A total noob with three pygmy dates

[Voytek]

Hello everyone. My name is Voytek and I am a palm noob. I recently moved to South Florida and decided to get some tropical-looking potted greenery for my patio. The patio has reflected sunlight for most of the day; maybe max 3 hours of direct light in summer. Today I got three pygmy dates from a sale at Home Depot. They look beautiful and healthy! I used Google/AI to get some answers to my questions, but inside knowledge is still the best, so I humbly ask this:

1. Based on their (considerable) size, how long can I keep them in these 7 gallon nursery pots while I am looking for more permanent ones? I see one root already coming out of the drainage hole.

2. What are the biggest pots can I safely repot them to? The reason I ask is that nice pots are expensive, and the wife likes nice pots. But I am not sure the bank account can take repotting every two years if I keep pots small and expensive. Would a bigger pot allow me to repot, say, in 5 years? The current pot diameter is 14". I read that palms are pretty good with being root-bound. So here is where I seek group's advice - minimizing repotting frequency in this specific case! Edit - I just read about a pot-in-pot method of cheap nursery pots in expensive decorative pots. That's what I will do, but what size nursery pot should I use next?

3. Do palms like filler materials on the bottom of the pot? What kind? I will make sure I have good drainage holes.

Any other tips appreciated! Thanks and I hope to contribute to the collective knowledge with my beautiful pygmy dates!

[NC_Palms]

Hello and welcome to PT! 

To answer your questions: 

1. They can stay in the nursery pots they came in for some time. They look healthy. As long as the soil is moist and has good drainage, you have some time. But I would not wait more than a few months.

2. Pygmy date palms shouldn't need repotted often and they stay small. I am not familiar with how fast they grow in South Florida with the endless summer climate (from my NC perspective) , but they should be able to stay in a large pot for quite some time. You could probably get 5 years at minimum. Below is a photo of my largest palm (coconut) in a large plastic pot. I bought this pot for less than $20 at Walmart and it works very well. 

 

3. As long as you have good drainage, I would not bother with fillers. Just make sure theres a good amount of drainage holes and you'll be good. For the pot my coconut is it, it didn't come with drainage holes so I had to drill them myself. Which actually suited me better since I could drill as many as I wanted.

 

But anyways, pygmy date palms are pretty easy to care for. I have one and it does well. The only advice I have is that these palms are often considered to be desert species, but they are NOT.  Treat them like any other humid, tropical plant. And they will be happy. 

Also, these palms are solitary palms. In those pots where you have multiple stems, you actually have multiple palms. But do not try to separate them. They are so bound together to the point where separating them will just cause them to die. (I speak from experience)

 

But yea, welcome to the palm world. And welcome to Palmtalk! 

[Voytek]

Thank you for the thorough reply! It really helps. They are currently in 7 gallon containers, but given how large they are (and two-stemmed), I think I will repot them in a month into 15 gallon containers. The roots are very tightly balled in the current containers. The plan is to keep them in those 15-gallon pots for a while. I hope it makes sense. 

[Cindy Adair]

Welcome to PalmTalk!

I only grow palms in pots until they are big enough (and space ready) to plant them out so I am of no help with your questions. 

Your new palms are beautiful and you came to the right place for advice. 

[NC_Palms]

18 hours ago, Voytek said:

Thank you for the thorough reply! It really helps. They are currently in 7 gallon containers, but given how large they are (and two-stemmed), I think I will repot them in a month into 15 gallon containers. The roots are very tightly balled in the current containers. The plan is to keep them in those 15-gallon pots for a while. I hope it makes sense. 

Yes this is a great plan. They should last a long time in a 15g

[Las Palmas Norte]

On 1/25/2025 at 1:42 PM, NC_Palms said:

Yes this is a great plan. They should last a long time in a 15g

I transplanted a pot of 4 P. rob into a 15 2 years ago. They've already outgrown that 15 gal. I think this is the year to plant 'em out.

Enjoying the late January sun today 🌞 

[Palmerr]

On 1/24/2025 at 9:56 PM, NC_Palms said:

Hello and welcome to PT! 

To answer your questions: 

1. They can stay in the nursery pots they came in for some time. They look healthy. As long as the soil is moist and has good drainage, you have some time. But I would not wait more than a few months.

