The Aches of Planting the Palm

Early the next morning we started digging the hole to plant the palm, all 3’x3’x3’ of it through the deep layer of rock-filled strata that passes for sand here. There’s no shoveling this stuff; it is pick work first, and then shovel. Marc and I took turns as the pile of soil on the patio grew. Finally tired of being bent over and picking, Marc sat down and went at dislodging the rocks with a claw hammer. Much easier on the back although within an hour I came to find out my work had thrown mine out. Later, it would require sifting to remove the rocks, leaving nice loamy sand.


Once we had the hole complete, Marc placed about one third of the soil back in the ground around two sewer PVC pipes with drilled holes run deep into the soil. This forces roots to go deep and is a great landscaping tip for transplanting any kind of tree. They thrive with this system of irrigation. Marc positioned the pot on some two by fours and slid it down into its hole, turning it to face the way I wanted and thence commenced snipping off the container. That done; he then buried it in a combination of palm soil and native soil and finally watered it thoroughly using Vitamin B1. So far, all our palm transplants have been successful and even though this type of palm can have problems with transplant shock, we expect none. For one thing, not many people are willing to dig an adequately sized hole for trees but we need have no worry about that. My back told me so for the next two days!