Golden Cane Palms, looking for advice

[Jillian]

Looking for advice. We recently moved back into our old house. We live in Southern CA. These golden canes have been in the ground about 6 years. They were massively over grown and my husband thinned them all down. They have only been fed once as we just moved back in 6 weeks ago. My concern is the trunks. Some look great but some must have some type of bug? I’m more familiar with King Palms and I need to learn what’s best for these. Appreciate the help. See pics below. 

[quaman58]

Jillian,

Not sure what your concern might be. The black speckles on the leaf bases are a natural trait. Other than looking a little water stressed, it doesn’t look too bad. They love mulch and any other organic you can give them!

Bret

[Steve Mac]

Hi Jillian,

I'm with Bret, hubby did a great job too. 

They look normal to me, and as Bret said mulch them, they will appreciate that more than fertilizer I reckon. 

[Jillian]

Thank you both. Yeah, I know it looks very dry right now (plus we’re having Santa Ana dry winds for weeks) but I promise we are watering them while working on replacing the drip system and my hubby raked up all of the old bark that was there as it had “stuff” in it that didn’t belong, so we will be replacing with mulch shortly. Regarding the black specks, thank you Bret, very good to know. I saw some white moldy looking stuff on it’s boots also, but like I said it had been very dense around the trunks, prior to him cleaning it all up. I  wish we had a before picture. I will try to quit worrying and focus on following thru on the above recommendations from you both. I’m not great on knowing how to navigate the site, so just want to say I really appreciate the help and replies. Happy Holidays.  

[Josue Diaz]

49 minutes ago, Jillian said:

Thank you both. Yeah, I know it looks very dry right now (plus we’re having Santa Ana dry winds for weeks) but I promise we are watering them while working on replacing the drip system and my hubby raked up all of the old bark that was there as it had “stuff” in it that didn’t belong, so we will be replacing with mulch shortly. Regarding the black specks, thank you Bret, very good to know. I saw some white moldy looking stuff on it’s boots also, but like I said it had been very dense around the trunks, prior to him cleaning it all up. I  wish we had a before picture. I will try to quit worrying and focus on following thru on the above recommendations from you both. I’m not great on knowing how to navigate the site, so just want to say I really appreciate the help and replies. Happy Holidays.  

The white fuzz is natural too. It's called tomentum, and many palms have it. 

[ahosey01]

Maybe plant more palms, too.

Just a thought.

Edited December 24, 2020 by ahosey01

[quaman58]

Hi Jillian,

One thing I also (barely) noticed, but did not want to confuse things with, was the appearance mealy bug residue under the dead leaf bases. This is very common, usually pretty harmless on larger palms, but still less than ideal. Ants are almost always the culprit. They look for a nice protected area to tend their "herd" , making leaf bases an ideal spot. The mealy bug sucks the juices out of the palm & provide the ants with honeydew. But they're pretty easy to knock back once you know what to look for...

Bret

[Jillian]

Funny you mention the ants. When we moved back the “bark” the tenant had put down had massive ants in it everywhere. That’s one of the reasons we raked it all up and disposed of it. The whole yard was infested with ants and ant hives. It’s better now. I think what your saying is what one of my concerns is. To me it looks like a white scale on some of the trunk leaves? I’ve used a Bayer spray product in the past at our old house. If the wind would take a rest I could spray them...?? Thanks for taking the time to answer. 

[JohnAndSancho]

If it makes you feel better, I spent a lot of time scraping and wiping all of my baby Arecas with alcohol before I figured this out. I also left a really harsh review for an Amazon seller that I've since updated lol 

[Jillian]

12 hours ago, ahosey01 said:

Maybe plant more palms, too.

Just a thought.

I know I didn’t do a distance shot, but we already have about 12 palms in the yard. A beautiful 30 year old canary palm (we call it the tree of life because of everything that lives in it), which is very expensive to have trimmed. Also have about 5 queen palms, and the rest are all golden canes. In spring we will be adding some desperately needed colorful red tropical plants in-between the trees.   

[ahosey01]

25 minutes ago, Jillian said:

I know I didn’t do a distance shot, but we already have about 12 palms in the yard. A beautiful 30 year old canary palm (we call it the tree of life because of everything that lives in it), which is very expensive to have trimmed. Also have about 5 queen palms, and the rest are all golden canes. In spring we will be adding some desperately needed colorful red tropical plants in-between the trees.   

Unless your HOA says no, 13 is always better than 12! 

If you’re looking for red and tropical, depending on what your USDA zone is, you could grow Chambeyronia macrocarpa.

[Jillian]

That was funny. And you will be pleased to know, that there are actually 18 palms including the 2 large Pygmy date palms. Today’s project... making deep watering stakes, so I had to do an “actual” count of the trees. 1 Canary, 10 Queen, 6 Golden Cane, and the Pygmys.  Wishing a Merry Christmas to everybody. 

[ahosey01]

9 hours ago, Jillian said:

That was funny. And you will be pleased to know, that there are actually 18 palms including the 2 large Pygmy date palms. Today’s project... making deep watering stakes, so I had to do an “actual” count of the trees. 1 Canary, 10 Queen, 6 Golden Cane, and the Pygmys.  Wishing a Merry Christmas to everybody. 

My kind of yard!!!

Merry Christmas. Please share more photos of everything!