Palm tree question

[javadog]

Paging Baz...

A friend of mine sent me this photo of a sad looking palm tree in his front yard. He lives in Dallas and has raised a variety of different palms for 20 years. This one is looking a little sorry and he’s not sure where to take it. His only ideas were more water and more fertilizer. His soil is some thing called Houston black, which is some sort of horrible black gumbo.

Everything else in this house looks to be in pretty good shape. Any ideas what’s wrong with this thing?

[gchappel]

In Florida there is a disease, called lethal bronzing, that is killing palm trees by the thousands. No cure.
These trees have multiple different diseases and blights. Your friend needs to get a tree guy out to look at it if they really want to know what is going on and find out if it can be saved.
Gary

[stevej37]

Has he had soil-testing done?
The results will give recos for what you want to grow.
Around here..$15 will do it.

[Baz]

Is it newly planted? If so, how long ago was it planted?

This is a Cabbage Palm. They are very common and native to Florida and South Carolina.

Sabal palmetto is the botanical name. South Carolina is known as the Palmetto State, in fact.

FWIW, around here you can get new ones installed for about $150 so push come to shove that's what you're looking at value-wise.

It's normal for palms to lose their lower leaves as they grow - so as long as it's those lower fronds turning brown and dying and the middle fronds (what they call the 'heart') is stil green and pushing out new fronds, things are as they should be.

A soil test isn't a bad idea. Can be arranged by contacting your local county's cooperative extension office. Once that is done get some fertilizer recommendations based on the results.

For palms like that - planted in the middle of the lawn - normally you wouldn't need to add anything - the lawn fertilizer is enough to adequately maintain the palm.

If your friend knows someone in the landscape business (not a lawn mow person - someone who actually plants trees and palms), he could get an opinion from them too. Nothing like being there to look and discuss n person.

HTH...good luck!

[javadog]

I don't know how long it has been there, but it's been many years. He hasn't been doing anything different this year than usual and it hasn't been obnoxiously hot. Everything else is doing fine, it's just this one plant that has issues.

Can you over-water one of these things?

[Baz]

Originally Posted by javadog

Can you over-water one of these things?

Anything can be over-watered, but this species can take a lot of wet soil and still do OK.

[javadog]

Thanks, appreciate the advice.

[Baz]

Originally Posted by javadog

Thanks, appreciate the advice.

Not sure I helped but you're welcome.