Sabals definitely dont seem to be very deep rooters. My sabal's roots takes up a lot more space than my trachys or livistona do (Dont know about the Butia since I dont plant anything extra there). Should be interesting to see if they grow faster in wider pots!
-Alex

They're just slow growers, it seems a a general rule the the colder tolerent ones grow slower and the heat lovers grow faster, washintonias may be the exception.

My Butias are fast too and they are cold tolerant. Always running out of my very largest pot sizes on three types of palms--Butias, Washingtonias, and Date palms. I was checking out the need for transplanting this morning by removing them from their containers and noticed most of the palms sent down roots to the very bottom of the containers of deep pots. When I gotto the Sabals, I noticed the mass of roots were concentrated closer to the surface and there was still soil at the bottom of their deep containers which was void of roots. Yes, I realize that Sabals are slower growing, but I bet my container dimensions were stunting them further.

I have 3 year old minors that are in 1 gallons where half the soil has eroded out of the pots, definitely not deep roots in my experience.

Hopefully, those wider containers will hasten Sabal growth-- albeit, slow. If Sabals are relatively shallow and wide, dates have got to be the opposite end of the spectrum! Just got done transplanting several into those 18 gallon, plastic tubs. I grew these babies from seed and wasn't going to transplant up but they started to lift themselves out of their containers--virtually on prop roots-- like Pandanus! With the heat, all it would take in the smaller containers would be a single missed watering and they would suffer. I had to saw off a couple of inches of the root ball but after watering they look very happy. They are Canary island dates I grew from seed. Don't let anyone tell you dates are slow growers, they're not! Tomorrow, I plant one of the Butias into the ground and the rest get to go into the bigger(used to be Date palm) pots. Enjoy the nice weather while it lasts!

I don't know if all Sabals do this but some are known for
their infinite tap roots which make them extremely difficult to transplant.

Click for weather forecast

Bismarkia are notorious difficult to transplant without killing them, but I have not had problems transplanting Sabals.

Me neither...

Not even with the Bizzy-I think the trick is to do it in late
spring when the soil is warm and the roots grow/recover quickly-

it helps if you don't break the tap root too!

I've got a number of Sabals (minor) that were planted too close to other palms (not planted by me). The others have grown tall, and the Sabals are getting in the way of the driveway. If they're that shallow rooted and easy to transplant I'll give it a try. The only sticky point might be the roots from the other palms.

My Sabal Minor "McCurtain" is Takeing Forever to just get one Leaf up. Unlike my Sabal minor "Tamaulipas" even my Standerd Sabal Minor grows faster than that Palm. I Have a Lot of sabal Palms.