Tied-Up Palms

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Permalink Reply by Tom Broome on March 7, 2009 at 11:57pm

I have personally installed palms on about 1400 different landscape jobs. I think keeping the leaves tied up for several weeks after installation is a good idea. Usually these larger palms are B & B and have had some sort of root damage and they need a little bit of time to establish. There just isn't as much water being pumped up into that plant than there was before it was dug up and if you install the palm without these leaves being tied up, the lower leaves will almost always hang down sideways, and sometimes the newest leaves will also hang down, pulling away at the apex. Keeping the leaves tied up until the root system gets back into shape will help to keep a fuller looking palm to start out with.
Depending on the species, I feel that keeping the leaves tied up will help hold moisture in the leaves and reduce respiration. There will also be less leaf material facing the sun, which will also help hold in moisture

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Permalink Reply by Paul Rusnak on March 9, 2009 at 10:43am

Good reply, Tom, and welcome to the forum.
Any potential problems with undersides of the fronds being exposed to the hot sun for too long?

Also, is it necessary to keep the palms tied up for several weeks even during the rainy season?

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Permalink Reply by Tom Broome on March 9, 2009 at 1:45pm

It really isn't as much the amount of water being provided in the root area, it is more physics and the ratio between the top and the bottom. Just look at what happens with many good sized oak trees that are planted B&B. I have installed 12 foot tall, 4 inch caliper oaks that were B&B. They went through a long stress period and even when they were out of the woods, they really didn't start kicking in for a few years. In the same month a couple of lots down, I planted some small $1.75 oaks that were grown in deep citrus pots and after 10 years, the smaller oaks had grown to be larger than the huge, more expensive trees. The idea is that until the root system gets to be the same size as it was before it was dug up, it will never support the same size top and will just sit until that root system fills in. Sure, there are special tricks to make the root system grow twice as fast, but you still have this same problem. With these palms, the cut roots just aren't going to pull in as much water as they were doing before the roots were cut and put into a ball. I will admit, that if we had rain every day, that would help support the leaves and reduce a certain amount of desiccation, but the roots will only be able to pull in so much water. Now, if you really want to get technical, you have to look at which species, or at least which genus you are working with, because each palm will vary as to how the root system will grow after being dug up. I know the question didn't include sabal, but once the roots are cut on a sabal, the existing root system will usually die back to the base and entirely new roots have to form before they will start feeding the top. That is why most people hurricane cut their sabals. Bismarkias just about have to be triple root pruned before they should be transplanted and if they aren't, would probably go through a lot of stress, if not death. These other larger growing palms all have their own idiosyncrasies, so an exact answer would depend on which palm we are talking about.

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Permalink Reply by Tom Broome on March 9, 2009 at 1:49pm

Oh yes, most of the time the leaves were more upright growing already and I don't think that there would be much burn exposing the under sides of the leaves a little more than they were already. Most people will cut a few of the leaves off anyway in an attempt to reduce the leaf to root ratio, so any leaves that were originally laying sideways would normally be cut off before shipping.

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