Palm tree help (Christmas: home, landscaping, living)

[Oobie119]

Hey all- hope everyone had a great new year! Haven't been on much, but I just may start again! As many of you know we have settled into our home, over a year now- sheesh! Now, we don't know much about Palm trees and have been trimming them ourselves...so far so good. One mysteriously up and died quite suddenly a few months ago, not too happy about that! Not sure what happened there as we have others in that area. We don't want to lose them, but the husband is adamant about doing the trimming himself..one of the palm trunks, is losing all it's spiky things ( hah not sure what else to call them..)- the leaves that give them a nice, zig saggy look. They all fell off, just on that one though. Any ideas???? Is this bad? Is the tree dying? Thanks in advance... Miss you all!

[TamRE]

There are many web sites where you can read how to care for palms. You can also ask someone at a local nursery. They need the right amount of water, fertilizer and proper pruning.
http://www.palm-tree.net/index.html
http://www.florida-palm-trees.com/palm-tree-care-mistakes/

Two of our Christmas palms just turned brown from the frost. The heart of the palms are still green. But it will take almost a year for the brown palm fronds to fall off. I covered my landscaping plants but not the palms. Foxtail palms don’t do very well with frost either. We had them twice before and they died from frost. I always thought I had a green thumb, but when it comes to palms - I need help too. Good luck with yours.

[Messing About]

You should not prune anything, trees, palms, shrubs this time of year. Fresh cuts exposed to a frost or even one night freeze will kill. Leave everything alone...even the existing freeze damage...until after Valentines Day. Trust me, I'm a professional.

The only exception is you can dead head your Geraniums all winter.

[d4g4m]

If you do a search for palm tree disease and virus, you will find that a few varieties are susceptible to many problems that have no cure.

[mrs.cool]

Thanks for those website links, Tam. I have one in my living room (the best I can do in Wisconsin, other than the one on my ankle) and it's dying as well. I'm hoping to save it long enough to get it back out in the spring.

[skaranam]

When I visited Florida last time, I brought a foot tall windmill palm and planted it here in Ohio. To escape from harsh winter, I covered it with leaves and left a string of Christmas lights in the heap. The lights are on round the clock to provide some heat. It is below 20 today and it has been snowing since morning. I am hoping that it will survive the winter. Don't know until spring.I love palm trees.

[Picshooter]

I liked palm trees when we first moved here, but no more for me.We had one for over 30 years that slowly started dying, then went quick. Disease, old age or a combination of the two.

[dualie]

I just purchased a home that has a palm tree in the front yard. It has no leaves but has some little one sprouting out of the trunk.
Someone told me if I cut it back it would grow again, but Im having trouble finding info on how or where to trim it.

Suggestions?????
Thanks!

[sware2cod]

The cross hatch things on the trunk are called boots.

Only trim the brown, crispy, dead fronds. Leave all the fronds that are green, partially green or yellow.

The palm trees use fronds (aka leaves) for food and energy. Each time a new frond grows in the middle, it is using up extra energy from the old fronds. Generally, an old frond will turn brown as the new one shoots up the middle. Then you cut off the brown dead frond.


The problem with cutting those that are still green or yellow....that new frond will still need to suck energy off an old frond so it will instead pick the next oldest frond and turn that one brown(because you took the older frond off too soon that it was going to use). When you trim too often, you end up with a palm tree that has too few fronds. Maybe it has 14 total instead of 20 total. The fronds photosynthesize and give food and energy to the tree. Fewer than normal fronds (from trimming too many) can result in a weaker tree (it's starving), that is more likely to stress or die versus a healthy palm tree that hasn't been trimmed too much.

[Sunscape]

Originally Posted by sware2cod

The cross hatch things on the trunk are called boots.

Only trim the brown, crispy, dead fronds. Leave all the fronds that are green, partially green or yellow.

The palm tree use fronds (aka leaves) for food and energy. Each time a new frond grows in the middle, it is using up extra energy from the old fronds. Generally, an old frond will turn brown as the new one shoots up the middle. Then you cut off the brown dead frond.


The problem with cutting those that are still green or yellow....that new frond will still need to suck energy off an old frond so it will instead pick the next oldest frond and turn that one brown(because you took the older frond off too soon that it was going to use). When you trim too often, you end up with a palm tree that has too few fronds. Maybe it has 14 total instead of 20 total. The fronds photosynthesize and give food and energy to the tree. With fewer than normal fronds (from trimming too many) can result in a weeker tree (it's starving), that is more likely to stress or die versus a healthy palm tree that hasn't been trimmed too much.

Good post!!