If palm trees are pruned properly and planted in an appropriate container, they can be preserved to a manageable size. The plant can be kept at a manageable size by cutting some of the outer leaves and training the remaining ones to grow in only two parallel rows. The palm’s development rate can be slowed by planting it in a container that is too small for its root system.
You should opt for clumping types of palms if you want a little palm for indoors or outdoors. For example, golden cane palms produce many trunks that can be cut back to prevent them from becoming too tall. If you let the shorter, healthier stems remain, your plant will thrive.
Singly-stemmed palm trees should not have their trunks pruned. The palm will die if you cut off its leaves and its growing tip at the top. In order to thrive, single-stemmed palms must maintain this growth node and a dense canopy of healthy leaves.
In this essay, we’ll discuss several simple techniques for preventing palm trees from being too tall. The techniques discussed here can be used to control the size of palm trees both indoors and out.
How To Make Palm Trees Grow Taller
Read on for some tried-and-true techniques for keeping palms from getting too tall. This advice is simple to implement and won’t cause any harm to your palm.
Limit The Size Of Palm Pots
The root ball of your palm tree should be the same size as the pot you use. Palms should be kept in the original container for as long as possible, and only moved to a bigger pot once the original container is completely full.
A smaller palm can be maintained by restricting the palm’s root development. Despite the fact they will have to be replaced at some point, they can survive for another two to three years if kept in the same container. Make sure they are getting plenty of water and food to sustain their health.
Plant food for houseplants or a fertiliser made especially for palms should be used to sustain those that live indoors. Fertilizing palm trees outdoors once a year with pelletized chicken manure is sufficient. If you want a beautiful palm tree, all you need is a little attention and a lot of water in the summer.
Remove Any Extra Palm Leaves
Palms can be kept at a manageable size with careful trimming. Limiting the quantity of light the palm absorbs and converts into carbs for height gain is accomplished by selectively removing leaves.
First, remove any yellowed or brown leaves from the ground up. These are often the oldest leaves on the palm tree, located near the trunk. Palm trees only need two or three rows of leaves and can be trimmed back safely. Don’t take off more than a third of the canopy without leaving at least a few healthy leaves on the plant.
Removing an excessive number of leaves might stunt the palm’s growth, if not cause its death. Take it easy at first and only pick off one or two leaves. Every few weeks, cut off one leaf.
Be sure to not take more leaves from the palm in a year than it can replace. It can take up to six months or more for many indoor palms, notably parlour palms, to produce new leaves.
Keep Palm Trees Indoors
Smaller palms can be maintained by growing them in a controlled environment. Several palm species thrive in artificial environments. Since there is less light inside, their development will slow. Put them somewhere bright, but not directly in the midday sun.
Remove Clustered Palm Stems
Palm trees that are growing too closely together can have their surplus stems pruned. In response to stem removal, these palms can send forth new shoots from their rhizome. The golden cane palm is a personal favourite. These palms produce numerous trunk suckers, which can be pruned regularly to maintain a manageable size.
Why Should A Palm Tree Be Prevented From Growing Tall?
There are many that plant palm trees just for their aesthetic value and have no practical use for the massive trees that they produce. When kept inside, a palm tree does not need to be allowed to reach excessive heights.
The palm tree could become a nuisance if allowed to reach its full potential and start invading people’s personal space. People who have palm trees in their yards often hear complaints from their neighbours about the fronds blowing around or the fruit dropping onto their lawns and gardens.
A palm tree’s ability to grow tall and strong depends on the same energy that allows it to bear fruit. Limiting the tree’s height ensures that the plant’s energy is directed towards fruit production, which is beneficial if you’re hoping for an abundance of fruit.
A Guide On Caring For Your Palm Tree
Whether you’re just thinking about buying a palm tree or have already carried that lush green beauty home and planted it, you may be wondering what it takes to keep your palm healthy and looking beautiful, and how challenging this task would be.
Provided they are grown under ideal conditions, palm trees are among the most resilient and low-maintenance trees anyone can own. The best part is that palm trees are easy to grow and maintain even if you aren’t a professional gardener. In fact, if you’re a rookie gardener or think you’ll kill everything you touch, this is the ideal tree for you. Learn how to easily incorporate palm palms into your garden with these simple instructions.
With minimal maintenance, your palms will grow over many years, adding tropical beauty to your yard. Following are some of the fundamentals of palm tree maintenance that will ensure your tree remains a healthy and beautiful addition to your home garden.
