Transplant Shock (Newbie... Sorry in advance)

[BigBoi36]

Thanks for having me and I apologise in advance if I'm posting this on the wrong forum. If so please let me know.

I transplanted what we were told is a Sylvester or Canary Island Palm from the backyard where it was getting tons of water from a rain gutter downspout back to its original home in the front yard where we planted it approximately 8-10 years ago. The reason for the transplant is due to its growth over the years and it was against the house. 

It didn't do through much shock during the first transplant a while back. But this time has been a rollercoaster ride. It was hand dug and 90% of the root ball was kept intact. We dug it's bee home out and replaced the non fertile soil with a mixture of top soil and compost from a local nursery. We have the roots plenty of room the grow by digging the proper size hole and not compacting the soil to much, just enough to keep it from toppling over. Frawns started to dry out and fall, so we kept watering it everyday and after 3 weeks I put down 3 lbs of 8-4-8. The palm seemed to come back to life and then the daily south Florida thunderstorms started. Needless to say we get so much rain during this time that the ground is completely saturated. We stopped the daily watering because of the rain a few weeks ago, but the shock started to hit hard. We continued with the daily watering thinking that it may not be getting enough water.

 

Please help us save our palm, LoL. Any and all recommendations will be greatly appreciated and if someone can help us determine the exact species as well. 13-3-13 and Magnesium Sulfate were my next step until I found this forum. 

5 pictures were taken on Friday, the other two were in the beginning of June before the mulch and plants, but after the first application of fertilizer.

[The7thLegend]

It will difficult to save your palm.  Rain is good but no more fertilizer.  Not sure if possible, but you may want to try and remove the fertilizer you put down if it's on the top layer of soil and not mixed in with the rootball.  Adding fertilizer too soon seems to be the main problem.

[Palmfarmer]

My theory is that once the thunderstorm hit it saturated the soil so much with water that the fertilizer disolved way too fast and gave a way big of a dose of fertilizer.

Just let it be, no more fertilizers. Cut down on watering maybe 2-3 times per week will suffiece depending on how fast your soil drains. 

[BigBoi36]

I apologise bagain. The tree was transplanted at the end of May of this year. The dates saved to the picture details were wrong. The fertilizer was spread on top of the soil under the weed barrier fabric, and then we added the mulch. I was told by a local nursery to apply the feet after 3-4 weeks of transplanting. Tye palm sits on a mound and is in a raised planter bed which I seek drains faster than if it were on level ground.

I'm not disagreeing with you guys one bit. We just went back through the dates and pictures of all the work we did and realized the dates were wrong. 

 

 

[BigBoi36]

These pictures are from this morning

[BigBoi36]

Talked with a professional today. Based on the pictures I was told there's too much mulch on the tree itself and to check for air pockets.

 

I removed all the mulch from around the base of the palm and used 3/4" pvc pipe to gently poke around the root ball for air pockets. I believe I located three air pockets. Once I found the air pockets I noticed a couple hand fulls of soil fell down into the void. Then a huge thunderstorm rolled in as I was doing so.

Obviously I'm no professional and I may be in the wrong place. I figured I'd find the correct answers here being that it's a forum dedicated to Palm's. I've had a lot of bad information given to me so far, and I would like to keep this palm. We've had it to long to give up on it now.

 

Thanks again for the help so far. 

[Steve Mac]

Mate, I don't think that there is anything more that you can do, just let it settle in and hope for the best.

Getting rid of air pockets and pushing back the mulch is not a bad thing, nothing wrong with that advice but I doubt that either of those things is responsible for how the palm looks now. If the palm is dying I doubt that you can do anything more to save it. It sounds like you did the right things to move it, I can only assume that the combination of different topsoil and compost and all of that water was not to it's roots liking.

Also did you cut many of it's fronds off first to make the move easier and when they started to die? If you cut off too many that may also have weakened it. Removing them when they are fully dead is not a problem.

[BigBoi36]

10 hours ago, gtsteve said:

Mate, I don't think that there is anything more that you can do, just let it settle in and hope for the best.

Getting rid of air pockets and pushing back the mulch is not a bad thing, nothing wrong with that advice but I doubt that either of those things is responsible for how the palm looks now. If the palm is dying I doubt that you can do anything more to save it. It sounds like you did the right things to move it, I can only assume that the combination of different topsoil and compost and all of that water was not to it's roots liking.

Also did you cut many of it's fronds off first to make the move easier and when they started to die? If you cut off too many that may also have weakened it. Removing them when they are fully dead is not a problem.

We trimmed a few frawns a week before transplant. Nothing crazy, just the normal pruning needed from time to time. 

 

I was told not to trim any until they started to die off. Once the drawn started to look like it does in the 3rd picture. Told that by trimming the dead frawns it would help the palm use it's energy towards root development and to produce more frawns.

 

I have a queen palm, a coconut palm, and a cluster of robolirobellini palms around my property. I do all my lawn care and have never had an issue with any of them. My coconut palm produces 50+ of the best coconuts a season. I'm aware of the proper pruning techniques. I believe it's a combination of bad advice from others (not here) and over watering at this point. 

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

You didnt do anything wrong except dig that cidp. You have to root prune these or they will spiral out of control and die at this size. I've seen this happen quite a few times with phoenix this size. People want to dig and move before they get too big but if it's not dug over a 3 month time the mortality rate is VERY high. 

[ahosey01]

2 minutes ago, TexasColdHardyPalms said:

You didnt do anything wrong except dig that cidp. You have to root prune these or they will spiral out of control and die at this size. I've seen this happen quite a few times with phoenix this size. People want to dig and move before they get too big but if it's not dug over a 3 month time the mortality rate is VERY high. 

I can speak to this sensitivity a little.  I planted a decent size one (3-4 years old I'm told) in my front yard from a 24" box.  I dug a big old hole, set the box in there, ripped the sides off and backfilled the hole.  Some minor root disturbance by knocking off the wood was the only change the plant could have noticed - it was even planted oriented in the same direction as it was growing in the box on the grow yard.  The thing completely paused growing at all for like 6 weeks and only just now started opening fronds again.

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

I've had 90 gallon potted cidp almost die after planted.  I wouldnt mess a cidp larger than 15g pot.  Interestingly enough I've never had a problem with dactylifera or theorphrastii.