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Old 01-27-2009, 11:53 PM
palmbob palmbob is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by STEVE IN SOCAL View Post
I grow a lot of these in my nursery.
My worst experience was too much overhead water one summer, killing about 10% of them from rot. I now only water with drip, about 6 " from the trunk.
I'm in Fallbrook, and we can get hot here. They are susceptible to pythium rot at the base. Treat as a cycad in my opinion. The plants at HBG look crappy all the time, and they get overhead water. The plant in the ground by my pool gets less than two gallons a week(8' overall hieght) and looks great. I think this plant is more drought tolerent than people think.
I agree about the overhead watering totally, though I certainly don't find this genus unique in its intolerance of this habit... in fact, I think nearly all pinnate non-crownshaft palms in California (can't speak for the tropical species that can't grow here) are highly intolerant of overhead watering.. .this includes all Saygrus, Phoenix, Raveneas, Butias, Jubaeas etc... I have rotted dozens of many of these and learned the hard way. Interestingly I have hardly ever rotted any crownshafted palms this way (a few, but not many) or too many fan palms either (except for Braheas).
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