fredag 15 januari 2016

Death of a palm tree

You might have read about the little bug that kills palm trees aroung the Mediterrenean. This bug is one of the nastiest little creatures, the red palm weavel. We have five of those palm trees that this little bugger likes, the Canarian date palm. See in front of our farm house how two of them majesticly stand on either side of the entrance in the front picture of this blog.

About a year ago we started to notice dead or dying palm trees in Säo Martinho bay. We also got warnings from people living in the Algarve area. It was time to take action.Us trying to take action about a year ago. We sprayed all our Canarian palm trees and they all seemed fine.

In October, our neighbour Paulo passed, he is working in a garden/landscaping company, and shouted that one of our palm trees is dying. It is almost impossible to get rid of this bug once it has settled. What this little bug does is to use its trunk and dig into the top and goes inside the palm to lay its eggs. The larveas eats the flesh of the palm and it dies. To get rid of it you have to strip the palm fron its leaves, almost like shave on the outside and slice it from the top until you can´t see anymore affected or bugs. It is hard work because you don´t just have to to all this but also burn everything and dig it 2 meters under ground. Have you ever tried to put fire on a palm tree before? It akes forever because of its high water content. The garden companies charges 550 Euros to take down and destroy a palm tree.
so nasty

So we took all the leaves down on our dying palm tree. Kind of shaved it and also sliced it. This is the only way you can save it. Afterwards you have to spray it and also inject some stuff into it as well. To finish it off we put ahes on the top so it wouldn´t bleed so much. 
Then we just had to wait to see if it had survived. A month later we could see new leaves growing out. So it survived after all.

Then the next blow struck. During the renovation of our bathroom we found that the roots of this very palm tree have gone in to our house so we have to take the palm down anyway. Oh how it sucks.
A bit religious feeling

It is more job than you can imagine

Here you can see where the monsters have been eating

This is what our magnificent palm looked like after

One more is trying to get in

The leaves are coming back

Red palm weevil






www.facebook.com/farmholidayssilvercoast/

http://www.farmholidayssilvercoast.com/





2 kommentarer:

  1. Vi råkade ut för samma sak. Tråkigt med förlusten och väldigt mycket jobb med att få bort "liket". Trist!

    SvaraRadera
    Svar
    1. Hej. Ja vi ser så många döda palmer överallt. Vi lyckades ju rädda vår men nu måste vi hugga ner den iaf, pga rötter som trämger in i huset. Bägge våra vackra palmer som står på var sin sida av huset måste huggas ner. Som tur är att vi har tre till.

      Radera