Advice Needed on Palm Tree Care

[shimabra]

Hello,

I am new to this forum and am seeking advice and assistance with the care of my palm. I live in Southern California and the palm is planted to get around 4-6 hours of direct sunlight. Daily drip irrigation at its base is how it gets obtains fluid. I believe the root cause of the problem is from aggressive pruning, complete accident in retrospect, that occurred over 6 months ago. The two larger stems never recovered from this, while the smallest stem began to show signs of life with a new fond growing in the last few weeks. 
Questions: 

1. Does anybody know what to diagnose my palm with?

2. Any remedies to try and save the palm? Or are the two large stems of the palm dead?

3. What is the name of this particular palm?

4. Could the smallest stems find help provide nutrients to the two larger stems?

Any advice and suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for your time. 
Best,

Brandon

[aztropic]

Most likely king palms,(Archontophoenix) Too much sun/reflected heat from the wall,and WAY to little water is what killed them. How much water was applied daily? This is almost an aquatic species,and 5 gallons per application every day or two would not be unreasonable. 

They are actually 3 separate trees,so the 2 biggest that are dead,are really dead. Best thing to do at this point is remove all 3 and replace with a tougher palm if you still need one in that same area. Most similar looking replacement that would survive much better in that particular spot would be the common pygmy date palm. Also usually sold as 3 individual palms planted in the same container,and available cheap at any big box store in multiple sizes from 3/5/15/ or 25 gallon pots. Don't forget to increase your water output. They like to drink a lot too over a hot summer.

 

aztropic 

Mesa, Arizona 

[shimabra]

19 minutes ago, aztropic said:

Most likely king palms,(Archontophoenix) Too much sun/reflected heat from the wall,and WAY to little water is what killed them. How much water was applied daily? This is almost an aquatic species,and 5 gallons per application every day or two would not be unreasonable. 

They are actually 3 separate trees,so the 2 biggest that are dead,are really dead. Best thing to do at this point is remove all 3 and replace with a tougher palm if you still need one in that same area. Most similar looking replacement that would survive much better in that particular spot would be the common pygmy date palm. Also usually sold as 3 individual palms planted in the same container,and available cheap at any big box store in multiple sizes from 3/5/15/ or 25 gallon pots. Don't forget to increase your water output. They like to drink a lot too over a hot summer.

 

aztropic 

Mesa, Arizona 

Thank you for the reply, @Aztropic. I am not sure the exact gallons that the palm is receiving. It has a 360 degree micro bubbler drip emitter that runs 7 minutes per day. I did not share this information in my initial post, but I do have another same species palm along this wall that has four trees and is much larger and thriving. So maybe it isn’t a water issue??? Either way, I think that I agree with you that the two larger trees in the picture are dead but maybe somebody has a remedy or will advise waiting to see if the palms will push through this.

[Harry’s Palms]

Whatever it is , it looks bad. Could be some type of fungal infection. There are folks here that have possible treatment with peroxide and copper antifungicide. I have not done this so I will not advise. Hopefully someone will come forward. Harry

[aztropic]

8 hours ago, shimabra said:

Thank you for the reply, @Aztropic. I am not sure the exact gallons that the palm is receiving. It has a 360 degree micro bubbler drip emitter that runs 7 minutes per day. I did not share this information in my initial post, but I do have another same species palm along this wall that has four trees and is much larger and thriving. So maybe it isn’t a water issue??? Either way, I think that I agree with you that the two larger trees in the picture are dead but maybe somebody has a remedy or will advise waiting to see if the palms will push through this.

It absolutely IS a water issue combined with the amount of sun/reflected heat the trees were receiving. 7 minutes on only 1 bubbler is nowhere near enough water to support 3 trees. 45 minutes to an hour is probably more like it,plus,bubblers tend to plug up with mineral residue over time. Only way to figure out how much water that area is really receiving is to measure it. Put your bubbler into a quart jar and time how long it takes to fill it. Take that time,and times it by 20 to figure out how many minutes you should be running your system to provide 5 gallons to that area. The palms were NOT getting enough water to promote any kind of growth and were just hanging on to life the best they could. 🤷‍♂️ 

 

aztropic 

Mesa, Arizona 

[Tracy]

13 hours ago, shimabra said:

Hello,

I am new to this forum and am seeking advice and assistance with the care of my palm. I live in Southern California and the palm is planted to get around 4-6 hours of direct sunlight. Daily drip irrigation at its base is how it gets obtains fluid. I believe the root cause of the problem is from aggressive pruning, complete accident in retrospect, that occurred over 6 months ago. The two larger stems never recovered from this, while the smallest stem began to show signs of life with a new fond growing in the last few weeks. 
Questions: 

1. Does anybody know what to diagnose my palm with?

2. Any remedies to try and save the palm? Or are the two large stems of the palm dead?

3. What is the name of this particular palm?

4. Could the smallest stems find help provide nutrients to the two larger stems?

Any advice and suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for your time. 
Best,

Brandon

My friend from Arizona has hit the nail on the head with the watering advice.   Welcome to palmtalk.   Since you also mentioned that your initial problem arose 6 months ago, your palms could have been further weakened by winter cold depending on your low temperatures. 

