Poorly Palm

Hi,

I am a total novice and am trying to find out what's wrong with this palm and what we can do to make it better. We don't even know what kind it is either. Please can someone help? We have 3 of them and they all look pretty much like this straggley with lots of brown bits.

Thanks, Lindesay

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Reply to
lindesay
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From the photos, it appears these are indoors. Few palms do well as houseplants.

Reply to
David E. Ross

I'm guessing this is indoors. The first thing I'd do is to unpot the palms and wash all the soil off the roots, and repot in fresh soil in a clean pot just barely big enough to contain the root ball. When the plant starts growing again, you can repot into a larger pot. These plants look severely water stressed to me.

See all that white stuff on the pot? Those are soil minerals, minerals from the water, and fertilizer salts. They're acting just like a saline soil, and even though you're watering the plants, they can't pick up enough soil moisture because all the mineral salts are hogging the water. (Look up osmotic pressure in a beginning biology textbook). I think that's most of what is wrong here.

Whenever you start to see white or light beige crusts on soil or the pot, it's time to repot into a clean pot with fresh soil or flood-irrigate the pots until you've washed out the excess mineral content; that takes a *lot* of water.

Old clay pots can be cleaned up for reuse by scrubbing them with a stiff bristle brush, and rinsing in copious amounts of clean water. Disinfect by soaking the pot in weak sodium hypochlorite solution (chlorine bleach) for several hours, then rinsing well again and drying till no trace of chlorine smell remains.

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Reply to
Kay Lancaster

Kay, will that work on clay sewer pipe? I have several of those around the garden, sort of as objets d''art. Some have acquired a lot of white crusts on the part that has been in the ground. They don't need to be disinfected, since they won't be housing any plants. So just scrubbing might do it?

(Why am I making work for myself...)

HB

Reply to
Higgs Boson

Thanks a lot for all the info and suggestions, Kay. I'll pass this on to my boss and see what he wants to do, though of course it'll be me actually *doing* all the work!

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Reply to
lindesay

remains.http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/1994/3-16-1994/clean.html>> Kay, will that work on clay sewer pipe? I have several of those

Yup. With something as thick as sewer pipe, don't be afraid to get in there with some steel wool.

Because it feels so good when you stop?

Kay

Reply to
Kay Lancaster

PS: have you considered coating them with paraffin (the wax, not British for gasoline) once they're clean. If they are not going to house plants, then if you stop the wicking, you stop the crusts growing. Or you could raise them on glazed pot feet or the like.

Reply to
Kay Lancaster

Kewl idea! Will follow up when/if I ever get the time to remove the white crud. Thanks for new info.

HB

Reply to
Higgs Boson

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