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• Sorry to hear your news – but we have all had some tough weather this year. Difficult to say how your palms will be since it will depend on how wet the roots were, the species involved and the actual temperature profile. All you can do really is get them fleeced, even now, to avoid further damage and wait for the weather to warm up and see how they respond. If you tell us the species etc. we can give more specific advice. Even with this winter’s temperatures, species such as Trachycarpus, Chamaerops and Butia should all be able to cope in most parts of the UK. Unfortunately we would not be able to say the same for Phoenix and Washingtonia which we do not consider as fully hardy except in extremely well protected parts of the South. We would always say to our customers that these two species HAVE to be very well protected in any of our winters – let alone the cold ones.
  If the leaves are badly damaged they will probably not recover – but don’t despair yet – especially if you act as we suggest. The plant will have acted in self-defence and may well decide to kill off any damaged leaves. Feel free to cut off any badly browned leaves and this will help the palm to divert energy into new growth rather than waste it on dead or dying leaves. The critical thing – especially if the roots are OK – is that hopefully it will still be able to produce new spears once the temperature picks up. You will need to be patient (don’t lose hope) and give them the summer to recover. We have seen palms recover from very severe damage even when they have lost all of their central spears. This “spear pull” (when you can pull out the dead spear by hand) is a bad sign and often results in the palm dying many months later but some plants still recover from it. Don’t throw away any palm until at least the end of the summer otherwise you may be disposing of it whilst it is recovering.

  In addition, we do have some palmbooster available that stimulates root growth in particular. If roots have been damaged, this could help significantly. We use this in Spring routinely to give palms a kick-start after winter and then apply it every few weeks. It is also very beneficial after re-potting/transplanting when roots have been disturbed. We source that from Europe and can send it at £15 plus P&P if you are interested. We also use a general slow release granular fertiliser in Spring to give our plants sufficient nutrition over the entire growing season (we use Osmocote which is cheap and freely available. If plants are still distressed after all that, you could try drenching the leaves and base of plant with a seaweed based foliar feed as this feeds the plants from the leaves directly in addition to whatever root feed you decide to use. Don’t use foliar feed in direct sunlight though because this can burn the leaves.

  Hope this is helpful

  Posted by Dick on January 31, 2010

• what can I do about my palms that got damaged in frost and snow they are alll flattened and the leaves hanging sown will they recover, is there any fertiliser for plams?

  Posted by Eileen Tyler on January 29, 2010

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