Software
Houzz Logo Print
frmmi

Indoor coconut dying..help

18 years ago

I had a nice coconut palm, but set the heat at 58 during a week long vacation. The leaves looked damaged when i came back and turned brown and also rotted a little over the couple weeks after. Now it's a trunk with a long spear.

Humidity is at 30% and plenty of light comes in during the day. What can be done to help this thing to recover? I put some plastic on the soil and then a seedling heat mat over it. I'll take it off on watering days.

Comments (25)

  • 18 years ago

    How wet is your soil?
    Check for spidermites?
    58* shouldn't harm her if she was in the house.
    Mine spent a couple nights outside 37* and took a little hit,but came back fine now,stunted a couple new leaves but after that growing fine.
    I'd take the plastic off the top of the soil,put the heat mat
    under the pot if anything.

  • 18 years ago

    omg...frmmi I had the same exact problem. My coconut is 2 years old, it WAS very healthy 8 long, green healthy spears. Left for one week and the temp in my room dropped. Came back to see 5 of the 8 spears dead brown. I have 3 left and they are healthy and green and am now continuing to give it extra light and heat. Hope it recovers! So far so good.

  • 18 years ago

    You know this is a recurring theme with the coconut plant. I wonder if some geneticist has placed a piece of bad DNA in a line of plants that makes them kill over just as you are getting excited. I mean, these things shouldnt just croke at the look of cold feet.

    It looks to me that the plants need a sunlamp on them 10 hours a day, and warm temps of 70°F 24/7, probably need to grow them in sand like topher says do. I had some coconuts from Pago Pago about 10 years ago, killed everyone of them suckers, one night of low temps, bad part was they came half way around the world.

  • 18 years ago

    58 degrees continually is to cold. These palms don't like to go close to 60 for an extended time. We get temps under that during the night but back to 70+ during the day. Keeping them in the house is hard already so I would not let them get that cold again.

  • 18 years ago

    I would bet that the dry warmth from the furnace would give the tree more of a negative effect than 58 degrees.
    Coco's need humidity, if they don't, then the leafs dry up and brown.

  • 18 years ago

    Id say humidity could be an issue, but I have acai palms doing great in this room and when the leaves died on the coco there was a fuz on them like mold.

  • 18 years ago

    Need to leave a fan running in the room,24/7 they need air
    circulation at all times.

  • 18 years ago

    If you watered it right before you left, in addition to 50 something degree temps, and if it was left like that for a week, then I would give it extra heat and maybe hold off with the water a little. It may have started to rot. If temps were that cold for that long, then the plant and the soil probably did not dry out very much if at all. A dry 58 would be healthier for the palm than a wet 58.

  • 18 years ago

    58 for a week was pushing it. Not that that advice helps you now. The humidity thing is overblown. Coxonuts are drought tolerant palm despite where they naturally occur. I would spray the crown with a fungicide, give it as much heat and light as you can, and keep your fingers crossed.

  • 18 years ago

    Thanks everyone for the advice. I got a heat mat tied to the side of the pot and I'll add a fan when or if i have leaves again.

  • 18 years ago

    Maybe the plastic on the soil and the heating mat encouraged some sort of 'damp off' like disease in the plant? Especially when the temperatures in the room were a cool 58F?

  • 18 years ago

    andyandy: " The humidity thing is overblown. Coxonuts are drought tolerant palm despite where they naturally occur."

    There is a HUGE differance from being drought tolerant and being humid.
    Where they are from might suffer a drought, but during the drought, the AIR is still humid.
    The area might not get a rain for a month, but they ARE still in a humid, tropical climate.
    Believe me, it is a dry furnace air problem mixed with moist soil at a low temps.

  • 18 years ago

    Hi everyone.. have you seen the indoor coconut tree link..? see this www.cocobonsai.multiply.com

  • 18 years ago

    I too think it was too damp and too cool for too long. Better to only water it once a week in the winter and keep the inside temperatures at 68F or above. I have overwintered several indoors in south central Texas with no problems. I set them outside on any winter day that the highs are 65F or above so they can get some sunshine, which they desperately need. Also, I leave mine out for a couple of nights down into the upper 30's (37F or above) to help harden them off, since mine eventually go into the ground in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Try applying a good copper fungicide to the crown area, and hope for the best.

    John

  • 18 years ago

    Thanks everyone for your help...but the palm rotted on me. The damaged leaves I think were a sign of the breakdown going on in the roots and in the core.

  • 18 years ago

    Just throw it out and consider getting a spindle palm. They sort of look like a coconut and are MUCH more tolerant of indoor conditions (lower light, lower humidity, cooler temps) and seem to be more spider mite resistant as well.

  • 18 years ago

    If your coconut died from the middle of the fronds out it may have "lethal yellow". You can avoid that disease next time by buying a resistant variety like a maypan (a cross between malaysian and panamanian variety.
    You could also inoculate the palm with injections of ethromycine 3x a year. There is a company in florida that sells an injection kit very reasonably but you will have to google for it. I am not posting anymore commercial urls here.

  • 18 years ago

    I brought a coconut that i germinated in Miami. Unfortunatly it seems to have stopped. I have added water daily and have also put a little miracle grow in the pot as well. Please help me save my coconut

  • 18 years ago

    Using a heat mat is a great idea. Only good things happen with them. AND use a nice quiet fan to circulate the air.
    Those two "tricks" will get you healthy tropical indoor plants every time.

  • 6 years ago

    A coconut not doing it's own thing in the great outdoors in it's natural environment will eventually die, it's just the way it goes. Sure, it may last a year or two but eventually it'll just die. They need large pots, 50 gallon minimum for a small rooted plant and minimum 100 gallon for a tree. They are always growing so eventually your coconut will want to be bigger than the home you can give it is and it's just not going to survive. The best you can hope for is to enjoy it while it lasts and you can help it by spritzing with water to keep the humidity up and by keeping your airconditioning on a higher temperature but these are temporary measures leading to the inevitable. Anyone who tells you that you can have a potted coconut indoors in non-tropical climates is a bald-faced liar who likely doesn't live anywhere near where they actually grow.

  • 5 years ago
    last modified: 5 years ago

    So, its a hundred degrees and i need a heat mat is what i

  • 5 years ago

    Thank u, i have a moisure probe that wont ever dry out 4 inches down in a 15 gallon pot... and theyre outside up on a deck by the sheltered front door in ca..santa cruz mtns in full sun and usually humid nights when the weathers not in a heat wave.. i wait days and theyre still wet but i always spray the nut just a little, i just want the moisure probe to go to 1 so i can water heavy.. major brown leaf tips/edges.. am i screwed? In 5 months groths been ridiculously slow, even for

  • 5 years ago

    Again, coconut palms are not meant to live indoors, they will pretty much always die. You're better off getting a plam that can live indoors as these plants are meant to exist is specific outdoor environmental conditions. Get a nice houseplant palm.

  • 5 years ago

    @Luke Rizzuto hey I am growing a coconut in Santa Cruz too I think it us going to die because the leaves started turning brown. I would like to check out your plant. If you want we can exchange emails to coordinate.

Sponsored
Peabody Landscape Group
Average rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars8 Reviews
Columbus' Reliable Landscape Design & Contracting