How to Care for a Windmill Palm Flower
- 1). Water the windmill palm to supplement natural rainfall so the soil remains evenly moist and neither dry nor soggy. Irrigation during spring or summer droughts helps the plant maintain its flower stalks. The first signs of the palm's inflorescence occur in early spring, when a wedge-shaped bud emerges from among the frond petiole stems in the canopy. Depending on how old or large the palm is, multiple buds may develop and grow from the canopy.
- 2). Watch the growth and progression of the inflorescence. By late spring to midsummer, it fully branches and exposes hundreds or thousands of tiny flowers that dangle downward from, and contrast with, the green, fan-like fronds. Avoid pruning or working around the inflorescence so you don't accidentally break the stalk. Also, don't use pesticides in the garden, so plenty of pollinators will visit the flowers.
- 3). Prune off the flower stalk with loppers or a pruning saw only if you don't want to see it dry up and look brown in the canopy of leaves later in summer. Don't cut off the inflorescence if you want to harvest the fruits and sow the seeds to grow more windmill palms. Once small berries form on the flower stalk by midsummer, you know which palm plants are female. Male flower inflorescences bear no fruits and turn brown. Prune them away in mid- to late summer. Use an A-frame ladder to better access flower stalks in tall palms.
- 4). Cut off the female, berry-bearing flower stalk after you collect fruits and seeds. Depending on your aesthetic, prune the stalk off near its attachment to the trunk in early winter or the next spring. Some people enjoy seeing the contrasting blackish fruits dangling from the fronds during winter for visual texture.
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