my palms haven’t grown at all for the past 2 weeks. last two months they grew so much, is this happening to anyone else in central/north Florida?

[Maddox Gardening-youtube]

I’ve been marking the spears with sharpies.

[idontknowhatnametuse]

They're focusing on their root system. Some species like Chamaedorea pochutlensis, Chamaedorea seifrizii and Wodyetia bifurcata usually do that in my experience. 

[kinzyjr]

@Maddox Gardening-youtube Has your area gotten any rain?

[sonoranfans]

yeah rain is the biggest factor here for growth rate.  Dry soil means the palm cannot feed normally.  Nutrient uptake requires moisture, osmotic effects come to a standstill in dry soil.  SO when your soil dries out after watering, feeding drops off.  I measure growth by spear height changes, I dont mark spears.  RIght now its been dry here so the spears are not moving much.  My teddy's have been the easiest to see the difference over the past 2 years, they have added about 6' of height before the water restrictions hit.  Everything in my yard has come to a crawl with very little rain and once a week watering.  If you have clay soil, you're lucky to have it these days.  I will put down another ton of turface MVP after this drought is over.  It seems to make plants and palms more drought resistant.

[Maddox Gardening-youtube]

Yeah it hasn’t rained in about a month. Does watering with a hose not work the same?

[SeanK]

Rain in the panhandle. Will it sweep across all of NoFL?

[ck_in_fla]

We're expecting rain here in the Orlando area later today.

[kinzyjr]

On 5/1/2026 at 8:17 PM, Maddox Gardening-youtube said:

Yeah it hasn’t rained in about a month. Does watering with a hose not work the same?

Not really.  Rain water arrives with some dissolved nitrogen and a slightly acidic pH.  Check the pH of the water coming out of your hose.  There's a good chance that it is slightly alkaline, especially if you're on a municipal water system.

[sonoranfans]

On 5/1/2026 at 8:17 PM, Maddox Gardening-youtube said:

Yeah it hasn’t rained in about a month. Does watering with a hose not work the same?

No tap water does not work like rainwater.  First as @Kinzyjr said, rainwater comes with dissolved N2 and O2 which is rapidly absorbed through both foliar epidermis and the root membranes.  N2 is so small it readily penetrates epidermis of leaves, unlike larger ions from urea or nitrate fertilizers which will be much slower penetrating the epidermis in a foliar application.  Second, rainwater does not have hardness or other chemical ions that inhibit nutrient uptake, its natures distilled water with O2 and N2 absorbed in droplets as the rain falls.  Rainwater also rinses soil of salts left by fertilizer and hard irrigation water.  It oxygenates the soil and the oxygen helps dissolve some salts and waste material from the plant.  Rinsing soil is necessary to allow newly dissolved fertilizer to move through the soil to the root membranes, replacing old spent fertilizer salts with new bioactive nutrients.  Nutrients move faster in soil due to chemical potential gradients which only exist in moist soils and these are maximized when older left over salts are rinsed away and more new nutrients are introduced via NPK or organics.  Just like clean water rinses soap off your hands vs more soapy water, rainwater is a cleanser of the soil which maximizes the potential gradient with new fertilizer.  I have grown palms in the desert and in florida.  The growth rate yere in the wet season is phenomenal.  The dry spring has generally a modest growth rate here.  In addition to rain being a huge positive, dry and windy conditions stagnate growth by challenging plant hydration in sandy soils.  If you don't get much rain , humic acid can do a very good job of cleansing soil when used periodically with plenty of irrigation water after letting it soak in.  Humic is a chelator of ions and dissolves many tough salts like Mg,Ca oxides so they can be rinsed away. 

 

Lay persons explanation of Chemical potential gradient(CPG for short): CPG is what drives the movement of ions through soil and across membranes.  It is like an electrical potential(voltage), a somewhat crude analogy.  Electrical current always flows from high electron density to low electron density.  In wetted soil all ions sense both the concentration of other ions of the same species and to a lesser extent, the concentrations of ions of other species.  Sometimes ions of other species can reduce the driving force and/or nutrient uptake.  This sensing of concentration of the same species is like a voltage(potential) and the CPG potential is high when high concentration areas are close to low concentrations areas of a ion species.  Ions of a same species will always move from areas of high concentration to areas of low concentration.  This CPG is the driving force,  like voltage is the driving force of electrical current.  The greater concentration difference, the greater the driving force and rate of movement(by diffusion) from high concentration area to low concentration areas. Thus nutrient replenishing at root surface will be more rapid with a greater driving force.  Fertilizer uptake across root membranes is also impacted by the driving force or CPG   Rain plus a good NPK fertilizer is like dynamite, it will lead to a maximum uptake all else equal(heat, sun, soil etc).  This is why palms will grow faster in high drainage soil IF you water according to the known dry cycle.  The dry cycle is shorter in high drainage soil so there are more high gradient conditions vs a long dry cycle of low drainage soils.