2. Pygmy date palms shouldn't need repotted often and they stay small. I am not familiar with how fast they grow in South Florida with the endless summer climate (from my NC perspective) , but they should be able to stay in a large pot for quite some time. You could probably get 5 years at minimum. Below is a photo of my largest palm (coconut) in a large plastic pot. I bought this pot for less than $20 at Walmart and it works very well. 

 

3. As long as you have good drainage, I would not bother with fillers. Just make sure theres a good amount of drainage holes and you'll be good. For the pot my coconut is it, it didn't come with drainage holes so I had to drill them myself. Which actually suited me better since I could drill as many as I wanted.

 

But anyways, pygmy date palms are pretty easy to care for. I have one and it does well. The only advice I have is that these palms are often considered to be desert species, but they are NOT.  Treat them like any other humid, tropical plant. And they will be happy. 

Also, these palms are solitary palms. In those pots where you have multiple stems, you actually have multiple palms. But do not try to separate them. They are so bound together to the point where separating them will just cause them to die. (I speak from experience)

 

But yea, welcome to the palm world. And welcome to Palmtalk! 

No wonder my potted pygmy date died i tried to split them Noooo i wasted 30$ or so at lowes cause i splitted them!

[Palmerr]

Oh pygmy dates are probably the top best potted palms for looks and.. Time to need repotting they arent aggresive root growers like CIDP's and just have very pretty shiny fronds and forms a trunk in a pot kinda hard to find. unless its like a bottle palm or christmas palm

[Voytek]

23 minutes ago, Palmerr said:

Oh pygmy dates are probably the top best potted palms for looks and.. Time to need repotting they arent aggresive root growers like CIDP's and just have very pretty shiny fronds and forms a trunk in a pot kinda hard to find. unless its like a bottle palm or christmas palm

I love their hefty trunks. They've definitely outgrown their 7 gal pots.

[Palmerr]

yeah maybe could survive a year but at that point it would be very very root bound soo yeah next 6 months to be safe. Love their trunks though!

[Harry’s Palms]

For those particular palms I would double the size of the pot . That genus tends to have massive root systems for the size of palm. They can survive root bound for quite a while but will fill available soil within a year. Harry

[Voytek]

Thanks, that is what I will do. 

[Voytek]

Are there any risks with repotting to larger pots. Any stress involved? I know my ficus was stressed when repotted, but palms are different beasts. Any dos and donts when repotting to double size pots? Like should I compact new soil on the bottom and sides or keep it fluffy?

[TropicsEnjoyer]

@Voytek You’re in SFL, I used to live there. Why don’t you plant these beautiful little palms? They would absolutely thrive and honestly it would take away the hassle of watering and repotting. They don’t grow super big either so size is never really gonna be an issue, even close to a house.

[Voytek]

No backyard.

[Harry’s Palms]

This particular palm will have little to no set back from repotting. If they don’t come out of the pot easily just slice the sides and pull out. Don’t massage the root ball , leave it as intact as possible. I always line the bottom of the pot with smooth round pebbles or stones then cover with potting soil so that the roots have some room to grow place the palm in the pot as close to center as possible and slowly fill the sides with potting soil , make sure you use a sandy loam soil like you would use for succulents, vermiculite is good as well. Palms like good drainage . Leave enough room at the top for flood watering and you should be good to go. I try to find pots with tapered or straight sides for easy removal when the time comes as the palm will be larger and that much harder to handle (thorny beasts , they are!) good luck . Harry

[Harry’s Palms]

A bit of a side note on Phoenix Roebelini . About 25 years ago when I moved to my new house , a guy who lived a block away saw me planting bunches of palms from my old house . He asked if I wanted a couple of palms that were growing next to his house and over hung the walkway . He said they had thorns and he didn’t like them. He left for vacation and I went over to his home . The Pygmy palms were right against the house with little room to work . Oh , and they were on a steep slope in hard soil and about 4’ tall . I dug and dug but unfortunately had to cut some of the roots. When I got them out , I wrapped the roots with burlap and tied up the crown to keep the thorns from tearing at my skin as I drug it up the slope to my pick up. I really only gave it a 50/50 chance of survival. They grew fast and with out set back . They are over 10’ tall now and beautiful (in the ground) . The experience I have had with these is that they are VERY hardy and easy to transplant. Harry

[Voytek]

Thank you. Great intel. How are they with being a little dry (depending only on occasional rain)? I plan to water them weekly, but I am occasionally out of town. Will they survive a month on rain alone?

