Phoenix Roebelenii

Dear Dave,

We just purchased 4 Roebelenii's from Home Depot last weekend and put them in the ground. Following all instructions on digging the whole, adding a starter and mixing Miracle Grow Tree and Shrub garden mix to it. They looked beautiful. One week later, no freeze just cooler weather, lots of sun, ALL the leaves are browning & the tips of every leaf is splitting. What does this mean? Too much water? Not enough water? too much fertilizer? wind burn? We have NO IDEA.... Please help.

Sincerely, Lost

That looks like lack of water. SHould water a new planting like that daily. Next time, don't recommend putting all that stuff in hole with the palm- best to use the original soil you took out of the ground to begin with.

Most of these mass-grown P roebelliniis are grown in filtered sun/greenhouses, so often get sunburned when planted out... but this species will usually handle such sunburning fine with minimal damage other than a bit of browning of leaflets and leaf necrosis.

We watered these tree's everyday twice a day for the first week and this is what they are doing now. I stuck a meter in the ground approx. 1 foot down and it said it was very moist on all 4. These P Roebelliniis are approximately 5 feet tall plus the fronds stand another 3 feet, very large tree's. We planted 1 triple, 2-doubles and a single. All of them look exactly alike with the leaves spliting at the bottom and browning. This is why I am so lost on the watering thing. The ground is moist.

this is a long shot, but did you have any really windy weather after you transplanted? It may be that the wind really dried the leaves out. I have never seen leaves split like that.
Too much fertilizer will brown the tips of leaves, but I have never seen splitting as a sign of chemical burn.
When my Phoenix roebellinii dries out, the leaves sort of shrivel up, but never split.
The browning of the leaves were probably caused by sunburn.
I agree with palmbob that you should have waited on the fert when you planted, but its done, and I would just water as needed if you put a slow release or quick release (for that matter) in the soil, because when you water you release fert into the ground. But don't let them dry out either-its a judgement call-cause they don;t need more stress right now.
They are obviously in shock, but there is not much you can do, except moniter the watering, and as the leaves die, cut them off when they are more brown than green. Hope this helps, good luck, its a great palm, one of my favorites-they are so graceful and small.

Still could be lack of water... not necessarily lack of watering. When you plop a new palm in the ground, and then add porous soil, and then water, all the water goes to the porous soil. this is particularly true if the palm you planted was rootbound. Water goes where it wants, and it would much rather go into the surrounding soil than try to work it's way into a mass of rootbound soil. This is why when you do plant palms, it is best to plant them in a hole just barely big enough to fit the root ball back in, and fill in the rest with the same soil you dug out of the hole. Then it's effectively more like you are putting the palm back in a pot, and the water will have no where to go to but the palm roots and surrounding soil.. and in that situation, palm roots might be more readilbly wet than in a hole full of newly amended soil. I used to make to make this error a lot... and still do occasionally for some strange reason. And I lost a LOT of palms to dehydration that way, even though I felt I did a pretty good job of watering. Best way to water a palm in your situation, now that's in planted that way, is to leave the hose on slow drip right against the trunk and leave it on for a few hours at a time every day. Then you are more likely to have the water seep into where the roots are.

But either way, your palms will probably be fine in the long run- you will just lose some leaf tips and perhaps the lower leaves. P roebelliniis can tolerate a huge amount of abuse.

Hi there, I was passing thru after becoming a member and saw your post about PRoebelinii. I'll bet you never saw one like this? there are several dozen around the presidential palace In Guatamale city. People have come from around the world, trying to tissue culture, get the seeds and these are the only ones like them in the world that have this kind of mutiplication of trunks, seen a few doubles. Disney told me to name my price LOL. better try to rob the bank! have a good one

I wonder if there's a way to force something like that by slicing the meristem in half with a really sharp knife..

Actually multiheaded Phoenix roebelleniis are not uncommon. There is one just down the street from me in Los Angeles here at an El Pollo Loco with about 12 heads on it- the branches are only a few feet long and there are so many heads it just looks like a mess, but I have squeezed in there and counted them. I know of many palm gardens around southern California with multiheaded Pigmy Date palms.. some have multiheaded, branching Phoenix of other species, too (P dactylifera and reclinata for example). See the plant files under Phoenix roebellenii for more multiheaded pigmy date palms. There is a photo in the plant files of a multiheaded Chinese fan palm, too. Palms do weird things sometimes.

If you could supply a couple of nurseries anywhere that would have20 simular to the photo I posted, I really would appreciate it. 4-5 ct with 10 or more trunks with 2-3-4 foot of CT Id like some for my collection and donate 1 to Leu Botanical gardens here in Orlando. Thanks. Rannn