Avocado tree and queen palms felt full force of the February freeze
For weeks, Texas A&M AgriLife experts Brandi Keller and Paul Winski have been answering your post-freeze gardening questions, helping you decide when and how to save or scrap plants as well as picking new replacements for your gardens.
This week, the pair tackle another batch of questions, focusing on avocado trees, queen palms, philodendron, cannas and pesky ball moss.
They’ll continue offering good advice, but we’d like to hear from gardeners about how you’re moving forward. What’s growing and blooming in your garden?
If you’d like to share, send photos and information on what’s coming back to life and how you’re reinventing your gardens and landscaping with new trees, shrubs and flowers. Send them to diane.cowen@chron.com.
Q: After the February freeze, all of the leaves fell off of my avocado tree, then the trunk turned mostly black, bark split and peeled off. We cut back all of the trunk and limbs that had turned black, leaving just a 1-foot stump in the ground. In the past week, new growth has sprouted from that 1-foot stump. What kind of expectations should we have?
A: It is not surprising that your tree dropped its foliage since avocados are tropical evergreens, Winski said. It is good news to hear that buds are emerging from the stump. Avocados are propagated by grafting, so you will have to look at the stump and see if you cut above the graft or below it (there is usually a difference in bark texture or color). If you cut above, then you have the plant that you started with; if the cut is below, then the rootstock is emerging and will not be the original plant. Let’s take the positive approach and say you have the original plant, it will take several years to develop enough canopy to support fruit production. If you only have one tree, you may also have issues with pollination success, it is recommended to have more than one tree when growing avocados.
Q: Our queen palms are taller than the second story of our house and are almost 12 years old. Since the February freeze, they have had fungus, with leaking and dropping sap on the lower half of the trunks. We have treated the fungus with copper fungicide spray many times, but it is getting worse and moving up the tree. Now we’ve got fungus gnats, which we treated with a neem oil/insect soap concoction, but the gnats are infesting other healthy plants now. Should we keep waiting on the palms? If we do, will that endanger other healthy plants? Is there anything we can do to save these huge palms?
A: Queen palm (Syagrus romanzoffian) is one of the species that did not fare well during the freeze event, Winski said. It is susceptible to several lethal diseases, and the stress from the freeze may have made those symptoms prevalent. It sounds like the tree is in decline, so Winski recommends contacting a certified arborist to evaluate it. The Trees Are Good website (treesaregood.org), hosted by the International Society of Arboriculture, has resources for finding a certified arborist in your area.
Q: Our neighbor’s trees are covered with tillandsia ball moss, and it’s flowing over to the trees and plants in our yard. We remove and discard
what falls in our yard, but is there anything we can do to keep this pesky moss from attaching itself to our trees and shrubs?
A: Ball moss (Tillandsia recurvata) isn’t harmful, as you noted, Keller said. It just anchors to the surface. It isn’t clear if the moss is actually attaching to your trees and shrubs or if you are attempting to prevent that from happening. Ball moss prefers shade and low air flow. It could be that it’s just falling in your yard. If they are attaching to your plants, then hand picking is the best course of action. For higher limbs, a highpressure sprayer can knock them off.
Q: I planted canna rhizomes about a month ago but none have sprouted. Should I be concerned?
A: Cannas are slow to grow initially, so just be patient, Keller said. They don’t need a lot of water until growth has begun.
Q: I had a large philodendron, more than 5 feet tall and 8 feet wide. I’ve cut it back and still see no new growth. Should I keep waiting or dig it up?
A: Personally, Keller says she refuses to dig up her own poor plants (Selloum philodendron). Hers has two tiny leaves coming up on one, while the large stems that were cut back continue to mold. You can continue to hold out hope or throw in the towel. We won’t judge you either way!