Can you stunt the growth of a palm tree by....

Can you stunt the growth of a palm tree by removing, say by half, the vertical crown leaves ?

I know that if you remove the whole crown you will effectively kill it, but a bunch of our palms are at just the right height for their position and I thought I might ask.

Not found anything on the internet apart from the usual trimming articles.


Thanks in advance for any advice.

Hi AMK,

I found this info on the web

You can temporarily stunt the palm trees' growth by pruning the roots. The roots need to be at their optimum 'root ball size' for the palm to even grow.

or

"BE ADVISED: This way of stunting the growth on a palm is permanent, and will eventually lead to a dead palm. The reason is that once stunted, it will not produce new fronds. The existing fronds won't last forever, and when they go, then the whole tree goes. There is a better option, but first I will tell you how to stunt it.

Cut out the middle growth entirely. All new fronds grow out of the top middle, and if they are cut out, then the growth will be stunted. SOMETIMES the palm will shoot out more middle growth, but don't count on it!

Better alternative, is to dig and expose roots within one foot around base of palm. This is difficult, as there are a ton of stringy roots. Just expose the top of them within a foot around. What this does is allow the sun to shine on them which will promote growth of shoot-offs. Once a shoot-off starts and is healthy, cut down the main tree and nourish the shoot-off, hence it's like starting over with a new palm that is not too tall.

Good luck, but don't forget you won't keep a stunted tree for long!"

Hope it helps

Excellent info EnglishRose, many thanks.

Before you do anything to your palm trees I suggest you ask the experts on palms in Elche, a plant nursery .

In their fb page you can see the work they do

[url=Asejar Viveros]https://www.facebook.com/asejarviveros/[/url]


They know everything you need to know about plants and palms.
They are very serviceminded and really nice.

I think Ronnie Nordin (swedish guy) speaks english. +34 647 90 74 69
They will know what to do with your palms.

www.asejar.com

Good Luck!