Plummeting Palm

My palm was one of the first plants I bought when I moved into my apartment.  It was so teeny tiny and I was excited for it to grow up to be a big floor plant one day.  Well, it was well on its way until one day I decided to move it upstairs to the bedroom where it got less direct sunlight and fewer waterings.

The palm in February 2015

March 2015

September 2015 - the beginning of the downward spiral.

January 2016 - just two living leaves left, coming out of the last living stalk!  One new leaf on the way, though.

May 2015 - another new leaf - on the road to recovery (I hope!)

I can't believe I neglected this thing for so long and so obliviously that 90% of it died off!  My only hope is that this last stalk will continue to recover and eventually fill out the pot once again.

Repotting

My little thanksgiving cactus was doing terribly. I'm not sure if it was some shoddy soil or maybe it sat in some bad rain water for too long.  The main trunk started to whither and had blackened at the base. The smaller trunk still looked lush so I decided to swap out the soil and repot it in something fresh.

Also, my palm was starting to lose some shape. I didn't like that I had it in a non-draining pot so I opted to go ahead and switch that out.

Old pot without any real drainage.

Lastly, I had an aloe in a baby food jar, which it was starting to outgrow, so I swapped it out for a small self-draining pot.  I added a single layer of stones in the bottom of the pot. Hopefully this pot will last for a little while!

New pot with small layer of stones inside for the aloe.

Palm, Repotted

My palm has been doing really well over the past two years.  It continues to sprout up new leaves taller and longer than those preceding.  I did notice, however, a couple weeks ago a number of leaves turning brown in one particular shoot.  This weekend I finally had a chance to repot the palm, something I was planning to do in a month or two, but this new dying shoot pushed it up on the priority list.

The leaves I am tugging on here are all attached to the same shoot.
They all dried out and turned brown.

The leaves pointing to the bottom of the photo are all dead.

I didn't have any seemingly appropriately sized pots to step up into, so I went to Home Depot and bought this monster pot.

Decidedly way too big.

When I was at Home Depot, I noticed all the huge palms in the store were in tiny little plastic pots, which really only had a few inches between the shoots and the edge of the pot.  Granted, they are grown like this in the most ideal conditions, but still, it festered in my mind.  I bought the huge pot and went home to prep it for the palm.

For the first time I actually measured the
depth of the stone layer I put at the bottom!

I laid in some soil on top of the stones and got ready
to set the palm and its root ball into the new pot.

Pausing for a moment, I decide that the palm is not really all that root bound, given how tall and full it is.  I was expecting way more root visibility than this, particularly when you compare it to my polka dot plants, which are way smaller and less dense.  I ultimately decided that this pot was way too big, and I ended up planting it in a kitchen utensil storage container.  I do not have the photo, but will post it another time when I'm doing my annual check up on this plant.  Below are the rest of the photos I took during this exercise.

Palm

I bought this little guy about one year ago, April 2013.  He was a wee one indeed, only a few inches high.  He's made some great progress though and is now up to about 13" tall.

April 2013:

April 2014:

1.) Propagate:
2.) Water: 1-2 times per week.
3.) Light: Bright, filtered light.
4.) Fertilize: Use all-purpose.
5.) Soil:

According to the tag that came with this, it should grow to between 4' and 10' tall!  I'm hoping for something around 6'.

There hasn't been too much activity with this plant, it just sprouts new palms every couple weeks.  I think in the winter it doesn't really grow at all, but that's pretty typical.  I would offer that it definitely likes to be watered so 2 times a week is probably pretty accurate.

I haven't looked into propagating this one yet, but I think that may be a summer project.  Although when I was repotting it awhile ago I accidentally separated one stalk from the rest so I tried growing that on its own.  It didn't seem to do so well so I recently re-merged it with the larger cluster.

Here is the rogue stalk in April 2014 before I finally decided to remerge it with the general stalk clump (no new growth since it has been in this pot):