Opinions re: Windmill

12 years ago

My large windmill palm endured a viscious Winter, bearing the weight of several snowstorms, including the post Christmas blizzard, after which it was almost completely buried (and this guy is approaching 15 ft. in height). Well, several of the lower fronds are now bent down towards the ground. They are still green, and I'm not one to prune for looks. But it has kind of an odd appearance now, what with the upper fronds nice and rigid, and the lower ones weeping, leaving the middle portion "bare". What thinks the crowd? Prune or leave alone. This is a very healthy tree, essentially bullet-proof now in terms of cold weather. I've tried tying them up, but they are long and heavy.

Comments (3)

User
12 years ago
I would just try my best to tie them up and leave them be. If still green, then they are photosynthesizing and more leaves doing this early in the season has got to be a net advantage by the time we get to winter.
islandbreeze
12 years ago
If it is bulletproof against winter cold and spear pull, and 15 ft tall, I would probably prune it. A one-time pruning shouldn't do too much damage to it's growth. It's not like we're talking about a seedling. I try to leave green fronds intact as long as possible, but sometimes even leaves that are only half green need to go because they don't look nice.
wetsuiter
12 years ago
I had something similar happen to on of my windmills. Mine are much smaller and here on the Delaware coast we didn't get much snow this year like farther north. We did have a few nights around 16,colder than I've seen here in the past few years.

Only one windmill experienced this leaf drop. One recent leaf from last season and a healthy looking newly opened leaf and the dominant sword. All just suddenly broke off. Its recovering well with two new spears. I should have left the dropped leaves and spear stay attached for whatever nutrients the provided. The remnants of the spear that came off is open and I'm letting that be.