Palm watering systems

[DoomsDave]

Summer means watering the palms.

I have clay soil so I can get away with heavier waterings further apart than would be possible in, say, DG.

Go through a cycle, put the stuff away till next time.

How about you?

[James B]

DG here. Daily watering for my Royals and potted Carpoxylon, at least every other day for most of my King palms and my 2 Clinostigma, 3-4x for Chambeyronias, Kentiopsis.

[BS Man about Palms]

I am kinda lucky here ONCE palms make it to say 3 gal size. (Smaller than that planted out sometimes struggle for YEARS to gain any size...)  Clay soil, coastal So Cal.  People would be shocked how little I water here. 

Mainly as my temps are generally not high, I stay humid over night and the clay retains water well. Pretty much via drip 2-3 hours per station, every 7-10 days.

[joe_OC]

13 minutes ago, BS Man about Palms said:

I am kinda lucky here ONCE palms make it to say 3 gal size. (Smaller than that planted out sometimes struggle for YEARS to gain any size...)  Clay soil, coastal So Cal.  People would be shocked how little I water here. 

Mainly as my temps are generally not high, I stay humid over night and the clay retains water well. Pretty much via drip 2-3 hours per station, every 7-10 days.

Bill...Please share your watering schedule.   We have similar climates, so always willing to learn.

 

 

J

[BS Man about Palms]

23 hours ago, joe_OC said:

Bill...Please share your watering schedule.   We have similar climates, so always willing to learn.

 

 

J

Joe, some of it is work and or lack of time, but I do most of my hand watering on weekends and drips on weekends or evenings.  As long as you have a clay based soil, Like Dave said, I have found longer watering, less frequently has netted better results. (Deep watering)

I pay rough attention to my local weather, and if warmish, I keep the "on time" the same length, but change the frequency to every 6-7 days. If cooler or over cast,  maybe 10 days.

I know you have grass and needs more frequent watering and some of that bleeds over to the palm soil.  At that point I would go 12-18" into your "palm soil"  if you can find a spot open and dig down a bit and check your soil dampness.  As clay retains water so well, I tend to wait until the top inch or too is on the drier side.

The above works for me, Good luck.

 

Bill

[DoomsDave]

I'll soak for hours every couple weeks, using the rig shown above.

Gonna have to set out containers and take measures. Might be overdoing, or, perhaps, even underdoing it.

[Chris Chance]

I usually water with drip for 2 hours every 4 to 7 days depending on the heat. I also like to soak with the hose once a week especially when it's 100 degrees outside. I figure it's kinda like a monsoon comes through and rinses the fertilizer I lay and also raises humidity just a tad. I have seen some gardens with sprinklers on posts about 10 feet up and sometimes I think about doing the same and run them when the summer heat gets going.

[doubravsky]

I ended up running two separate drip lines across the garden. For the palms and plumerias, I run the drip maybe 2x per week for 30 minutes. I put the other more thirsty stuff like bananas, elephant ears and philodendrons on a different line that goes 10 minutes per day. It was the only way I could figure to get deep water to the palms and plumerias, and keep the rally thirsty pants wet during the heat of the summer 

[joe_OC]

I'm pretty happy with the results I am getting with my regimen.  I supplement hand watering all the thirsty palms/plants.  I have a lot of crotons/ti's mixed in the planters now.  Their roots don't seem to be as deep as the palms'.   I want to automate as much as possible and possibly reduce the amount of water I am using.  It's about $100/month.  I guess that would be a good way to measure what our water bills look like.  Will search to see if there are any posts on it.

[WaianaeCrider]

I use 90*,180* and 360* little sprayers plugged into 1/2 " poly pipe.  Each palm gets watered twice a week for 30 min.  Timers start at 11 pm and run every 1/2 hr somewhere until 7 am.  Temps rarely get over 95* except on my roof which is white and reflects light and heat into the monitor unit on the roof.  That can reed as high as 101*.  My shade houses get watered every morning around 6 am for about 5 min.