[Harry’s Palms]

They are forgiving but will do best with regular watering , especially newly repotted . If you are out of town , maybe have a neighbor give them a drink. Harry

[Voytek]

Yes, that is the plan. Thanks Harry, all the info is very helpful. I like to take care of my plants - we have a potted ficus that is 45 years old - a wedding gift!

[TropicsEnjoyer]

On 1/29/2025 at 9:10 AM, Harry’s Palms said:

They are forgiving but will do best with regular watering , especially newly repotted . If you are out of town , maybe have a neighbor give them a drink. Harry

I agree. In my experience they dehydrate and decline quickly when not watered regularly (at least potted ones). Better to be safe then sorry.

[Cody Salem]

On 1/29/2025 at 6:00 AM, Voytek said:

Thank you. Great intel. How are they with being a little dry (depending only on occasional rain)? I plan to water them weekly, but I am occasionally out of town. Will they survive a month on rain alone?

As long as you an outdoor faucet, get yourself a watering timer and a little drip irrigation system from lowes or a garden store.  You should be able to get yourself set up for under $100.   You could let it run every day, even when you are home.   

[Looking Glass]

On 1/23/2025 at 3:30 PM, Voytek said:

Hello everyone. My name is Voytek and I am a palm noob. I recently moved to South Florida and decided to get some tropical-looking potted greenery for my patio. The patio has reflected sunlight for most of the day; maybe max 3 hours of direct light in summer. Today I got three pygmy dates from a sale at Home Depot. They look beautiful and healthy! I used Google/AI to get some answers to my questions, but inside knowledge is still the best, so I humbly ask this:

1. Based on their (considerable) size, how long can I keep them in these 7 gallon nursery pots while I am looking for more permanent ones? I see one root already coming out of the drainage hole.

2. What are the biggest pots can I safely repot them to? The reason I ask is that nice pots are expensive, and the wife likes nice pots. But I am not sure the bank account can take repotting every two years if I keep pots small and expensive. Would a bigger pot allow me to repot, say, in 5 years? The current pot diameter is 14". I read that palms are pretty good with being root-bound. So here is where I seek group's advice - minimizing repotting frequency in this specific case! Edit - I just read about a pot-in-pot method of cheap nursery pots in expensive decorative pots. That's what I will do, but what size nursery pot should I use next?

3. Do palms like filler materials on the bottom of the pot? What kind? I will make sure I have good drainage holes.

Any other tips appreciated! Thanks and I hope to contribute to the collective knowledge with my beautiful pygmy dates!

Those will grow very quickly outside here.   You can up pot to giant pots if you plan on keeping them for a while, or they can stay in their current pots for a while as long as you water a lot and fertilize.  They will be a bit tippy in the wind, so you might want to tie them to something when the summer storms start up.    Bottle Palms are excellent container palms for a patio.  They don't have spines are are happy confined in a pot.   Those may get a little unruly on you after about a year.    

Small double planted when we moved in....

After about 4 years.....  12 feet tall.   

 

Bottle Palms are happy sit squeezed into a cramped pot for many years....

[Voytek]

^^

Thank you. These are excellent pro tips! I will up pot these pygmy dates to 15-gal nursery pots (from current 7-gal which are bursting) and put these pots into decorative 24" cube planters, which should prevent tipping. Regarding bottle palms - they do look beautiful. Are they drought resistant owing to the wide trunks which look like they could store water?

[Looking Glass]

4 hours ago, Voytek said:

^^

Thank you. These are excellent pro tips! I will up pot these pygmy dates to 15-gal nursery pots (from current 7-gal which are bursting) and put these pots into decorative 24" cube planters, which should prevent tipping. Regarding bottle palms - they do look beautiful. Are they drought resistant owing to the wide trunks which look like they could store water?

They aren’t particularly drought tolerant.  Just average.  They just happen to have a wide trunk.  Not like some desert plants that store water.  

[Palmerr]

I actually bought a Pygmy date a few days ago yeah it was root bound 30 bucks and it has 5 trunks with maybe 7 inches of trunk each much bigger than advertised! repotted it in a bigger pot and now its sitting in the greenhouse (UV heated) Im at my school currently soo

[Voytek]

Ok, I repotted them into 15-gal pots. They were completely root bound in their 7-gal pots. Looking good now, got some breathing room, 2-in of new soil all around the root ball. How often should I water them in South Florida?

