New Texas Sabal Palm

[Noob]

Hello everyone.

I purchased a Texas Sabal for my front yard this past week. The install guys said to water it twice per week but having done a lot of supplemental research I'm not sure if that's adequate.

I really want to get a good care plan of attack set up so that this thing gets good and established and lives a long happy life. It was watered tuesday when it was planted and I just gave it about 45 minutes with the hose.  Can you guys tell me if the fronds look healthy? I've noticed a little bit of brown splotchiness on some of them. Pics are attached. I ordered some root stimulator and it should be here tomorrow so I'll apply that when it gets here. 

 

My soil is a sort of sandy rocky dirt. I ammended it with about 6 yards of compost and then added a layer of weed fabric and topped it off with a layer of crushed granite as a mulch for the whole garden area. 

I'm prepared to baby the heck out of this tree so any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'm in DFW zone 8a.

[Fusca]

2 hours ago, Noob said:

Hello everyone.

I purchased a Texas Sabal for my front yard this past week. The install guys said to water it twice per week but having done a lot of supplemental research I'm not sure if that's adequate.

I really want to get a good care plan of attack set up so that this thing gets good and established and lives a long happy life. It was watered tuesday when it was planted and I just gave it about 45 minutes with the hose.  Can you guys tell me if the fronds look healthy? I've noticed a little bit of brown splotchiness on some of them. Pics are attached. I ordered some root stimulator and it should be here tomorrow so I'll apply that when it gets here. 

My soil is a sort of sandy rocky dirt. I ammended it with about 6 yards of compost and then added a layer of weed fabric and topped it off with a layer of crushed granite as a mulch for the whole garden area. 

I'm prepared to baby the heck out of this tree so any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'm in DFW zone 8a.

Looks good!  I'm assuming it was field dug at that size.  If so I'm surprised they left so many fronds.  They do well in clay and can handle a lot of water so water away.  I was advised to flood mine twice a week last April in the middle of our drought but I watered it daily through the summer.  Don't be surprised if some of the oldest fronds turn brown and die off rather quickly - if it was field dug it needs to replace all of its roots so it'll be in survival mode for awhile.  Mine only had 3' of trunk and it only has 2 of the original 4 fronds left but it's starting to grow well now.  It didn't look good for several months while it was getting settled in.

[Noob]

27 minutes ago, Fusca said:

Looks good!  I'm assuming it was field dug at that size.  If so I'm surprised they left so many fronds.  They do well in clay and can handle a lot of water so water away.  I was advised to flood mine twice a week last April in the middle of our drought but I watered it daily through the summer.  Don't be surprised if some of the oldest fronds turn brown and die off rather quickly - if it was field dug it needs to replace all of its roots so it'll be in survival mode for awhile.  Mine only had 3' of trunk and it only has 2 of the original 4 fronds left but it's starting to grow well now.  It didn't look good for several months while it was getting settled in.

It was field grown and then moved to a pot for a few years so no roots were damaged in this transplant. Roots were startinging to show in the soil but wasnt rootbound by anymeans

[Fusca]

15 minutes ago, Noob said:

It was field grown and then moved to a pot for a few years so no roots were damaged in this transplant. Roots were startinging to show in the soil but wasnt rootbound by anymeans

Makes sense.  You have a good head start with it then which is great!  Twice a week watering at this time of year might be OK since it's rooting but they're difficult to overwater so more is probably better. 

[SeanK]

I'd water it daily. I've never planted this late in the year. Is that OK out your way?

[Noob]

2 hours ago, SeanK said:

I'd water it daily. I've never planted this late in the year. Is that OK out your way?

Wasn't ideal. I wanted to wait until spring but i had a dangerous tree that had to be removed and hoa requires a tree in the yard. Gonna have to baby it all winter. The plan is to wrap it in christmas lights and get a nice warm light to shine on the heart and then wrap it in frost cloth whenever we go below freezing.