Basic Water Requirements
After they have become established, most palm trees can survive with minimal or no irrigation for extended periods of time. Most palms, however, thrive in consistently moist conditions and tend to decline in permanently saturated soils.
Watering Young Palm Trees
The water requirements of palm trees are highest when they are first planted. The area should be watered well, making sure the palm’s root ball is soaked, right after planting. For the initial few weeks, and especially if it’s hot and dry where you are, you should keep up the deep irrigation 3 to 4 times per week.
The plant’s root system will benefit from the consistent watering while it establishes itself in its new environment. When water is applied deeply, the root system expands horizontally rather than vertically, as is the case with shallow watering. This results in a palm that is more firmly rooted in its environment.
Irrigating through the First Growing Season
The palm tree has now become well-established in its new location after about three to four months of development. A year into its development, the palm tree’s root ball is fully formed.
After the initial three to four weeks, you can cut back watering to once or twice a week, depending on the climate in your area. Irrigating the palm regularly during this establishment phase helps it put its best growth on display. If you forget to water your palms one day, don’t worry about killing them. Palms are drought-resistant and can survive without much water for extended periods of time.
Watering Mature Palms
One year after planting, the palm tree has settled in and become a permanent fixture in its new environment. Since most palm trees can survive in dry conditions, they require less watering. However, as with most trees and plants the palm produces its best and most healthy development when it is regularly watered.
After a plant is well-established, you can reduce the frequency of watering to once per week. Until the rain stops, you can skip watering when the weather is wet. However, if your climate is particularly hot and dry, a deep watering of the palm tree won’t hurt.
Once again, knowing the preferences of your specific palm tree is important because of the role that drought tolerance plays. In our detailed guides, we cover everything from where to plant palms to how much water they need and how they’ll fare in a drought.
Some palm trees are able to survive and even grow in dry conditions because they can use the water that naturally occurs in the soil. If you forget to water them regularly, they won’t respond negatively in terms of appearance or development. However, consistent watering results in the healthiest and most rapid expansion.
Since palm trees fall dormant in the winter, they need far less water than they would during the growing period. You can cut back to every 3 to 4 weeks instead of every week.
Watering Container Palms
Potted palm plants will need more waterings each week than their ground-grown counterparts. Both the plant’s container and the local climate will determine how often watering is required. If your palm outgrows its current container, transplant it into a larger one using these guidelines.
Your palm tree will need more regular waterings if it is housed in a porous, unglazed container rather than a more impermeable plastic one. In addition, if the weather outside is particularly dry and hot, the soil inside the pot will dry out more quickly, necessitating more regular watering of the palm.
If you put the finger into the soil mix, you can get a decent idea of whether or not the palm needs watering. If the upper three to four inches feel dry, water them. Keep watering until it runs out the bottom drainage holes.
Because the palm becomes dormant in the winter and grows more slowly, you can reduce the frequency of its watering to once a week or two during this time.
Mulch
A layer of organic mulch, about 2 to 3 inches thick, spread over the planting area helps the soil retain moisture, which in turn keeps the palm tree’s root system cooler and reduces the likelihood of weeds and grasses growing there. It’s useful for wintertime root insulation and warmth preservation.
You may use any kind of organic mulch you like, and it just needs to be spread out there. Keep the mulch at least a few inches away from the trunk to reduce the risk of illness.
Mulch around the base of the palm tree helps protect it from being damaged by lawnmowers, as does maintaining a planting area which is at least 2 – 3 feet in diameter. When the palm tree’s trunk is broken, it becomes susceptible to pests and diseases.
Basic Fertilizer Requirements
Like other plants and trees, palm trees thrive when they are fed on a regular basis; this is especially true for the more demanding species. Regular feeding also helps prevent the kinds of problems that can occur when plants are deprived of certain nutrients.
An abundance of caution is like a pound of treatment, as the old adage goes. Preventing an issue before it ever becomes a possibility is preferable.
Even if your palm tree isn’t a huge feeder, it still benefits from frequent application of a high-quality fertiliser designed for palm trees.
When Should You Fertilize?
Applying fertiliser to palm trees for the first time in the spring, around April is optimal. After that, you can evenly space out three or four more applications across the growing season and into early October.
Both Green Saw Palmetto as well as the Silver Saw Palmetto are really not heavy feeders, so a single application of fertiliser throughout the growing season is all they need. They won’t punish you with stunted development if you accidentally over-fertilize them, though.
