PalmsNorth.com

This Trachy was planted too high in the pot last fall when I dug it out of the ground.



Youngest adventitious roots are at bottom middle in pic below:
(As important for tree stability as nutrient uptake)


At repotting where should soil line be...an inch or so below fiber? in below pic:
.

An excerpt about how roots branch from root "pruning"/transplanting:
species typically produced most of their roots within 30 cm of the trunk, and cut roots of many species were frequently observed to branch and regrow. Species varied greatly.... Entire report here:
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/fletcher/progra ... r/palm.htm

An Encyclopedia of Cultivated Palms (Riffle + Craft) says leaf bases and fibres can be removed, leaving (in a Trachy) "an elegantly slender, distinctly and closely ringed stem." I might do that after repotting. Birds often tear away fibres for nesting material.
Barb

Geez Barb ... that one still amazes me!

Cheers, Barrie.

Yup, Barrie, it's 31 this year.

I'd like some opinions on where the soil line should be (when I redo it correctly).

Barb

None of the trunk should be covered with soil. The soil line should be right below where the roots come from the stem.

turtile,
So no white roots showing at all. Good to know, thanks.

Then it has to go into a garbage can...the only pot big enough for the rootball, like the CIDP last year.
Barb

I plant my Trachys with the top roots 1 or 2 inches below ground. Roots don't like to dry out. And in my case I plant them out and that protects against cold. (A Trachy is more hardy in the ground than in a pot.) Soil more than a few inches above the roots is not good. You've done a great job with your palm. You'll probably get a request from Vancouver for purchase. Someone handed me a latisectus that has roots above ground and is floppy. Trachys can pivot easily if they are not fully in the ground so mine will be replanted.

Cheers

The floppy, roots above ground you mention happened to my old CIDP two years ago when, right after transplanting into a huge pot, we had a heck of a windstorm that night.

In the morning it was listing badly at the root line. Several old roots had torn, and the vigorous swaying tore numerous young roots. The new soil had settled down several inches from the violent buffeting, some soil may even have blown away.

Like a lazy fool, I propped up the fronds, then put 2-inch slabs of shale under the pot on "the wrong side".
The huge pot was tipped so far that water ran out the top on one side, but the palm was almost straight.
I finally repotted it last summer (its treatment in posted pictures I'm not so proud of... )
But the CIDP is hale and hearty today.

Now that the tractor's front end loader is repaired, the Trachy will be repotted properly, once and for all, into a plastic garbage can next week.
No roots exposed.
Before new windstorms hit.
Thank you.
Barb