Keeping a wahingtonia filibusta pot bound to reduce trunk width?

[GeorgiaEnjoyer]

I bought my brother a filibusta a month ago and suggested we plant it soon as it looks like the roots are becoming crowded. He wants to keep it in its container to keep the trunk width down, because he wants the tree to look more like a true robusta. Would keeping it pot bound work well to shrink trunk width?, and are there any problems that may pop up down the line if he chooses to go that way?

[mnorell]

No, it won't. It will keep the overall growth restricted but the only way to keep the trunk more slender is to select a hybrid that has more robusta traits than filifera traits. It will just look unhappy and eventually the palm is likely to die in a container because these beasts are meant to have a lot of root-run and must harvest a lot of nutrients to support their rapid growth-rate (hence a far-ranging root-system). In a plastic pot as you show, the palm will eventually just bust out of it and split the pot (and find its way into the ground if it's sitting on dirt). Perhaps a somewhat slender (and hardy) species of Sabal would have been a better choice for your location in upper Georgia, where Washingtonia in any form is not likely to survive for too long.

[GeorgiaEnjoyer]

I pass a bunch of Washingtonias that were planted in Macon (same hardiness zone as my house, 8b) where I work. They are each about 20-30 feet tall and all of them survived the freeze down to 11F we just had this winter where the snow was crazy. I took some pictures of them this past April to show how they rebounded. Because as you may guess, each of their crowns died all the way back.

Thank you for the info about their root growth though! I will definitely relay that to my brother.