Palm Tree Care

Soil

One of the main reasons that a palm tree will not thrive is due to poor soil. This applies to any plant, but because palm trees originate from particular environments, they will not grow well in other surroundings unless the conditions are right. Getting the right conditions starts with the soil.

Some people have had success with adding mycorrhizal fungi to the soil when growing palm trees.

Fertilizer

Fertilization is of course the other area that you must address. You can't just use any old fertilizer on your palm trees, you must use specially formulated ones. The aim of these is to make up for nutrient deficiencies. Over-fertilizing however is a common problem so it important not to go over-board. A quality 3 month slow release fertilizer is often the best choice for amateur gardeners, whilst more advanced gardeners will look at a much more complex mixture and fertilization schedule.

Fertilizer Tip

Studies have found that the best fertilizers to use are those that contain supplemental magnesium and calcium.

There are a number of species of palm trees that you can grow. These include:

• True Date Palms


• Canary Island Date Palms


• Texas Sabal Palms


• Mediterranean Fan Palms


• California Fan Palms


• Windmill Palms


• Mexican Fan Palms

If you are after a fast growing tree then choose the Mexican Fan. The rest of the species listed above grow relatively slowly.

The good news is that all of the above trees are fairly widely adaptable to soil conditions, but most of them have high light requirements. If you live in an area that gets very little sun then that can be a problem.

These species do tolerate the cold quite well and as such can be grown throughout much of the US.

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