archontophoenix Is my king palm going to die? Help!

[SoCalTahir]

Brand new Palm Talk member out of San Diego, CA, first time post, and I’m looking for some help!

A little over a year ago we re-landscaped our backyard and added several palms; 2 maxima king palm doubles with about 6 feet of trunk, 3 solitary king palms with about 5 feet of trunk, a beautiful Cuban Royal that now stands about 12-15 feet (including leaves), and 8 Pygmy Date palms. All of them were planted late may/early June 2021.

My main issue right now is that the middle of the 3 solitary king palms (bought from a local private grower) seems to be having some issues at the crown. About 3-4 months ago I noticed that the new spears were not fully emerging and would begin to open prematurely. The last 3-4 spears only shot up about a foot or less before starting their unfurling, which appeared to further strangle or pinch the newer spears struggling to make their way out. In an effort to stop the strangulation of new growth, I ripped away a couple of the fronds that seemed to be choking the exit. It’s been about 3 months since my intervention and the 2 new spears are only about 1.5-2 feet out and don’t seem to be rising, I’ve noticed only about 3-4 inches over the past 3 months. (For comparison, the 2 trees next to it have shot out about 2-3 new 4-foot spears each in the same timeframe.) On the plus side, the 2 short spears are still green and the stunted fronds choking it are mostly deep green other than normal sunburn on the tips. 

I use a liquid palm juice fertilizer that a local big chain nursery sells and apply the solution every month or 2 at the base of each plant and it seems to promote healthy green growth. All the trees are set on a drip/bubbler that gives them 2 waterings per week for about 20 minutes in the early morning.

Do any of you palm enthusiasts out there know what could be causing this or how to help my poor tree continue growing? Is this the beginning of the end for that tree or is there hope? Any advice will be greatly appreciated! Thanks! Tahir

Edited September 24, 2022 by SoCalTahir

[BigWaveDav3]

Looks like it needs some Boron and a lot more water to me.  That area you have planted appears to be rocky mulch and maybe not much organic content in the soil to naturally provide the Boron it needs for the new spears to fully emerge and fully develop. Also it appears that your lawn is synthetic, so not much supplemental water and organic matter breaking down the nutrients into the soil from the surrounding landscape.

[Jim in Los Altos]

King palms need copious amounts of water to grow properly and not just at their bases. Roots travel horizontally several yards. They are swamp dwellers in much of their natural habitat so over watering is impossible. The one affected has a nutrient deficiency which is rare with King palms but not impossible to happen. PalmGain fertilizer is excellent and lots of composted material on the soil surface would be welcome. 

[GottmitAlex]

13 minutes ago, Jim in Los Altos said:

King palms need copious amounts of water to grow properly and not just at their bases. Roots travel horizontally several yards. They are swamp dwellers in much of their natural habitat so over watering is impossible. The one affected has a nutrient deficiency which is rare with King palms but not impossible to happen. PalmGain fertilizer is excellent and lots of composted material on the soil surface would be welcome. 

This 👆

[SoCalTahir]

Thanks guys. Yea the soil they’re planted in  is kinda rocky but I do a hose soak of the whole area about every week or so and there are at least 1-2 drips going to each of the nearby birds of paradise since I’ve heard those can hog the water a supply. There’s actually a weed barrier underneath the decorative rock I have lining that planter area and each king has about a foot diameter of open air soil at the base. I’ll try upping the watering intervals and duration. This was a really hot summer too so I can tell a lot of my plants are stressed, even the healthy ones. If you know a good Boron product and where I’ll try that out as well. 

[Foxpalms]

1 hour ago, SoCalTahir said:

Thanks guys. Yea the soil they’re planted in  is kinda rocky but I do a hose soak of the whole area about every week or so and there are at least 1-2 drips going to each of the nearby birds of paradise since I’ve heard those can hog the water a supply. There’s actually a weed barrier underneath the decorative rock I have lining that planter area and each king has about a foot diameter of open air soil at the base. I’ll try upping the watering intervals and duration. This was a really hot summer too so I can tell a lot of my plants are stressed, even the healthy ones. If you know a good Boron product and where I’ll try that out as well. 

I would water the king palms everyday if it's hot, even here in London I have to water mine lots.