Soil here on the west side of O`ahu at eleveation is red dirt.  LOL no real organic material except what falls from my plantings and stays in place.

 

[Tracy]

On 7/8/2020 at 8:51 AM, BS Man about Palms said:

I am kinda lucky here ONCE palms make it to say 3 gal size. (Smaller than that planted out sometimes struggle for YEARS to gain any size...)  Clay soil, coastal So Cal.  People would be shocked how little I water here. 

Mainly as my temps are generally not high, I stay humid over night and the clay retains water well. Pretty much via drip 2-3 hours per station, every 7-10 days.

Interesting that you can run so long and not have runoff, but then again from what I can tell your lot is pretty level.  My challenge in the clay soil of Carlsbad is that I do have a lot of slope area, so if I run my drip or previously when it was on sprayers, it runs off and pools in the lower planters.  I'm running about 30 minutes once a week there but in the front also have lawn, so the adjacent planters benefit from that and on one side from my neighbor's upstream watering which percolates down into my adjacent planter.

In Leucadia, I run 50 minutes twice a week in sandy soil that drains and dries quickly.  Some of the thirstier palms get 3 or even 4 emitters, while cycads get 2.  Because I have some potted plants that aren't on the drip and a lot of orchids I have to hand water those, and will even supplement some of the palms when I'm dragging the hose to the key spots.  The hotel being constructed on the bluff at the end of La Costa and Highway 101 had about 30,000 yards of export soil which they sold to the Coastal Commission as sand.  When I say "sold", not literally, but they were able to dump in on the beach and claim they were giving back to the community in sand replenishment.  So when I say I have sandy soil, even the California Coastal Commission seems to agree. 

[Tracy]

7 minutes ago, joe_OC said:

I guess that would be a good way to measure what our water bills look like.  Will search to see if there are any posts on it.

Unfortunately you have to also look at rates.  When my wife hands me a water bill with an unhappy look, I have to remind her that it isn't just the dollars (they are important, don't get me wrong).  It is also the usage which with rates ever increasing, it is interesting to compare your prior year's usage and prior year's spend to remind oneself that rates keep going up.  When comparing bills you also would need to adjust for lot size, perhaps $$ per square foot, or better how many units per area (acre feet of water per square foot, acre, hectare, or whatever unit you select per unit of time).  Sorry, but I like to make things more complicated.

[joe_OC]

3 minutes ago, Tracy said:

Unfortunately you have to also look at rates.  When my wife hands me a water bill with an unhappy look, I have to remind her that it isn't just the dollars (they are important, don't get me wrong).  It is also the usage which with rates ever increasing, it is interesting to compare your prior year's usage and prior year's spend to remind oneself that rates keep going up.  When comparing bills you also would need to adjust for lot size, perhaps $$ per square foot, or better how many units per area (acre feet of water per square foot, acre, hectare, or whatever unit you select per unit of time).  Sorry, but I like to make things more complicated.

Ha!  I'm the same way.  

[James B]

10 hours ago, DoomsDave said:

I'll soak for hours every couple weeks, using the rig shown above.

Gonna have to set out containers and take measures. Might be overdoing, or, perhaps, even underdoing it.

Whatever you are doing Dave you’re doing it right. I’ve yet to see Roystonea or Archontophoenix that are as robust as the ones you have in your garden. Your Maxima and Tuckeri are bigger around than most Queen palms and Butch is like something out of a Sci Fi story about monster plants lol.

Edited July 10, 2020 by James B

[DoomsDave]

3 minutes ago, James B said:

Whatever you are doing Dave you’re doing it right. I’ve yet to see Roystonea or Archontophoenix that are as robust as the ones you have in your garden. Your Maxima and Tuckeri are bigger around than most Queen palms and Butch is like something out of a Sci Fi story about monster plants lol.

AW, thanks!

Accidents over almost 18 years (eek! come this October) of getting a few things right.

You will manage, too. I'm keeping an eye, like CPO Sharkey on your P tor tor, getting ready to worship. Mourn? Maybe. I expect worship. Oh yeah. Along with the rest of your holy Palm Shrine.