Fertilizing the palm tree very late in the growing season or right before winter might cause it to produce fragile new growth that will be killed by the cold weather. You should stop giving your palm tree water in early fall, around September or October, and wait until spring before giving it any more.
Conclusion
If palms aren’t kept pruned and planted in the right container, they can become unmanageably tall. To keep them flourishing, indoor palms should be fed either general-purpose plant food or fertiliser formulated specifically for palms. Once a year, outdoor palm trees need only be fertilised with pelletized chicken manure. Careful trimming can keep palms at a manageable size. When palm trees are grown in a glasshouse, their size can be controlled.
New leaves may not appear for up to six months after pruning many indoor palms, especially parlour palms. The tropical beauty of palm trees can be yours with little effort over many years. Initial irrigation of a palm tree requires the most water. Most palms do poorly in permanently saturated soils but thrive in consistently moist environments. Palm trees are some of the hardiest and most low-maintenance plants you can own.
Palm trees can withstand dry conditions for long periods of time. The plants’ appearance and growth will not suffer if you forget to water them regularly. In order for a palm tree to grow quickly and healthily, it needs to be watered regularly. A 2- to 3-inch layer of organic mulch laid over the planting area aids in water retention. A planting hole for a palm tree should be at least 2 to 3 feet in diameter and should be kept well-maintained. Palm trees benefit most from fertilisation late in the growing season.
Content Summary
- If palm trees are pruned properly and planted in an appropriate container, they can be preserved to a manageable size.
- The palm’s development rate can be slowed by planting it in a container that is too small for its root system.
- The techniques discussed here can be used to control the size of palm trees both indoors and out.
- Read on for some tried-and-true techniques for keeping palms from getting too tall.
- These are often the oldest leaves on the palm tree, located near the trunk.
- Be sure to not take more leaves from the palm in a year than it can replace.
- When kept inside, a palm tree does not need to be allowed to reach excessive heights.
- The best part is that palm trees are easy to grow and maintain even if you aren’t a professional gardener.
- Learn how to easily incorporate palm palms into your garden with these simple instructions.
- Following are some of the fundamentals of palm tree maintenance that will ensure your tree remains a healthy and beautiful addition to your home garden.
- The water requirements of palm trees are highest when they are first planted.
- If you forget to water your palms one day, don’t worry about killing them.
- Palms are drought-resistant and can survive without much water for extended periods of time.
- However, as with most trees and plants the palm produces its best and most healthy development when it is regularly watered.
- After a plant is well-established, you can reduce the frequency of watering to once per week.
- Once again, knowing the preferences of your specific palm tree is important because of the role that drought tolerance plays.
- In our detailed guides, we cover everything from where to plant palms to how much water they need and how they’ll fare in a drought.
- Both the plant’s container and the local climate will determine how often watering is required.
- Because the palm becomes dormant in the winter and grows more slowly, you can reduce the frequency of its watering to once a week or two during this time.
- A layer of organic mulch, about 2 to 3 inches thick, spread over the planting area helps the soil retain moisture, which in turn keeps the palm tree’s root system cooler and reduces the likelihood of weeds and grasses growing there.
- Even if your palm tree isn’t a huge feeder, it still benefits from frequent application of a high-quality fertiliser designed for palm trees.
- Applying fertiliser to palm trees for the first time in the spring, around April is optimal.
FAQs About Growth Of Palm Trees
What Makes Palms Grow Faster?
The more exposure to sunlight a palm tree has, the more quickly it will grow. Some species typically grow more quickly than others, and factors such as rich soil or the right fertiliser make it difficult to predict growth rates with precision.
What Is Unique About The Palm Tree?
A century or more of life is possible for some palms. A palm tree you plant today may be around long after you’re gone. Moreover, there is new evidence suggesting that palms may be the oldest living trees on a cellular level, as their cells do not die and are replaced with new ones like other trees’ cells do.
Where Do Palm Trees Grow Best?
The study also revealed that palms thrived in wetter regions with shallow groundwater and less fertile soils.
Do Palm Trees Grow Easily?
Although many palm trees have a reputation for being slow growers, the King Palm Tree is an exception. The King Palm is one of the fastest-growing palm trees, capable of gaining 3 feet (1 metre) in a single year.
How Much Water Do Palm Trees Need To Grow?
In the absence of rain, mature palm trees should only be watered once a week, if at all. Most palms only need watering if the top two inches of soil have dried out.