epom salt for palms?

a friend of mine told me several things that i did not know about palms
the first is that they like it for epsom salt to be sprinkled around their bases as fertilizer. since epsom salt is magnesium sulfate, do they like the magnesium or something?
second is that i heard that if you not only water their roots, especially when gettin established, but also their trunks and rowns as well, they will benefit from it somehow
thirdly, i heard that whenever you water, water from the top and get it between the leaf petioles.
anyone heard of these?
PS i am talking mainly about queen palms and palmettos

I hate to even try to answer this with my luck with palms, as I am BARELY keeping my mediterranean fan palm and trachy alive. Plus, SC is different than here.

But...epsom salt is a good idea, they do like magnesium.....you are in a hotter zone, so you may be able to water the crown...but mine rotted twice that way, and the trunk started to get moldy on the trachy. I used peroxide down the crown to kill off the mold and then sprinkled corn meal around the base of the plant. I now swear on corn meal, it really is good for plants and is a great natural fungicide (just a little bit around the base, nothing crazy). So now I only water the roots and the rest of the time the crowns and trunks only get water when it rains. However, with my Sago (I bring it in over winter), I water it all over and it does great.

hmm corn meal... is that to attract earthworms too? i use that in my earthworm traps. do dry grits count as corn meal? i'll have to try that! have you heard about using hydroge peroxide as water for lants developing new roots? idk how much to us though.

Corn Meal can attract earthworms, most definately--reason #1 I sprinkle all over my gardens. But it also absorbs excess moisture (fungicide) and adds something beneficial I can't remember honestly...lol

Kinda the same on the peroxide...seems like years ago I remember hearing 1 teaspoon to a gallon...I'll be seeing a friend this weekend that uses it and I'll ask. I'm the ultimate slacker, low-maintenance gardener, so I often forget tricks I learn..lol

ha its ok im lazy too. thats why im on the computer instead of working at a summer job!

You're in a much better place for palms, so, you'll probably be able to have your way with them

yeah that is true... palmettos just grow sooooo slow. they havent even put oul a full leaf yet since Feb when they were installed! my large w. robusta has already put out 6 new leaves and the small one has put out 3. the queen palm has put out one since easter. a little disappointment there... the med. fan palm has already put out 7 leave plus @ least 5 or 6 pups. i keep it trimmed down t 3 pups and the main plant. how's your's doing now

Let's just say that your reports are totally discouraging.....lol...mine are barely hanging on for life...just starting to see a new leaf or two form, but we got hit pretty hard by that April freeze.

yeah sry bout that but we got hurt by it too it got the ligustrum flowers and baby leaves lantana all the ficus that tried to come out and my brugmansia :'( that is stll recovering, i have never seen it bloom. i dont even know what color or cultivar it is! oh yeah and the philodendron selloum and crepe myrtles... i wish i could tell you how to help yor palms, but i cant... good luck w/ 'em though!

Thanks! Guess I need to move back to the coast..lol

hmm well i'd stay where you are... wanna trade towns? lol

No offense, lol, but I'm a diehard NC chick, born and raised. Out of all the states I've been to, I could live in Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Georgia (Atlanta area, great clubs there). Nowhere much hotter than here, but possibly North Florida. BUT definately would move to Nassau Bahamas in a quick flash.

Strom Thurmond (RIP) turned me off on SC a loooonnng time ago...lol.

yeah none taken- well at least not for here i really dont like it. i would rather be home in lexington, SC. i was raised in the heat, and i dont loke "cool" summer days. i like 'em hot about 95 or something as low as the humidity doesnt get too high. i could live in Ga western NCand east Tenn and southern VA,southern WVA, and southeast KY nowhere else. idk what all happened w/ Strom thurmond, but i always thought he was cool from judging by the brief time our lives overlapped. i just sprayed the mandevilla. the aphids are already gone!

Glad you got rid of the aphids, diehard!

I do notice that our gardens are like an oasis to the bugs around here as we are in an area with quite a few farms-none of which are organic, I'm sure. Our veggie leaves seem to suffer the most damage, but it's better the more we water.

You'd prob. find out lots of interesting info on Strom by a google search.

that was how it was in lexington. farms EVERYWHERE compared to here. only one i know of here. our friends own it, but is a horse farm. i think this organic thing is pretty cool... yo've addicted me to it guess. im gonna do lots of things organic... except for killing amadillos... yall dont have that problem up there... lucky.they dig shallow but large holes in the flower beds every night. i've started to throw them in or near a lagoon with hopes that there is a hungry gator nearby. i no its mean, but u gotta do what you gotta do. im just a sophmore in high school now, so idk much bout Strom, but that he was 100 and something about a black girl way back in the day... but i dont really want to know if its something bad. ignorance is bliss.

Well, I'll just keep my bleeding heart liberal mouth shut about Strom then....lol. It's easier (IMO) to do things organically much of the time. We have no armadillos (weird!) but lots of voles and field mice. We have cats---I call them organic pest control. They are very effective!

Whoa, wait, sophomore in HS? Good for you gettin ginto this stuff so early, but shame for rubbing in your youth...gosh, I'm not even 30 (for a couple more months anyway) and now I feel old.

psh! that aint old... you got more than 1/2 of ur life ahead of u!... 20 more yrs and then you can say ur old. im 16 this july woohoo. yeah its kinda weird for a 16 yr old guy to be into this stuff, but i was kinda just sucked into it. it also is good because next yr when i have a truck, i canhave my own buisness. i redid someon's yard (my new pricipal next yr) and got into real bad poison oak... not fun. im allergic to cats, so so much for the m for pests.. i sdhould catch mr a baby gator! that would do the trick! Lol

Good luck for you starting a business so young....you should start hybridizing things now, you'll be an expert in no time.

just a summer one is all i could do... one or 2 peoples yards after school maybe.

how do you hybridize things to get a certain trait? do you just take two flowers and see what happens?

Might want to ask someone that knows what they are doing....lol...I would do what you say, sounds good to me. It seems that younger folks pick up on things so fast, you'd probably be blazing more experienced gardeners in no time ;)

ha im trying to recall genetics from 7th grade... ill learn about it next yr in biology...

Yeah, exactly, 7th grade is about when I started not wanting to recall..lol..but really you could probably cross some hibiscus pretty easily.

yeah ok that is a good idea. i have H. coccneus that i've been wanting to cross w/ a H. coccneus var. 'alba' to hopefully make a pink one. i'll also try to do some tropical hibiscus w/ it. make some hardy tropical hibiscus...s that would be cool. for me, 7th grade was just when i started to like school. actually got friends then! i was a huge nerd til i turned preppy @ the end of 6th grade!

Good luck with the crosses....I think 6th grade is when I started kinda becoming "different" or "freak" or whatever they say now....still different, but life quickly changes after high school. You could not pay me enough to be your age again, tough time.

OH tell me about it! us teens are sooo dumb and immature these days! that's why it comes in handy to be stubborn like me... i dont do things just cuz they're cool...

Good, keep that stubbornness all thru high school and drop it the second you graduate....cause in college, you'll meet women. And smart chicks, they don't go for that stubborn junk...lol

lol i'm not always stubborn.but yeah thanks 4 the advice ill remember that... but 4 now im stubborn! girls have their way of making me do things that i usually am too closed minded to do or accept. im sure it works that way w/ girls too.... no wait, i know it does because i see it every day when they come into my presence and drop to the floor w/ love and desire in their eyes for me... lol jk (not to be conceited or anything)

All right, kiddo, watch yourself.....lol

lol