By ROBERT LEWIS
Now that we are in the middle of September, it is a critical time to fertilize your palm trees. We normally recommend that palm trees are fed three times a year – early spring (February – March), early summer (Memorial Day) and now late summer/early fall.
The official start of fall is next Saturday. I can hardly believe it.
The fall season is a bit more critical on timing if you are going to use a synthetic fertilizer. Remember that we can apply organic products at anytime throughout the year. The worry about using chemical fertilizers now is they stimulate a lot of new growth and will do so for the next few months which take us into mid-December.
The other concern with the use of strong chemical fertilizer is that we are still in this incredible heat and drought period, which should make you nervous about applying a plant food with a high amount of strong nitrogen. What I recommend is to fertilize now with an organic palm tree fertilizer, but also add an important nutrient, magnesium, which can easily be accomplished by adding Epsom Salt.
I like to add two to three handfuls of it about two to three feet away from the trunk of the trees. Bigger trees will need more and I recommend looking up recommendations on the internet for your specific variety of palm. Epsom Salt is safe to use with this heat because it immediately dissolves and soaks into the soil.
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