County Durham, United Kingdom

Can anyone help with my Pheonix Palm??

Hi Everyone.

I'm new to this forum, and was hoping that there is someone out there who can help me.

I have had a Pheonbix Palm in my garden for ober 2 years and it has been OK-ish. They people who sold me it told me it would not need any protection over winter as it is 'fully hardy'.

The ground in my garden area is predominantly clay based soil, but I prepared the ground by digging extra deep and placing a lot of broken bricks, tiles and stones at the bottom of the hole to provide plenty of drainage. I then set the palm in the hole and packed around it with a good quality compost with feed.

However since those early days she has now dropped most of her leaves/branches and is looking very sad. I though it might be too much water in the ground since the last bad winter and wet season, so I decided to take the palm out of the ground to give it chance to dry out a little, with the plan to rebed it in its original position, but with some new ground preperation.

SO . . . . . . . Can anyone help me. I have pictures of the palm to show you how sad it is, but I don't want to lose it if I can help it. I also need to replant it before the 11th as I am in Spain for 7 days, and would rather I get her back into the ground with the hope of giving it a good start to recovery.

My proposal was to bed it onto a bed of sharp sand, as I know they like a good loamy, and well drained bed. I have dug down an extra 13" to give it a good drainage bed. I was also going to use lime free compost and feed, but is this the right way of doing it??????

Can anyone help me please.

Look forward to any replies.

Cheers

Trikeman

• 5 Apr, 2010