Found this palm on clearance at Lowe’s for 11.98 and just couldn’t leave it there. The base of the plant as well as the soil is extremely dry and brown but the plant seems to have life. Can this plant be saved or did I just purchase a nightmare waiting to happen?
Also never had a real indoor plant this large, how big should the pot be?
I plan to water with the rest of my new houseplants as needed and keep next to a north widow with fair amount of sun.
by Important-Listen-585
20 Comments
Score, but needs repotting to something double the size and I’d suggest giving it a horticultural oil treatment, these guys are magnets for sap sucking pests.
Scare. I don’t trust department store palms. But you can solidify into a score with insecticide and isolation!
Scare. Good luck
I say score. Even if it dies it will have lasted longer and been cheaper than a bouquet of flowers. Enjoy it! And I wish you the best
Scare. Those guys hate being inside but love dying
They love to get bugs and nearly always die within a year but for a year? Score
Scare. Got one from there myself last year, and it okay for about 2 or 3 weeks before giving up all hope and dying rapidly. Apparently they’re not meant to survive in just any household :/
Ooooooooo you’re gonna hate that. My mom made me save up my own allowance so I’d feel the pain when it died of spider mites and she could say I told you so. I was 10. ☠️ If it’s not outside in its element, it’s gonna get mites and ain’t nobody got time to individually scrub all those frond crevices. I told an Airbnb owner the exact same thing and watched 3 of those slowly die over about 8 months. Occasionally infesting the fiddle figs across the room when the owner did her own rearranging. 🤪 the last photo I have of them is so accurate ☠️
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They are always sell to die. But it takes a while to die probably last several months.
Seconded what others are saying about bugs. Every single one I have attempted have all had spider mites. Thankfully that’s easy enough to handle with spraying the leaves with water and/or rubbing alcohol. I don’t think I have dealt with scale yet on one.
If that’s a majesty palm, then they also need a ton of water. Like flush the soil with a few extra gallons during every watering. I’ve only ever managed to keep one going for about 6 months; I had it in moderate indirect light with direct afternoon sun for maybe 3-4 hours every day, but it was maybe 10 feet from the window so it didn’t get burnt. I think it died in the end because I messed up the watering schedule.
Good find for cheap, but i would quarantine the absolute heck out of it. Something that large would be super hard to treat for bugs and it would infest everything. Keep a super close eye on it and if you see any bugs at all just yeet it out of the house.
Good luck.
Lasts longer than flowers but don’t expect any longevity, I would also move it to right in front of the window, they require almost full sun so where it’s located at the moment is essentially pitch black (it’s even quite low for a lot of plants).
Palms are pest magnets indoors too so keep it away from all other plants.
If that’s one of those beautiful palms from Costa Farms, best of luck. I cannot tell you how many I bought which looked good for several months and then died from mealybugs and scale insects.
Always mealybugs and scale.
Every. Single. Time.
Even when I put them in a room in which that was the only plant.
I tried everything- ladybugs, horticultural oil, safer soap.
I meticulously went through each plant leaf by leaf, stem by stem, and removed each little scale bug by hand.
I wiped the leaves where the scale were with rubbing alcohol to remove them.
I took them outside and sprayed them with regular blasts of strong water.
I tried everything. After 6 or 7 dead palms over 2 or 3 years I finally gave up. Those palms are riddled with those bugs.
If you want to make a go of it I would go nuclear from day one. Take it outside and blast it with a stream of water on each stem to mechanically remove as many as possible. Then use a systemic insecticide like imidacloprid (works on mealybugs but not hard scale). Then spray the leaves with safer soap. The next day, cover it with neem oil. Maybe if you can kill everything off at the beginning you might have a chance.
But, no, don’t put outside in direct sunlight. That will burn them. They need bright indirect light.
I’m not kidding about using every trick in the book with these buggers. Those Costa Farms palms look pretty in the store but they’re riddled with scale and mealybugs.
Good luck!
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honestly i bought one of these last year on clearance for $11 and it’s my most thriving plant. maybe i just got lucky but i didnt repot her at all and sprayed her with peppermint oil diluted in water like clockwork. i repotted her recently and she was completely rootbound. majesty pla a love humidity and their soil moist. i’d let it dry out every other watering though to prevent root rot. spray her with water every time you think of it. once she’s established in the climate of your home you won’t have to spray as much. and i keep a water bulb in the soil. it helps to monitor watering and let’s me know if the soil is dry. low-key my palm thrives on equal parts neglect and care haha, but like i said i could just be lucky.
I have never gotten a palm from a store like Lowe’s or Home Depot that didn’t have pests.
Majesty palm. Trash.
Hey there.
I own a company that specializes in reviving plants. This goes for everybody reading this: repot this with some fresh soil. Preferably cactus and succulent mix soil. Plants that you get fresh from a Nursery or garden center needs new soil. Please have trust.
After refreshing the soil, place the plastic pot in a larger decorative pot so that it can be watered deeply without spilling everywhere.
These need just a little bit of direct sunlight, water this palm with a little bit of fertilizer every three months.
Please
Dm me with direct questions.
I’ve gotten similar deals from Lowe’s. It really depends on the type of palm plant. They do have a habit of having bugs, particularly spider mites. I have dealt with those too and lost a few that way. That’s how I learned. Certain palms get bugs quicker than others. I don’t buy Majesty’s for that reason. But I do buy Cat palms and I have a Queen palm from there too, but it’s outside. The indoor palms I use a systemic and neem oil. I give them a shower first, holding the pot sideways. Then let it drip dry for a while, sitting up, then follow with a light neem oil spray, then water. I usually follow-up next water or so with the systemic. Then usually no more problems.
Theres a reason that those plants are so inexpensive, most people buy them as seasonal decorations, They are very difficult to overwinter and they’re very difficult to keep alive indoors.