Syagrus romanzoffiana (Queen Palm) penciling

[miamicuse]

I have a Syagrus romanzoffiana (Queen ) that is penciling.  I can't quite tell whether it's getting better or worse. The trunk is about 25' tall from ground to the tip of the shaft.  It's looks sickly and has been penciling for a while, going back 5+ years.

I tried palm fertilizers and didn't seem to improve in an appreciable way.  I tried watering it more and that didn't seem to make a difference either although it is difficult to water it because it is planted right next to a concrete sidewalk and on a slight slope so water runs pass it.  It was subjected to a brackish water flooding in April 2023 where the lower 20" of it's trunk was submerged in this water for over 20 hours, didn't seem to hurt or help it either.

I have some pictures of it in 2019, 2021, 2022, 2024.  In the 2019 picture there was a large Royal next to it that was planted only six feet in front of it. the Royal was removed due to Ganoderma butt rot and I was expecting the Queen to have the same issue, but it hasn't.  I also thought with the Royal out of the way and the Queen can get more sun, it will get better, and it hasn't.

Kind of hard to tell if it's getting worse from 2019-2024.  What do you think?

[SeanK]

SoFL?

Cut it down. Remove all the queens and robustas on the property. You should be growing Pritchardias, Licualas, and Cyrtostachys.

[miamicuse]

4 hours ago, SeanK said:

SoFL?

Cut it down. Remove all the queens and robustas on the property. You should be growing Pritchardias, Licualas, and Cyrtostachys.

I could cut it down, the Royal is gone already due to Ganoderma, and I kind of expected the Queen to follow but it didn't even it's within 6 feet of the infected Royal.

The issue is the Royal's been cut down and it's stump grinded down 10" or so, it's been 4 years and the rest of the stump below the 10" depth is still rock solid and nothing can be planted there.  I had assumed after a few years the entire Royal root mass would have broken up and I can plant something else non-palm but that's not happening apparently, so the Queen if remove will be the same "dead space" unless all I want to put there are grass or ground covers.

But the real issue with cutting it down is the lower ten feet of this Queen is very crowded with mounted orchids, climbing philos and vines that I do not want to lose.  If I do cut it I will have to cut it at about 10' off the ground to keep those other plants and no idea how long the truncated palm can stay a host of these other plants before rotting out.

[PalmatierMeg]

15 hours ago, SeanK said:

SoFL?

Cut it down. Remove all the queens and robustas on the property. You should be growing Pritchardias, Licualas, and Cyrtostachys.

Agree - get rid of it. Queens are Class II invasives in FL. They are water & fertilizer hogs that hate our alkaline, sandy soil. And they are highly susceptible to fusarium wilt (so are Washies). Yours looks like it's been neglected for years.

[SeanK]

55 minutes ago, PalmatierMeg said:

Agree - get rid of it. Queens are Class II invasives in FL. They are water & fertilizer hogs that hate our alkaline, sandy soil. And they are highly susceptible to fusarium wilt (so are Washies). Yours looks like it's been neglected for years.

My view is, where you can grow so many more interesting palms, why settle for such common plants. There are IPS affiliates that can assist and provide more exotic options.

Washies and Queens are ok for the Gulf Coast and I10 corridor where folks are just trying to grow ANY palm.

[miamicuse]

4 hours ago, PalmatierMeg said:

Agree - get rid of it. Queens are Class II invasives in FL. They are water & fertilizer hogs that hate our alkaline, sandy soil. And they are highly susceptible to fusarium wilt (so are Washies). Yours looks like it's been neglected for years.

As I stated in the post above, my options are either to leave it as is and see what it does (which has been the same for the last 5 years no matter what I tried) or cut it to about 10 feet above ground and leave a stump to allow the other plants currently attached to it that cannot be removed without killing them as well and wait to see how long that 10' tall stump will last.  That's my only two choices.

Even if I cut it down completely to the ground and grind the stump, the space vacated by it cannot be reused to plant something else (except grass of ground covers) because it takes along time for the root structure to break down (because the 24" diameter Royal removed in 2020 and had stump ground 10" deep remains to be a rock solid mass there).