Question
QUESTION: Nick,

I have two majesty palms, a travelers palm, a king and a king kong palm.  I fertilize every other month about 1/2 cup.  I read that all of these generally need lots of water.  I have my planter sprinklers set to 3 times a week 6 minutes each time and twice a week on the off days i water with a hose manually.  Is this sufficient?  The only one i have worries with is the king palm (3 trunk).  The leaves are not as brilliant green as originally (or when new fronds appear) and the fronds droop a bit as opposed to some king palms i've seen where the fronds are very upright.

ANSWER: Hi Han, I need to know how old these palms are, and when they were planted; this will determine the amount of irrigation they require, and fertilizing. You must be careful with palms that you don't set into motion root rot from them sitting in water that doesn't drain off. Nick

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QUESTION: Nick,  all the palms were planted about 2 months ago with miracle gro palm soil that is supposed to drain well.  The holes were twice as wide as the 15g pot they came in when we put them in the ground.  All our palms are sprouting new fronds including the king which has two new ones opening up.  The "older" fronds are just not "perky" and a little higher than horizontal to the ground along with not being a vibrate green like when the new fronds come out.  Is this normal or should they be standing pretty straight up? Thanks!

ANSWER: Hi Han, one of the problems right off is using the soil to augment your existing soil; what happens is the roots will thrive in the miracle grow soil, but as soon as they reach the indigenous soil they stop, and then begin a circular growth pattern in order to stay in the richer, more favorable soil; this is a bad situation, for the roots need to spread evenly out away from the main plant, so as to establish a well balanced system that will hold the ground when windy weather strikes, and it also enables the roots to receive nutrients in a much more efficient manner. If you filled that hole with the miracle grow, then what you have is a root ball that is still primarily in that hole. The effects of this situation usually manifests itself in about a year or so, this is where the detriments show and the palm begins to decline from the abhorrent planting technique. I need to know also if your planted them at the same level as they were in the container. Nick

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QUESTION: Hi Nick,

Yes I did plant them so that the hold was the same depth as the container height was.  I dug the hole a little bit deeper and at the bottom put in  a mixture of cow manure and compost.

Also, I was under the impression that the way i was planting them was proper technique.  If not, Can you advise as to the proper technique to plant palms and banana trees?  Thanks!

Answer
Ok, so you just augmented the bottom of the hole with compost, ah, thats fine, I thaught you filled the hole with it and placed the root ball into that; ok then we are back to the irrigation technique, I think with the compost and manure under the rootball, the water isn't draining off properly, and sitting in the rootball, back off the watering a little, and when you do water, try to water about a foot from the flare, (where the trunk meets the soil line), this way the water will seep by most of the retaining mixture yet the roots will still be able to utilize it. Water about every third day with hose using this method, again trying to keep the seepage of water outside the perimeter of the bottom layer of retaining medium. Nick