What part of Southern California are you in and what are your low temperatures?  Do you get frost frequently in winter?

Since you mention another planting of King palms (Archontophoenix cunninghamiana) that are surviving in your yard, can you share photos of their condition?  If it was a group of larger palms they may have pulled through whereas your younger and smaller plants would be more susceptible to dying from the combined traumas.  By combined traumas, i refer to the removal of leaves, insufficient water and possible winter temperature stress.  Seeing phoos of the condition of your other palm planting and understanding your climate zone will be helpful in confirming additional steps moving forward with your survivor group planting.

[DoomsDave]

@shimabra nice to meet you!

I concur with @Tracy and in particular re-ask his location question. We don't need the cross-streets, but the general location will be hugely helpful. Venice and San Fernando, for example, are not created equal in palm cultivation.

Also, how big did you want your palms to get? If kings are happy they'll get really tall really fast, like 40 feet in fifteen years if the conditions are good.

If water, size, or both are limitations there's other possible alternatives we can suggest.

And, again, nice to meet you and hope we can help!

[iDesign]

@shimabra - welcome!

Though common, King palms are wonderful landscape additions in many cases. I will defer to the experts on care, but wanted to add a data point about size with Triple Kings.

I have a Triple King myself, and something I noticed is that as it aged, the three trunks (which started out as vertical) started to bow away from each other.... with one of them now threatening to break a glass pane in a nearby fence. Happily it looks like that trunk will *just* clear the fence, but it's very possible that your Triple King would have pushed over your brick wall had it thrived. In other words, it might have needed to be removed either way, and it's going to be easier to do now since it's small.  Perhaps a palm that grows straight up  vertically would be better for that spot? Closely-planted triple palms tend to "bow" out over time.

In the photo above, the combined base is 22" across (trunk edge to trunk edge). That's an 18" ruler in the photo, and the ugly foot that snuck into the photo is women's size 10.

I need to find a way to measure how far the trunks bow out, but it's MUCH further that the 22" base width. Again, mine is threatening to break the glass pane in a fence that I originally thought was sufficiently far away. 

Hopefully this is helpful data for you. If anything, my hope is that it might make you feel better about the loss (since the palm would likely need to be removed either way).  As a FYI, many of us lose or replace palms. What makes us feel better is the idea of replacing it with an even cooler-looking one. If you share your location and/or a photo, you will undoubtedly get some great suggestions here.

[DoomsDave]

Happy kings soar skyward.

Here’s some of my closely related Archontophoenix tuckeri outside my bedroom. They were planted about 15 years ago from like 7 gallon pots.

[shimabra]

13 hours ago, Tracy said:

My friend from Arizona has hit the nail on the head with the watering advice.   Welcome to palmtalk.   Since you also mentioned that your initial problem arose 6 months ago, your palms could have been further weakened by winter cold depending on your low temperatures. 

What part of Southern California are you in and what are your low temperatures?  Do you get frost frequently in winter?

Since you mention another planting of King palms (Archontophoenix cunninghamiana) that are surviving in your yard, can you share photos of their condition?  If it was a group of larger palms they may have pulled through whereas your younger and smaller plants would be more susceptible to dying from the combined traumas.  By combined traumas, i refer to the removal of leaves, insufficient water and possible winter temperature stress.  Seeing phoos of the condition of your other palm planting and understanding your climate zone will be helpful in confirming additional steps moving forward with your survivor group planting.

Hi @Tracy Thank you for your response. I am in Riverside County. This past winter, we experienced lows in the 40’s and a few nights in the upper 30’s. I did not notice any frost this past winter.  I agree with you that the trauma of removing leaves and winter temperatures led to this disaster. I will measure the water from the two microbubblers like @aztropic suggested. As requested, here is a picture of the other four king palms that are planted along the same wall as the three palms in my initial post. Also, these four palms have two microbubblers as well. Thank you for your time and response.

[shimabra]

11 hours ago, DoomsDave said:

Happy kings soar skyward.

Here’s some of my closely related Archontophoenix tuckeri outside my bedroom. They were planted about 15 years ago from like 7 gallon pots.

Absolutely beautiful, @DoomsDave! And thank you for clarifying the genus and species as it helps with my novice learning. These palms on my property were planted prior to me taking ownership of the property. I do really enjoy the look of the palms and am hopeful that it wont exceed 50 feet. Thank you for your time and response.

