Palm tree help..

 
Hi All,

I have a palm tree (or I think it is) in my front garden. The tree has
looked fine for years, until my wife decided to prune it (she said she
was just removing the dead leaves) before Christmas, and now it’s
looking a bit worse for wear with all the good leaves now falling off.

Previously (before my wife pruned it) it was growing from the top nicely
and had lots of leaves, and now it has next to nothing up top with more
falling off each day, and more growing at the bottom. The top of the
tree now looks black in colour. I have attached a picture of the tree
taken today.

I would like to get it back to normal, if that’s possible? Any help
would be much appreciated

Thanks
Chris.


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cball313

 On Wed, 9 Feb 2011 16:08:54 +0000, cball313


Looks like a type of yucca/agave palm.  Seems more like it was exposed
to a chemical or cold... I doubt that damage would occur from removing
a little dead growth.

 
cball313;912486 Wrote:

It's not a palm tree.  It's a cordyline or a yucca, most likely the
former. Cordylines are sometimes colloquially known as torbay palms, but
they are not palms at all.

The problem it is suffering from is not your wife's pruning.  Pruning
off the dead leaves is safe and normal activity. It is suffering from an
unusually cold winter which has damaged a great many of the cordylines
in Britain.

You are also lucky it is not a palm, a great many of those have been
killed entirely. You are also lucky you still have growing heads from
the existing trunk.  Many people's cordyline trunks have been entirely
killed, and they will get new growth only from ground level.  

Snip the unsightly bits at the very top off now.  Come the summer, cut
off the dead part of the trunk down to the highest greenery.  You will
probably find the plant is unusually vigorous this year as its root
system can support a larger plant than it is currently supporting.


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echinosum