Hi there - I love palms. But I struggle to keep them healthy. See attached pic. All my palms seem to go this way. :-( I dont think this palm has been overwatered - I barely water it once a week (or less) and it has sandy soil with rocks and holes in bottom of pot for ample drainage. So if I am overwatering it, then I am amazed. I think there is something else wrong with it. Is it not getting enough sun? can't too much sun burn palms? I have kept this palm in bright shade. Has it been too cold? I live in Los Angeles and the nights have been low 50's for the past month. I also have added palm food to the soil in the pot, to help it, but honestly that didn't seem to do a darn thing. what steps can I take to make this guy healthy again???
Some palms can be a struggle to keep healthy indoors for some people like the Majestic palm and I'm sure others. I'm not sure which palm you have. I have a very large Areca palm and bunch of 3' parlor palms in a large pot that do well for me. Palms in general do well with bright indirect light, direct hot sun can burn the fronds, so dapple sun and bright indirect light should be fine. They also like semi moist soil at all times, never dried out all the way. Make sure when you water you get the whole top of the spoil wet and let it flow out the drain holes, then empty the tray once it stops after about ten minutes. When the top couple inches feel close to dry, it might be time to water. I water usually once a week (deep watering) so I know the whole root-ball will get wet.Also make sure the soil has good drainage because they don't like to be soggy wet all the time. You also don't want to fertilize a sick plant, that only works when the plant is growing & healthy. Too much fertilzer can burn the roots first, then the plant. You may want to check for pest like spidermites and webs, unfortunately, they like palms too, although I have not had that problem!
Thank you so much for your input. One comment - this is an outdoor palm. It has always been outdoors - I hope that is Ok for it. Regarding your other comments, I have increased the watering to this palm and have assured there is excellent drainage. But for sun, I can only offer it two of the following options: 1) no direct sun at all, but bright indirect light (within the shadow of the garage.) 2) mostly indirect bright light, with about 1-2 hours of direct sun each day. which do you think would be better? I will add that when I sent this post the palm was in position #1, and it wasnt doing to well as you can see from the pics. Of course, this might have been from the underwatering. Thanks again for you wisdom on this one! Tom