[shimabra]

11 hours ago, iDesign said:

@shimabra - welcome!

Though common, King palms are wonderful landscape additions in many cases. I will defer to the experts on care, but wanted to add a data point about size with Triple Kings.

I have a Triple King myself, and something I noticed is that as it aged, the three trunks (which started out as vertical) started to bow away from each other.... with one of them now threatening to break a glass pane in a nearby fence. Happily it looks like that trunk will *just* clear the fence, but it's very possible that your Triple King would have pushed over your brick wall had it thrived. In other words, it might have needed to be removed either way, and it's going to be easier to do now since it's small.  Perhaps a palm that grows straight up  vertically would be better for that spot? Closely-planted triple palms tend to "bow" out over time.

In the photo above, the combined base is 22" across (trunk edge to trunk edge). That's an 18" ruler in the photo, and the ugly foot that snuck into the photo is women's size 10.

I need to find a way to measure how far the trunks bow out, but it's MUCH further that the 22" base width. Again, mine is threatening to break the glass pane in a fence that I originally thought was sufficiently far away. 

Hopefully this is helpful data for you. If anything, my hope is that it might make you feel better about the loss (since the palm would likely need to be removed either way).  As a FYI, many of us lose or replace palms. What makes us feel better is the idea of replacing it with an even cooler-looking one. If you share your location and/or a photo, you will undoubtedly get some great suggestions here.

Thank you for the words of encouragement and the don’t sweat it let’s move on and try something better attitude, @iDesign. I value your points that you made and did not think about the bowing of the tree and potentially interfering with the wall. If I were to move forward with a new double or triple king, is there a rule of thumb of how far away to plant them from each other so that they grow straight versus bowing? Thank you for your time and your response.

[iDesign]

1 hour ago, shimabra said:

Thank you for the words of encouragement and the don’t sweat it let’s move on and try something better attitude, @iDesign. I value your points that you made and did not think about the bowing of the tree and potentially interfering with the wall. If I were to move forward with a new double or triple king, is there a rule of thumb of how far away to plant them from each other so that they grow straight versus bowing? Thank you for your time and your response.

Paging @Jim in Los Altos 📞😎

Jim has TONS of mature Kings in the ground, many of which are planted more closely than most would dare... with no ill effects that I'm aware of. Here's one URL showing the tight spots he's gotten them into (Jim's post is third post down) - 

 

The difference in Jim's case though is that he plants his as singles - unlike the doubles, triples or quads sold in big box stores. This allows an attractive "cluster" look, without the bowing that happens when palms are planted in close groupings. If I were to recreate three Kings in that corner today, I would plant them as three single-trunks... because I like the look, but mostly to ensure my glass fence isn't threatened.

The "bowing" effect can also look stunning... it just requires more room (since the trunks usually grow away from each other over time).  It's possible one of the trunks on your quad king grouping that's closest to the wall might need to be removed someday, but depends on how much bowing occurs, and which trunk(s) are affected. Best case scenario would be that the trunk(s) nearest the wall stay straight, and the other trunks are the ones that bend.

But again, I mostly know what my palms have done... and what I'm seeing in the neighborhood (i.e., that most multi-King groupings "bow" over time). Hope that helps! 

[Harry’s Palms]

Yes , the trunks will bow away from each other to allow room for the crowns to grow . It gives an interesting effect . Harry

This was taken last winter. The mulch has been replaced since , covering the feeder roots. Our rain here was about double our average so some wash out occurred. Harry

[DoomsDave]

11 hours ago, shimabra said:

Absolutely beautiful, @DoomsDave! And thank you for clarifying the genus and species as it helps with my novice learning. These palms on my property were planted prior to me taking ownership of the property. I do really enjoy the look of the palms and am hopeful that it wont exceed 50 feet. Thank you for your time and response.

Thank you sir!

Where in Riverside county are you? I ask because climates vary there a lot, which I know having lived in the Inland Empire myself. And, King Palms don't take repeated freezing well.

If your garden is in the city of Riverside on a slope, or in a nearby area, kings have a good chance of surviving well if you water them enough. Sloping areas drain off cold air. If you're in a place like Temecula, Sun Valley, Lake Elsinore, or places in Riverside or nearby cities in "the pit of the valley" they're a lot less likely to do well over the long term because you'll get hammered by the odd cold spell now and again. That's where the cold air tends to sink.

Also, King Palms are Archontophoenix cunninghamiana; mine are A. tuckeri, related but not the same. Kings are better in Riverside because they take the cold a bit better.

If your kings are happy they'll hit 50 feet fast enough. My relatives are almost there already.