[Harry’s Palms]

It depends on the climate at any given time. I would say a flood watering once a week unless it gets cool and consumption doesn’t keep up. If the top 1-2” of soil is still wet , hold off. Harry

[Looking Glass]

They will likely fill out those pots quickly.   These are pretty forgiving palms.   They come from swampy areas with a monsoon season.   In hot weather, they like a lot of water, but at the same time seem to have a fair amount of tolerance to neglect and short dry conditions.  I'd water whenever the soil looks dry to you, which I'd guess would be every few days, or so, at first, then more, when the roots start to fill up all that soil.  Just keep an eye on the soil.     

You might want to get big saucers to put underneath to minimize stains on the deck there.   The runoff will stain the concrete before long.  They won't mind sitting in a couple inches of water for a day or two either.  When the real heard rains come, they'll get flushed out by a foot of water.   You might want some rock/pebble mulch on top, to keep that dirt from blowing all over the place.    

What kind of soil did you use for the potting?     

[Voytek]

I used Palm and Cactus soil from Home Depot.

[Looking Glass]

7 minutes ago, Voytek said:

I used Palm and Cactus soil from Home Depot.

It can get a little mucky but should be ok for the addition.  Much better than plain potting soil.  Sometimes I’ll mix a little sand, and wood chips with that.  Most palms like a lot of water, but sort of “passing by”, and not sitting there.   The soil has to breathe too. 

[Las Palmas Norte]

These look like very healthy specimen. Do you plan to eventually plant these out?

[Voytek]

No, they will remain potted on the terrace. 

[Voytek]

Update - the palms are doing well after repotting to 15-gal pots. But I do have a question. Do any members here use drip irrigation on potted palms? Any tips for pygmy dates as to drip volumes/frequency? Recommended drip systems for a patio? I have water and electric outlets on the patio, and am considering drip irrigation for extended absences. Would hate to lose those palms. Can I do it myself or need professional installation?

 

[5am]

4 hours ago, Voytek said:

Do any members here use drip irrigation on potted palms?

Yes, but only as of last weekend. What a time saver! My emitters are 1 gallon per hour so I run it just long enough to give the same amount of water that I would by hand. Since I run it while I’m doing other things, I wish I had 1/2gal emitters instead because I tend to be an out of sight out of mind person. I think an automatic timer is in my future.

If you’re looking for recommendations on how to start, I’ve only used one, the Orbit tomato irrigation starter kit. It was all of $23 at the big blue box. It connects to a hose or faucet but doesn’t come with a backflow preventer or pressure regulator.

[Harry’s Palms]

I don’t use any because we don’t travel much . I have retired friends that have systems set up and it works well. If you were to set it up correctly ( not that difficult) you should be fine . All those palms really want is a good ample water supply and maybe a bit of time release fertilizer .

 Glad to hear they are doing well. Harry

[Voytek]

Hi everyone. I thought I'd update this thread on watering frequency, as it may be helpful to some. The palms have now been in 15-gal pots for almost two months and doing well. I have been giving them 1 gallon of water every week. Good drainage, some water showed up in saucers after a few minutes. I have decreased the frequency to a gallon every two weeks and they started visibly drooping. I will add that until very recently there had been no rain in South Florida. So I dumped two gallons into each and they visibly perked up after two days. So in my mind, they need at minimum a gallon a week, maybe two if the drainage is good (it is in my case).

[New York Phoenix]

On 2/4/2025 at 12:32 PM, Looking Glass said:

Those will grow very quickly outside here.   You can up pot to giant pots if you plan on keeping them for a while, or they can stay in their current pots for a while as long as you water a lot and fertilize.  They will be a bit tippy in the wind, so you might want to tie them to something when the summer storms start up.    Bottle Palms are excellent container palms for a patio.  They don't have spines are are happy confined in a pot.   Those may get a little unruly on you after about a year.    

Small double planted when we moved in....

After about 4 years.....  12 feet tall.   

 

Bottle Palms are happy sit squeezed into a cramped pot for many years....

These are beautiful! I love how you set this up. Makes it look like its not even in a pot when you put things around it 😎 Im dealing with spear pulls on mine this season😖 I bought 2 Pygmy Dates with 3 trunks in each. So id say i have 6 of them lol putting hydrogen peroxide every other week. Id say im on my 3rd week of treatment. Looking for a bounce back soon with temperatures heating up where I am in NY. When that happens, I might have to “incognito” my pots like how you have here. Very nice!