Palm Tree Maintenance

Here at Groundworks Texas and our Texas American Tree Farm (TATF) we are now placing tags on all of the palms leaving the farm. These tags tell clients and others that the palm was produced in the heavy clay-like soils at TATF and that it is bred to be Texas Tough. They also have a QR Code that when scanned brings up the information below. The idea is to promote Groundworks and its Texas Tough inventory but it is also designed to insure that clients have the right maintenance information to work with. It seems that there is a virtual plethora off different ideas out there about what constitutes proper care for palm trees. That's fine but there are so many voices and it is very hard to discern who actually knows what they are talking about from those that are just, well, talking about.

It made sense to me that we provide our friends, clients and where it is helpful, our competition with some reliable, tried & true, recommendations and that is what is found when the QR code on our Texas Tough tags is scanned. As you will see, there is also some rather shameless promotion of our business there as well and for that I seek your understanding; after all, I am a guy who sells palm trees. GPN

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COLD HARDY PALM TREES – Where to get exceptional quality and how to take care of the palms once you have them.

Thank you for scanning the link on this palm’s tag. This palm was produced at Texas American Tree Farm (TATF) where we produce cold hardy palms on 230 acres in Alvin Texas. TATF is a division of Groundworks Texas and along with our TATF produced inventory, Groundworks also stocks large quantities of Specimen Medjool and Canary Island Dates along with fully mature Mediterranean fans and other varieties of Specimen palms at our Alvin Texas nurturing grounds. We regularly deliver our palms to landscape contractors, builders and others in Texas, Louisiana and the other southern states.

All of our TATF produced palms are sold with a 6 month warranty; so long as the loss isn’t a product of gross negligence or weather, we will provide no charge replacement palms for any that die during the term of the warranty. No nonsense, no excuses and no whining or crying. In fact, our TATF inventory is really hard to kill so we do not have any complicated limitations in our warranty and in truth, if a customer can find a way to kill TATF inventory, we really want to know how they did it. We have done some pretty intensive field tests exposing our TATF inventory to poor planting, a lack of maintenance and many forms of outright abuse and other then the potential to develop a disease if no disease prevention applications are ever done, we haven’t been able to outright kill anything produced on the farm.

This isn’t just because our quality coming off the farm is truly exceptional, it most certainly is but it’s also because our TATF palms are produced in dense, heavy clay like soils and are naturally suited for use in dense heavy clay like soils. Our palms will (of course) also thrive in sandy well drained soils but if your site is clay or muck or something similar, planting TATF inventory is akin to sending the palms back home and back out into the fields where they were born & raised. There is little if any difference between your clay & ours and TATF palms are native to it so it is not a factor influencing performance. No other Palm producer can make this claim with any degree of honesty; that is because 95% of all the other palms sold in Texas are grown in sandy or sandy loam soils. When those root balls are planted into thick clay or muck, special precautions must be taken, special procedures must be employed and root damage because of standing water in the root zone is a literally constant concern from day 1 and beyond. Not so with TATF inventory; when planting TATF palms there is no need for special precautions, no need for special planting procedures and no risk of standing water in the rooting zone. Your guys dig, plant, backfill then leave and so long as they got the air pockets out, the palms will perform very well.

We have close to 65,000 gorgeous palms on the property consisting of 12 varieties of cold hardy inventory and I am not exaggerating when I say that the inventory is truly exceptional in every way. If you need palms that are gorgeous, simple to use, and that can be planted into heavy soils with absolute confidence please call us at (800) 753 5127 or send an email to [email protected]. Try this inventory once; your job will look better, your customers will be happier, your profit margins will be greater and you will never want to see a sandy root ball again. 

Ok, that’s enough about the farm; now let’s talk about taking care of this palm;

Palm care instructions

1.      When do you untie the tops? - The tops are tied to mitigate the risk of environmental damage to the spear leafs (baby fronds in the very center of the canopy) during the initial re-rooting phase. The primary support vehicle for any frond is water pressure that develops and is naturally maintained within in the trunk/conductive tissue. To a lesser extent the tensile strength of the rachis’s (frond spines) also lends a hand but young fronds have little or no tensile strength yet and keeping them from harm is very important to a successful transplant. What is happening? As a rule, the primary roots we cut to transplant the palm will become non-functional (no water in etc) and until new roots have emerged and begun development there is little or no means of induction for fresh H2O. Water is still being used by the palm and water is still being shed via natural transpiration (Akin to sweating – palms do it constantly) but no new water is coming in. Not good but not the end of the world either. One net result is a slow but sure diminishment of water pressure within the sealed vessel of the conductive system which progressively renders the spear leafs increasingly susceptible to environmental damage. Damage to the spear leafs can lead to damage to the meristem which can lead to the loss of the palm. Not good at all . Knowing all of this we tie mature fronds that possess substantial tensile strength around the spear leafs to protect them until water pressure can be re-established by newly emerging roots. As soon as those little baby roots poke their heads into the soil they begin taking in moisture and reestablishing the pressure within the system. Ok, what does all of that mean to you today? Not a whole lot but it is worth knowing & understanding if you plant palms. Simply put and as a good rule of thumb, palms installed between Feb 1 and October 30 can be opened three weeks after planting and palms installed between November 1 and January 31 can be opened 5 weeks after planting. ** It is 100% normal to see the loss of the outer fronds during this period; No worries; just cut them off when you open the tops but DO NOT forget to come back and open the tops. Leaving them tied too long will cause damage to growing (or trying to anyway) spear leafs and that is Not Good.  

