I've got this palm as a gift 4 weeks ago, it was beautiful and healthy looking but for the past week I noticed spots on the leaves and dry ends. I water it twice a week. I started just once a week but every other day the palm is dry. There were leaves looking much worse than the ones I'm posting but I cut them off yesterday, so I have no picture of those. Anybody know what's wrong with my plant and how can I take care of it? Thank you! Ivana
Low humidity combined with Chloramine or Fluoride in tap water would be my first guess. Other possibility is root rot, see if you smell a soured odor in the potting mix.
Thanks for replying. There is low humidity here, that's for sure. I spray it everyday with tap water, although I let it stand for 24 hours before I use it. But I guess the fluoride is still in it. So should I use distilled water then? Thanks.
I'd go for rainwater myself. If you can, place the palm outdoors and let the rain wash out any accumulated salts and chemicals. Chloramines don't evaporate. Err...on second thought can you melt some snow for the palm? :-) We're not getting rain either but that's La Nina's fault not freezing weather.
:D ya, I could melt some snow. So should I water it with the snow water and maybe wash the leaves with it as well? I wonder what I should do during the summer. Summers here are very dry, not much rain. Do you think a filtered water from the fridge would help a little?
Water from the fridge should have less Chloramine, don't know about the Fluoride though. Wash/leach the foliage/soil with snow-melt after it's reached room temperature.
Also, spraying the plant does not really raise the humidty for long enough to help. It only opens the leave's stomata, which can't close as fast as the spray water evaporates away from the surface. So spraying a plant in a dry house usually results in a net loss of moisture inside the plant. A moisture loving plant like that would really benefit from a high-quality peat-based mix, and an appropriate pot size that only needs watering once a week. When you are forced to use tap water that is less than ideal, make sure that it runs freely out the bottom every to time (to rinse/leach the chemicals) and to never let it sit directly in a pool of water.
