Hello fellow gardeners and hivers!
We’ve been tending to our garden lately transplanting a few plants to the ground - pygmy date palms (aka Phoenix roebelenii) that we planted a few years back. We like these hardy plants for their fine leaves and low maintenance. They are easy to grow in the ground or in containers. We have some in the backyard and in front.
BACKYARD PYGMY PALMS IN CONTAINERS
We planted these date palms in containers and originally placed them on the backyard patio, but since they are spiky, they have at times caused contact injuries. So we moved them to their current spot near the fence. These palms require moist soils, and although they can tolerate brief periods of dryness, we are guilty of having under watering them one too many times.
We have also noticed that they seem to have outgrown their containers and have become root-bound. So for their well-being and our peace of mind, we thought of moving them to the ground, in partial shade.
Transplanting these palms was not that easy though. We had to dig a deep, wide hole to accommodate all the plant roots; they say the holes should be twice the size of the diameter of the container. We had to keep the soil moist before moving in the palms.
We then carefully removed the palms out of their container, transferred them to the dug-up hole, and filled it back with the same soil, combined with a bag of organic mix.
After making sure that there were no air pockets in the ground, we watered the palms heavily to minimize any shock from the transfer.
Here is one of the transferred palms, looking dwarfed against the surrounding plants.
At night, spot-lighted by solar garden lights.
Here’s another one in another location in the backyard.
GROUNDED PYGMIES IN THE FRONT YARD
The pygmy date palms in the front yard were all planted in the ground. Even as they face the afternoon sun, they have never withered. They are tough! Here they were three years ago.
Fast forward to today, here they are, all in the pink of health, with yellow flowers and looking happy with the colorful hydrangeas. We hope they thrive for a long time.
Thank you for the read.