2.      Irrigation - The rule of thumb with TATF palms is this; if planting into heavy clay or muck - Irrigate three (3) times per week during the first 45 days on site and two (2) times per week thereafter. If planting in a sandy well drained soil condition – Irrigate the palm five (5) times per week during the first 45 days and three (3) times per week thereafter. I really can’t tell you exactly how many gallons to use but the goal is to wet the root ball so give them a good soaking.  

3.      Fertilizer – This palm was raised on a granular 8-2-12 with minor elements that is 50% slow release. We have it blended for our use and if you want to use the same fertilizer our palms are produced with please ask a Groundworks rep and we will hook you up. Otherwise, when you are buying fertilizer our recommendation is that you contact the Site One store (previously John Deere Landscapes) in your area and tell them that you need a palm blend. You are welcome to reference the mix we use (granular 8-2-12 with minor elements, 50% slow release) but don’t forget the part about minor elements, that is important. For optimum growth, fertilize using a granular 4 times per year in late March, late June, early October and at the end of December. You can reduce this to twice or three times per year if you like but to maintain an optimal nutritional profile and so achieve optimum growth, 4 times each year is the rule of thumb. By the way, liquid feeds are generally not worth doing where palms are concerned. Palms need the ability to continuously feed but liquids are “here today and gone tomorrow” type food sources. The liquid mix may be a really good one but if it only lasts in the soil for a short time (no liquids last very long) then for the rest of the time between fertilizations the palm can become deficient and that is not a good thing. Granular fertilizers will last substantially longer in the soil providing a balanced feed for a much longer period of time. Palms don’t get obese so eating continuously is always a good thing which is why we only recommend granulars. How much fertilizer should I use on each palm? Assuming you got yourself a granular that is somewhat close to what we use, and to avoid playing 50 questions about size, age and variety, I rely on the fact that our palms aren’t sensitive. Getting too technical rarely delivers any tangible benefits so when I tell you that a good rule of thumb is to use approximately 3 pounds per palm per application you can believe that it is going to serve the needs of the palm just fine. The other rule of thumb: For palm(s) in the ground for less than 2 years, scatter your fertilizer no closer than 4” but no further away than 18” from the trunk. For palms in the ground for 2+ years, scatter your fertilizer no closer than 6” but no further away than 24” from the trunk. In either case scatter it all the way around the base.

4.      Disease risk mitigation – This palm has a low grade susceptibility to certain disease causing pathogens. Optimum care calls for you to have the palm(s) sprayed and root/soil drenched three (3) times per year during late March, late August and early December using a combination of Subdue Maxx and Junction fungicides. Both are available from Site One. You are required to carefully read and closely follow all of the label instructions for both of these products. You will find that Subdue Maxx is quite expensive; it is the one we recommend because it is very reliable against the biggest potential problem the palm could face (Phytophthora) and you only use a very small amount at each application. As I said, you must read and follow all label instructions and we are not meaning to encourage you to do anything other than that but relating our experiences; we have found that 1 teaspoon of Subdue Maxx and ? ounce of Junction in 5 gallons of water did a good job at disease risk mitigation. 

5.      Trimming – There are differences of opinion on this issue; The University guys say that you should never cut off any frond that isn’t completely dead. I do not necessarily agree with that but that is their positon. In my experience and practice, when a frond is more than ? dead, it comes off. Bear in mind that browning lower fronds are usually part of the natural growth process but they can also be indicative of a developing disease or nutritional issue. Disease recognition can be complicated and I am not going to try to write the book on this here so I will instead ask that you email in photos if one of your TATF palms is acting weird. You can send those photos to [email protected] and make sure to include your name and contact phone number. We will review the pictures, usually ask a few questions and then give you our best guess as to what is going on.

6.      Site / Material Expert inspections & reports - If you need an expert to visit your site, you will need to call the office to book that visit. It is somewhat costly to have someone like me come to your site but if you bite the bullet and pay the cost, you will get totally reliable answers and I usually look at everything on site and not just the palms. We prepare a report that explains our findings and that makes site specific corrective and continuing care recommendations. Melissa and I are the only people here who can do one of these inspections and because we fit them into everything else and cover a multi-state region, it isn’t cheap to get one of us there but I believe you will decide after the fact that you received real value for the money. 

That’s the whole story; if you follow these recommendations your TATF palms should always look excellent and will most likely outlive all of us. If you are scanning the tag on this palm then you are probably already a customer and we want you to know that we truly appreciate you. Groundwork’s sells living things but we cannot live without you and we never, ever forget that.

If you need us we are easy to find. You can call our offices at (800) 753 5127 or shoot us an email regarding anything other than a sick palm to [email protected]. Emails regarding sick palms should be sent to [email protected]. We do not respond to emails that do not include the customers full name and contact number so please don’t forget to include them.  

Best wishes and happy Planting!

George P. Nottingham, President, Groundworks Texas! and Groundworks of Palm beach County Inc.

Palm Tree maintenance