We
have this nice Mediterranean Fan Palm. Multiple trunks. Lush
foliage. It was getting a little shaggy, so I trimmed it back.
In
the process, I realized that one of these things was not like the others.
All the foliage from all the separate trunks can be trimmed with loppers, but
one trunk requires a palm saw. What?
We
figured out what happened. There is an intruder in our midst. The
big cabbage palm next to us…
…dropped
a seed into the middle of the little Mediterranean fan palm. It’s like
brown-headed cowbirds dropping their eggs in a songbird nest, and the exhausted
songbirds end up raising a big brown-headed cowbird instead of its own
chicks. The seed sprouted and pretended to just be another stalk of the
little palm, but now it’s outgrowing its host.
The
solution.
We
whacked off all the branches and topped the central spike of the
imposter. Removing the central spike should prevent further growth.
We’ll
leave the rest of the plant there as a decorative stalk. If the invader
starts to recover, more serious measures will be taken. The whole plant
looks a little bare now, but in a couple months it should all fill out and look
just right again.
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