Caryota Mitis

[J. Ingram]

My dad has a clump of Caryota Mitis with 5 or 6 growth points in a 15 gallon.  He asked me for my advise on the possibility of splitting the clump into 2-3 seperate clumps.  So I told him I'd get back to him after consulting with the experts of the board here.

The palm is currently an indoor palm, but he would like to plant the seperate clumps outdoors in Honolulu.

Is it possible to do this with any probability of survival?  If so, how?  Or should he keep the clump together?

Since he is now in Hawaii, I urged him to try the palm hobby on for size.  The Caryota Mitis will do for a start I suppose, but I'm trying to get him to try other, more exotic palms.  But I'd at least like for him to start off in palms with a good experience!  So any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Jeff Searle]

Justin,

     My advice to you would be, not try to seperate them. And for two reasons. The first being,they are really too big to try and seperate, and the chances of them going into shock are very high. The second, this is a very common palm, and your dad can buy others very cheaply. They grow extreamly fast and will get established very quickly.

[Jeff Searle]

Also, welcome to the board.

[bgl]

Have never tried separating a Caryota mitis, so I have no clue, but it would be much less trouble simply buying a few more Caryotas! Smaller ones should be pretty inexpensive. Maybe at Home Depot?

PS. Tell your Dad to go for a drive and visit Ho'omaluhia Botanical Gardens on the windward side (just below the Koolau mtns, overlooking Kaneohe). He can drive in. They have an amazing collection of mature palms, and that may get his interest going! Suggest he write down the names of those he likes.

[palmazon]

I've never heard or read of a successful division, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. What I have heard is stress can trigger premature flowering/fruiting (and subsequent death) with Caryota. In my own experience, I accidentally busted off a trunk from a mitis I was trying to load singlehandedly into my pickup - though it had a substantial-looking mass of roots, it quickly died (in spite of my resuscitation efforts). Your Dad could be the first - pass the hat around to subsidize a replacement in case his experiment fails. If he's determined to try, at the very least, use hygienic transplant methods - dust the wound with Rootone perhaps, keep moisture from entering the wound with Treekote, or try both. Good luck.

[Trópico]

I did!

That was my very first palm reckless operation, and it worked! I bought a medium sized clump at around $40 at Home Depot but I intended to split it and put it on either side of my center pool planter. I remember some root spaghetti was lost in the process. The two clumps basically did not move for a year, then they started growing like crazy. One of them is 2/3 on their way to piercing the top of the screen enclosure. They're about 2.5 years old from the date of purchase.

If you must, try not to disturb the roots as much as possible, but this may take time.

[Gileno Machado]

That's interesting in fact. I've never tried to split a small clump of mitis but I think that in my climate I found this one to be a pretty resistant species of palm.

I knew almost nothing about growing palms when we first decided to plant a small clump of Caryota mitis near the garage when I built the house on the beach some 15 years ago. I was told in advance that the fruits could be dangerous and allergenic for small children and pets, but I was not actually expecting the palms to die after the fruiting cycle around 9 or 10 years and even thought I had overfertilized them or something...

The interesting point is that these old clumps of C. mitis keep sprouting from the ground long after the dead trunks removal.

[DoomsDave]

Justin:

First, welcome to our large, happy family.

Second, don't try to separate the C. mitis.  Just buy others.  That said, don't confuse it with situations where there is more than one plant in a single pot, a common thing to do here on the mainland.

In a case like that, you can separate them, and when you're ready, we'll be glad to talk you or your dad through that process.  But, again, it's got to be more than one plant.

best

dave

[MattyB]

Dave said exactly what I was thinking.  If it's actual separate plants then separation might be possible if you can get the root mass apart.  If it's just one plant with multiple stems then don't even try.  I think it's why people think it's so easy to separate D. lutescens.  They don't realize that they are actually separating many different individuals not cutting one plant into multiple pieces.  I'm not 100% on this regarding Caryotas, but the way you can tell it's a single plant is that the different stems connect together like an underground branch, not just a separate sprout coming up from the root mass.  Don't hold me to that though.

[Fred Zone 10A]

I think it's why people think it's so easy to separate D. lutescens.  They don't realize that they are actually separating many different individuals not cutting one plant into multiple pieces.

Matty,

You are correct in that the 5 gallon Dypsis lutescens in the "interior foliage department" at the big box stores are actually several palms planted in the same pot.  Since D. lutescens takes a while to clump and the homeowner wants a full look for a low price, the growers do it by planting several seeds together.   In those cases, they are separable, as LA Dave and Palmazon have done several times.

The first D. lutescens I bought was like that and I plunked the whole thing into the ground.  What a mistake.  The plants compete with each other for water and nutrients and canes continually die off.  A smaller, single plant would have grown much faster and looked much better.

[Kris]

Bump !

[Jeff Searle]

Bump !

KRIS,

Why would you(or anyone else) want to "bump" this??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? I'm lost for any other words.

007

[www.dadluvsu.com]

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