[Merlyn]

I have seen it said here many times that it is impossible to overwater a King, especially in CA.  A soaking once every week or so is your problem, maybe change that to every other day?  Hopefully some other CA growers can chime in here.  

As far as Boron goes, long term a palm specific fertilizer with trace amounts is the solution.  Something similar to PalmGain 8-2-12 is good.  Temporarily a small amount of 20 mule team borax powder in 5 gallons of water per palm should help.  They suggest 2 to 4oz per 5 gallons, I would try half that and redose in a few months.

https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/EP264

[quaman58]

It’s a little hard to see, but it looks like some of the leaves have “accordion leaf”. This can be caused when palms split into multiples, OR in the case of Archontophoenix it may have had an infection in the crown that the new leaf was pushing past. Pretty common, especially when some palms are coming out of winter time. Anyway, I’m not sure inadequate water is the issue here. I think it may be trying to straighten itself out, so just be observant in the event that it has a persistent growing point infection..

[SoCalTahir]

Merlyn—Thanks for sharing that link. Sounds like a Boron deficiency and Quaman58 yea there is definitely some accordion leaf going on and that was listed as a symptom. I just ordered some PalmGain, I noticed my current fertilizer doesn’t have any Boron. I’ll probably supplement with a light borax treatment as well and see how the tree responds over the next few months. 

[Josue Diaz]

As you've probably already gathered from the posts, soil biology is really important for plant health. Synthetic grass, weed barrier and rock mulch don't contribute to soil health so you'll have to supplement the nutrients you might otherwise get from things like organic mulch or even a grass lawn. For the long term health of the trees (and your other plants) I'd remove the weed barrier and add a good layer of organic material. Your plants will benefit from the nutrients as the mulch breaks down. This will encourage worms and fungi which add to a healthy soil ecosystem. I keep 4 to 6 inches of mulch throughout my yard, and haven't had a single weed in 2 years or more. 

[SoCalTahir]

**Progress update**
Slowly but surely the tree is improving. Nothing really happened through the winter months but a really wet spring here in San Diego and some temperate sunshine has started encouraging new growth. The stunted fronds that were choking the crown have pushed out about a foot or 2. The accordion leaf that had been developing on those is only present in on the leaf ends; the new stem growth appears healthier and they are fanning out. The 2 short spears pictured in September have now also fanned out, albeit all the leaves are still pretty short. But the most exciting thing is that over the last couple months a new spear has been slowly making its way upward and is now about 3 feet long and growing noticeably taller by the week. By no means is it aesthetically pleasing yet but I think in the next year or so we might be past this issue completely.  
What I’ve done:

I immediately removed the weed barrier under the rocks throughout the entire planter area back in early October and did a 2 oz/5 gal borax treatment as recommended. Ive done 2 more treatments every couple months since then.

I’ve done about 3-4 applications of Palm Gain (one every couple months). I spread the granules out in a much wider 3-4 ft radius from trunk (I use a high pressure hose to push it through the rocks.)

About the rocks, someone recommended removing them but unfortunately I spent way too much on them and my wife would kill me. Instead I’ve been focusing on improving the soil biology below however I can. After Halloween I chopped up our pumpkins and skattered it all over the area. I’ve been dumping coffee grounds too. Beginning in early February I started using an organic liquid fertilizer I found on Amazon called Liquid Love and dousing the entire planter area. I figured a liquid solution would be best to make sure it penetrated evenly past the rocks into the soil. It’s been working really well for all the plants and I’m going to keep doing this once a month. I actually highly recommend it for all your plants, I’ve been using it on my hibiscus, lilies, bougainvillea, pretty much anything that flowers loves it and is going crazy. For me it was pretty much just trying to improve soil condition and introduce nutrients. It stinks really bad though, heads up.

Anyway, thank you all for your advice here, I’ll probably do another update after we see how this summer treats us!

[SoCalTahir]

I just noticed that the new spear on one of my other “healthy” king palms has been stuck in spear status for quite some time. A closer look shows something pretty concerning. The new spear has some sort of disease on the lower portion near the crown. The previous spear that it split off of has the same ailment but the leaf end doesn’t show any issues, only the stem portion. If anyone knows what this is please help, I’m hoping there’s enough time to save it. I took some photos of the tree, attached here. Thanks in advance!