How to plant a palm tree in Arizona - digging the hole

-
The old saying "dig a $100 hole for a $50 tree" really applies here in Glendale, Arizona. The ground is very, very hard, virtually sterile, and terribly alkaline. Hey, it's the desert, not Hawaii!

Native plants can find their way easily into the native soil, but tropicals like this Phoenix rupicola x canariensis can't. So you must dig a nice, wide, deep hole. When the plant gets bigger, its roots will extend into Arizona, but while it establishes, the roots will just be in whatever potting soil is available in the hole.

If you have a jackhammer or a backhoe, your process of digging a hole is probably easier than my method. I start with just getting the hole started, then flooding it with water. Once it sinks in, it makes the ground softer, but be careful, it is very, very heavy. Don't expect to dig it all out at one time unless you want to throw your back out! I started this morning with a fairly small hole, went out for coffee and dug out the first layer of goop, and refilled it. I'm now taking a break, and writing this, and I will keep an eye on the hole. If there is still standing water, I will need to wait some more. Once the water has all soaked in, I can start taking out small amounts of it. I have a couple of old 5-gallon plant containers nearby which I am using to fill and haul away the old ground.

Note that I have already re-positioned the Malibu lights to uplight this palm tree and the Dioon edule cycad behind it. Should look pretty cool at night!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Growing sunflowers from Pennsylvania in Arizona

-
Image
It's October 21st, and I just received some sunflower seeds from a friend in Pennsylvania. Their season is ending and the season for planting here in Arizona is just beginning, and I'm kinda wondering if the seeds are wondering what's going on? It's spring again already? If you're new to the Phoenix, Arizona area, and are from back east it must seem kinda strange that fall and winter is our flower season, but it is. By springtime it will start to get so hot here that the flowers will die, and of course back east the season is just beginning.  Sunflowers growing in Peoria, Arizona, about a mile from where I live I've seen sunflowers blooming around my neighborhood of Glendale, which is a suburb of Phoenix, in the winter, and although I've never grown them I understand that they're easy to grow. I guess I'll find out - I learn best by doing! The seeds arrived safely, and it's my understanding that they were still connected to the spent flower (I do
Read more

How to tell if your cycad (sago palm) is alive or dead

-
Image
Cycads are strange plants. They're beautiful, and look like small palm trees, or large ferns. They grow very slowly, and can be very expensive, even common ones like "sago palms". But sago palms, in spite of their common name, aren't palms at all. They belong to a group of plants called cycads. They are wonderfully weird, and grow in strange ways. And sometimes they lose all of their leaves. Of course, if it were a palm tree that lost all of its leaves, you would know that the plant was dead. But it's not true of cycads. So don't dig that cycad up and throw it away! Not yet. If you've recently transplanted a cycad, and the leaves have all faded away, hang on. Take a look at the top center of the plant, at what I call "the pucker". There you will see some stubby, soft fronds, no more than an half-inch or so. At least that's what you should see. That means that the plant is still alive, and has dropped its leaves to focus on building r
Read more

Rooting sago palm pups for more plants

-
Image
Once a sago palm ( cycas revoluta ) reaches a certain level of maturity, it starts to create pups. Like agaves, these are little plants that are exactly the same as the parent plant, only smaller. And yes, you can trim them off and grow them into new plants. This is how to do it. Cut them off from the parent plant with a sharp knife. If there are any roots at the bottom, try to save them, but chances are there won't be any. That's not a problem. The next step is rooting them. Douse the cut part and the bottom of the plant with some garden sulfur and some rooting hormone powder. Rooting hormone powder is pretty easy to find at your local Home Depot. I had to go to a real nursery to get garden sulfur. Anyway, the idea is to keep the little plant from rotting while giving it time to grow its own roots. Sago palm pups being rooted Bury them fairly deep in some free-draining mix. It should include volcanic pumice, if you can find it, and if not, you can use perlite. I
Read more