5ft. Windmill palm health

[Bjones]

About 6 weeks ago I purchased and planted 2, 5 foot tall windmill palms.  Everything  seemed to be fine for about 30 days.  One seemed to have issues with what I thought was root rot so I dug it back up and put sand down in the hole and re‐planted it.  All the fronds are dried up and even the new fronds that were growing have dried up also.  I think they are sun burnt.  The other one is starting to react the same way.  I'm not sure if I should move them both or even if they can they survive a move.  I kind of do not know what else to try at this point.

[Harry’s Palms]

Just keep them well watered . They may pull out of whatever is about all I can suggest. Perhaps someone else will have something else to offer. In my experience these are very hardy palms, I’ve not had issues with them . I had a gopher take one out once . Harry

[Bjones]

Will do.  Thank you

[Chester B]

They can take quite a bit of sun and tend to have yellow tips if its hot and arid.  It looks like some real transplant shock and damage to the roots.  When you took them out of the pot did you tease out or try to spread out the roots?

[Bjones]

Probably not as well as I should have.  When I dug the worst looking one up I did tease the roots and re-planted with sand in the bottom of the hole.  My soil is not good on my property.  A lot of clay so my thoughts were not enough filtration.

[NorCalWill]

22 minutes ago, Bjones said:

Probably not as well as I should have.  When I dug the worst looking one up I did tease the roots and re-planted with sand in the bottom of the hole.  My soil is not good on my property.  A lot of clay so my thoughts were not enough filtration.

When planting a palm, leave the roots alone. Just pull it out of the nursery container and stick the root ball into the ground just as it is. Don't try to spread out the roots.

[Bjones]

That is pretty much what I did when I first planted them.  The only root disturbance really was from removing the burlap sack after planting them.  I teased the roots on the one I thought had root rot.  The roots were soaked when I dug it up and it smelled a little like stagnant, rotting water.  Do you think they will come back next year?  Thank you for the response. 

[SeanK]

1 hour ago, Bjones said:

That is pretty much what I did when I first planted them.  The only root disturbance really was from removing the burlap sack after planting them.  I teased the roots on the one I thought had root rot.  The roots were soaked when I dug it up and it smelled a little like stagnant, rotting water.  Do you think they will come back next year?  Thank you for the response. 

Next year? We're still in the front half of the growing season. Hopefully there's recovery by Labor Day.

BTW, were these shade-grown?

[Bjones]

I do not know if they were shade grown, but I am thinking they were.   There is not much shade on my property and they seem as though they are sun burnt.  I was hoping they would adapt to their new environment.  I am not sure if they could survive another move in their current condition.

[PalmatierMeg]

If you can't move them, attach shade cloth to a wooden frame you build, then install it above the palm so it is not baked by the sun. Summer sun in SC is brutal. You can buy bulk shade cloth by the yard at your local Big Box. Get the highest % of shade you can find (I use 90% in SWFL). Definitely water it generously.

I can't grow Trachycarpus but I get fussed at a lot over why, at least from NFL and north. My "perceptions" are that Trachies prefer cooler climates and loathe SE summer swelter which SC definitely has. They want nighttime cooldowns after long, hot, humid days. Where I live that swelter lasts at least 6-7 months of the year. Nematodes love them. They really hate my alkaline, calcareous, shell rock dreck soil.  When I was a new Yankee transplant and palm ignoratus back ca. 1994 I bought a "windmill" palm under the mistaken belief it was a Coccothrinax (ditch common names). It didn't make it and died a miserable death.

 

[SeanK]

3 hours ago, PalmatierMeg said:

If you can't move them, attach shade cloth to a wooden frame you build, then install it above the palm so it is not baked by the sun. Summer sun in SC is brutal. You can buy bulk shade cloth by the yard at your local Big Box. Get the highest % of shade you can find (I use 90% in SWFL). Definitely water it generously.

I can't grow Trachycarpus but I get fussed at a lot over why, at least from NFL and north. My "perceptions" are that Trachies prefer cooler climates and loathe SE summer swelter which SC definitely has. They want nighttime cooldowns after long, hot, humid days. Where I live that swelter lasts at least 6-7 months of the year. Nematodes love them. They really hate my alkaline, calcareous, shell rock dreck soil.  When I was a new Yankee transplant and palm ignoratus back ca. 1994 I bought a "windmill" palm under the mistaken belief it was a Coccothrinax (ditch common names). It didn't make it and died a miserable death.

 

Only genus I've not seen burn going from shade to sun is Sabal. 

[Harry’s Palms]

I have mine in full sun on a south facing slope . It was planted as a small 1 gallon plant and it would get a bit fried at first but quickly hardened up. It still gets a bit of yellow on the tips and would probably look much better with some shade . We do not have the humidity that South Carolina has so not a fair comparison . I think if those palms survive whatever happened to them they will eventually handle a fair amount of sun. The shade cloth idea is a good one and would help by not allowing a struggling palm to get heat stressed. Harryfull sun grown here in SoCal . You can see the slight yellowing on the leaf tips.

[Bjones]

I'm not sure the HOA will permit me to build something for shade in my front yard.  I am thinking i will have to move them.  I am just not sure they will survive a move and not sure they will survive where they currently are.

[PalmatierMeg]

13 hours ago, Bjones said:

I'm not sure the HOA will permit me to build something for shade in my front yard.  I am thinking i will have to move them.  I am just not sure they will survive a move and not sure they will survive where they currently are.

I also think all the rocks, even white rocks, adds to the broiling effect. If you move them place them in turf, remove all grass/weeds in a 2-3’ circle around the trunk and lay 2-3” of shredded or chipped wood mulch to conserve moisture and stifle weeds. A pox on all HOAs. In my area of Cape Coral we may have Code Enforcement but we don’t have a pencil-necked HOA.

[NorCalWill]

On 6/14/2024 at 4:42 PM, Bjones said:

I'm not sure the HOA will permit me to build something for shade in my front yard.  I am thinking i will have to move them.  I am just not sure they will survive a move and not sure they will survive where they currently are.

If you only planted them 6 weeks ago, digging them up and moving them likely won't be detrimental, and may actually help them. I once moved a Trachycarpus that was in the ground for over 6 years and it was totally fine. Maybe you should put it back in a container and move it somewhere else in your yard until it recovers.

[Merlyn]

If the bottom of the pot and lower roots smelled kinda rotten-garbage, then a soil drench fungicide might be a good idea.  I had that with a European Fan (Chamaerops Humilis) that I planted from a box store.  It had been overwatered daily for who knows how long, and the bottom of the pot was full of black rotten roots.  I did *not* fungicide drench that palm at the time, and about 15 months later I had to transplant it due to a new septic drainfield install.  The palm had sent out some sideways roots, but the bottom was basically the same with black rotten mush and no fresh roots growing through it.  When I replanted it I drenched it with Banrot, but other fungicides like Aliette or Fosetyl-Al are fairly cheap and effective on root rots.

[Bjones]

Thanks for the information.  The roots when I dug it up were not soggy or black.  It was just the smell I noticed.  There was some small patches of black stuff on the fronds so I sprayed them down with a copper fungicide but did not do anything more for the root system.  The root ball was really wet considering I was only watering it about every 2-3 days.  That is when I gently removed the smelly stuff and re-planted with better filtration.