently?