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Raising Foxtail Palms - seedling question
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Posted by alisonOZ SEQLD Aust (My Page) on Sat, Mar 26, 05 at 2:11
Hello gurus,
A neighbour gave me some seed from her palms, and most have germinated. I don't have a lot of experience with palms other than pulling out stray unwanted seedlings from the awful weedy ones but I know even those have quite a tap-root for their size. I had these in pots about 5 inches deep and the main roots began to emerge from the drainage holes before even the first leaf emergence. I cut out the base of some pots and glued two together, double-decker style, which gave me about 9 or 10 inches of height. Now I have some emergent leaves to about 4 inches, but again, the tap root is heading down and out to China. I'm not ready to plant these out and I don't want to put them into large pots as there would be too much soil for the general root system. Will I do them any harm if I leave where they are, or will they end up with some sort of deformed coiled root system. Or should I try a "triple-decker" and then maybe transfer to narrow but deep grow bags when the fronds are a bit better formed?
Any tips appreciated. |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Raising Foxtail Palms - seedling question
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Alison,
Palms dont have a tap root as such. There is a radicle sure enough, but all the rest of the thick roots are adventitious, that is, they spring from the base of the palm. So if you leave the seedlings in a pot elevated above ground the roots which emerge from the holes in the pot will "air prune" and other this wil encourage root branching. Sounds like its a pretty vigorous grower, so could be potted up 2 sizes larger next spring IMO. |
RE: Raising Foxtail Palms - seedling question
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- Posted by moreton Bris. Qld. Aust (My Page) on
Tue, Mar 29, 05 at 2:25
Hi Alison,
Chris is right there, you need to pot on when the roots appear in bottom of pot as the roots start to coil around and round , when you go to plant out they will be stunted and will sulk for quite some time and even rot of at the butt, potting on palms is a never ending story.Plant out as soon as possible. If you can face palms in same dirrection (north/ south/ east/ west) they will transplant better and get away better. Hope this may help. Good luck Peter r |
RE: Raising Foxtail Palms - seedling question
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| Thanks chaps, very much. Then I will consider a likely spot for a few and over to the "exchange" forum for the rest! |
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