Beccariophoenix alfredii in orlando florida

[Insomniac411]

Last night I went to a small concert in Orlando Florida, and the street straddling the venue was lined in beccariophoenix alfredii.  At first I was absolutely amazed to see them being used in a commercial environment.  While they were all relatively healty, almost all of them were blown over,  growing sideways. It was a pretty sad site. Someone needs to go dig these things out and give them some love!

[GottmitAlex]

Yes. It has been my experience as well: B. alfredii are weak at their base when young.  They have to be tied down for a year or so in order to develop the necessary root system and achieve stability.

 

 

[sonoranfans]

This is what happens to them when they have no room to grow roots, roots hold the tree up.  The problem with alfredii is their crowns are huge sails, a much bigger(more leaves) and more dense crown to airfow than just about any palm I can think of so yes they can blow over.   To prevent that you have to balance root zone size with number of leaves.  Looks like those palms have been hacked down.  Those palms in a little strip will never be right, never be able to hold up those big crowns in wind.  They will be forced to cut many leaves off to get them to grow there.  A happy, established alfredii can hold 18-20 green leaves or more.  Compare that to any coco you have ever seen.  People buy them bigger because they want a fast start, but they dont have the roots yet to hold against the wind.  Mine were barely pinnate on the newest leaves at 3 gallon when planted.  One tilted in hurricane IRMA, the other two laughed at it, minimal damage to 2-3 lowest leaves(of 20 or so).  Planting a huge bushy windsail of a tree in a narrow median strip in hurricane country is a fools errand.

[PalmatierMeg]

I've seen a trunking B.a. north of Ft. Lauderdale. It was unbelievably huge. Calling it a coconut on (mega) steroids was a huge understatement. This is not a palm to decorate a little highway median. And it is true they lack wind hardiness until they are very well rooted. I lost my largest to Hurricane Irma in 2017. The wind literally ripped the stem off the growing plate. The tree cutter who cleaned up our lot told us no way that palm could be saved. It was one of just 5 palms taken out by Irma.

[howfam]

Yeah, those B. alfredii have been there for more than a couple of years now and should be better rooted. The black fence is fairly new and whoever installed it  might have been the one who disturbed the palms, not sure. There's another one at the corner of Magnolia St. & Washington St. that still looks pretty stable, and had been braced as of Feb. 2020 street view picture.

[sonoranfans]

2 hours ago, PalmatierMeg said:

I've seen a trunking B.a. north of Ft. Lauderdale. It was unbelievably huge. Calling it a coconut on (mega) steroids was a huge understatement. This is not a palm to decorate a little highway median. And it is true they lack wind hardiness until they are very well rooted. I lost my largest to Hurricane Irma in 2017. The wind literally ripped the stem off the growing plate. The tree cutter who cleaned up our lot told us no way that palm could be saved. It was one of just 5 palms taken out by Irma.

 Meg, we saw 65-75mph sustained winds for 4-5 hrs in Irma, down your way it must have been over 100mph.  Sounds like you fared remarkably well all things considered.  My alfredii was 7 years in the ground when Irma hit and over 20' tall with a trunk ~30" thick with leaf bases.  

[kinzyjr]

We had 70MPH wind gusts in the spring and it knocked a lot of the Beccariophoenix alfredii here over as well.  They're all staked now.

[GottmitAlex]

2 hours ago, Billy said:

I suppose this shouldn't be too much of an issue for Alfredii in coastal San Diego as we rarely get winds over 30mph?

What about the Santa Ana winds?

[ck_in_fla]

On 8/28/2021 at 1:38 PM, howfam said:

Yeah, those B. alfredii have been there for more than a couple of years now and should be better rooted. The black fence is fairly new and whoever installed it  might have been the one who disturbed the palms, not sure. There's another one at the corner of Magnolia St. & Washington St. that still looks pretty stable, and had been braced as of Feb. 2020 street view picture.

There are three of these (I believe) along Magnolia at Lake Lucerne.  Unfortunately, those have been trimmed to within an inch of their lives.  I can't believe the City of Orlando would treat expensive palms this way.  Someone there needs to be educated...

[Jimbean]

There are six of them planted at UCF

[EJ;)]

adding stake up my B. A palms this weekend lol. I live out by the delta waterways. every night at 4pm like clock we get the delta breezes. Last year we got 55MPH winds which blew over my red banana. Planted two in my property, one in front yard and one in the rear. I tend to spread the palm love as to not look to planned. I like the natural look. 

[donalt]

Local (Orlando) beccariophoenix alfredii commercial palm grower, MB Palms, says to plant BA's a little deeper than other palms so they will not be so vulnerable to winds. It works. I've done it and my BA's are quite sturdy and growing exceedingly well.

[redant]

On 8/28/2021 at 12:38 PM, sonoranfans said:

This is what happens to them when they have no room to grow roots, roots hold the tree up.  The problem with alfredii is their crowns are huge sails, a much bigger(more leaves) and more dense crown to airfow than just about any palm I can think of so yes they can blow over.   To prevent that you have to balance root zone size with number of leaves.  Looks like those palms have been hacked down.  Those palms in a little strip will never be right, never be able to hold up those big crowns in wind.  They will be forced to cut many leaves off to get them to grow there.  A happy, established alfredii can hold 18-20 green leaves or more.  Compare that to any coco you have ever seen.  People buy them bigger because they want a fast start, but they dont have the roots yet to hold against the wind.  Mine were barely pinnate on the newest leaves at 3 gallon when planted.  One tilted in hurricane IRMA, the other two laughed at it, minimal damage to 2-3 lowest leaves(of 20 or so).  Planting a huge bushy windsail of a tree in a narrow median strip in hurricane country is a fools errand.

First time I saw the pictures of them (a while a ago) I said the same thing, poor choice for the location.  Unfortunately some city workers have no idea the long term of these beasts.