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I was given this houseplant by a friend that was going to throw it away. I am trying to bring it back to life.
I need help reviving it. There are several of the stems that are dried out, do I cut them off, or will can they grow back?
I think the dry crispy stuff, cut it back near the base of the plant. It won't regrow to the best of my knowledge. I don't know if that is a parlor palm or majesty palm or other. I just read that Majesty palms needs lots of light, water and humidity, but some palms are not as demanding.
I don't know much about palm trees, besides having lived near them in Central Florida for awhile. So I can't ID your plant or help much, other than tell your plant is growing it's trunk like most palm trees seem to do.
Every year before hurricane season is when the tree trimmers start coming and ringing doorbells to get you to hire them to cut the dead fronds off your palm trees. Your dead stuff only happens to be near the base of your plant 'cuz it's so short right now. As the plant gets taller, the lower fronds will always continue to die off, creating the trunk of the tree, as the top fronds keep growing upwards.
Your tree looks perfectly healthy to me at the moment. Keep the dead stuff trimmed off, and like 3jsmom31 said, make sure it gets loads of light, plenty of water, and try to keep it humidified.
Oh, here's a quick for-instance about palm tree pruning... I'm sure it's not the same as your plant, but just to give you an idea of how different palm trees can look before and after they're "manicured". You'll see from the first pic that most of the middle fronds are kinda droopy, and the lower fronds are kinda dead, and by the end of the process... only the healthiest topmost fronds are left. Also, you see that they trimmed all that texture off the trunk too... All that texture was just the base of all the old fronds that had been cut off in past seasons.
Your plant is Phoenix roebelenii. http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/820/
The dry crispy leaves will definitely not grow back so cut them off. I'm not completely sure but it looks as though the trunk on the right side may be completely dead but mine have surprised me before growing back out of a dead looking trunk after quite some time. The fronds look as if they are stretching to get more light. We grow these in full sun in the Phoenix area in the ground. They just need extra water during the hottest part of the summer. Growing this plant indoors you need to be careful not to overwater as it will easily rot. Make sure your mix is well draining and water thoroughly when the top several inches of soil is dry. This plant is mostly dormant during the cooler months so be very careful with watering in the winter. I noticed the fronds that are crispy are still green but are dry and crispy. That may be an indication of root rot. When the fronds die naturally from the bottom they turn brown first. Don't worry about humidity with this palm as it does not need high humidity to do well. I hope this information is helpful.
Thank you all for your replies!
I have started the process of cutting off the dead fronds. I will keep the trunk on the right and hope that it will get some life back when the weather heats up.
I was thinking about getting a small grow light to supplement the sunlight. I'm in Detroit and it's starting to get colder and cloudier. Is that a good idea?
