Silly question perhaps but how do you properly fertilize a mature Cuban petticoat palm? I'm not getting underneath the old, brown leaves that stay attached. I'm also not going to remove them so there's access to the "dripline" area. Is it sufficient to fertilize beyond the circumference of the palm? I guess it'll have to be 😂

36 minutes ago, SubTropicRay said:

Silly question perhaps but how do you properly fertilize a mature Cuban petticoat palm? I'm not getting underneath the old, brown leaves that stay attached. I'm also not going to remove them so there's access to the "dripline" area. Is it sufficient to fertilize beyond the circumference of the palm? I guess it'll have to be 😂

Roots of established palms extend far from the trunk, at least 10-15'. However fertilization will only happen when it rains or the drippers wet the soil. Drippers are not designed for high drainage soil because they do no make large wet zones. WHen its rains a lot that doesnt matter so much in Florida, but if it doesnt rain like in our drought, the wet zone will be too small to fully fertilize the palm. 3' away is where I start fertilizing my palms, closer is a waste of fertilizer when most of the root nutrient uptake area is away from the trunk. There are many more roots 5' away than at the trunk. T9otal uptake would have to due with the soil volume the roots occupy. Look at it like a circle, the bigger the radius the bigger the area and then with depth the bigger volume of fertilized soil. Some of my larger palms have roots 25 feet away from the trunk. I actually fertilize my 25'+ copernicia fallaensis mostly at 10' -15' away from the trunk. Drippers are king in low drainage clay soils like I had in arizona, sprinklers are about useless. But drippers do lose out a lot with high drainage soils to broadcast pop up sprinklers or micro sprinklers(replace the drippers with micro sprinklers). Even the sellers of drip irrigation will often tell you not to use drippers in high drainage if you look at their irrigation courses.