Pruning Potted Palms

Potted palms enhance our homes with lush greenery, but older fronds naturally yellow and brown over time. To maintain their appearance.

Palm trees can look fantastic inside our homes, they provide greenery and foliage to our home décor. But in time, older fronds will start yellowing, then they will slowly turn brown. So, what do we do to keep it looking sharp?

When the green foliage of your potted palm turns yellow/brown, you want to figure out first what’s going on with your plant’s health.  It's normal for the lower leaves of palms to turn first turn yellow then brown with as they age out and prepare to drop. This is natural part of the growth process. Once an aging frond has turned more than 50 percent yellow it is time to remove it from the plant to maintain good light and airflow to the remainder of the plant.

Use a sharp, clean blade to cut fronds that are aging out about an inch back from the trunk. 

Yellow/brown fronds that are higher up in the canopy are likely to be caused by overwatering, poor water drainage in the pot, underwatering, or pests. 

Check the pot to make sure the soil is draining well (moist soil is good on watering day but soggy soil is bad), check the fronds for signs of pests, and make sure there isn’t a vent (heating or cooling) that is blowing on the plant---drafts like these will remove moisture from the leaves and cause them to age out sooner than they normally would.  

If you are misting the potted palm in your home please stop. The idea behind misting is to add humidity to the air around the plant. The problem is misting adds water as a liquid (rather than a gas like humidity) to the leaves. Outdoors the wind and sun will dry water on leaves but indoors the water tends to just sit. Wet leaves can attract bacteria and fungus to develop.