Root damage from palm?
 

Hello there, 7 years ago we planted a 1 foot high palm plant near the house. It has thrived and is now 8 foot tall with a 4 inch thick "trunk".

In the meantime we constructed a conservatory within 3 foot of the palm, the construction sits on concrete pads which go into the ground about 4 foot. It is not your conventional conservatory with a traditional dwarf wall, but a steel construction sat on these breeze-block style pads, sunk into the ground.

Our question is, how disruptive are the roots from what we believe to be a Torbay palm, and should we chop it down or move it perhaps?

There are no signs yet that the palm is causing any grief to conservatory or house.

Thanks, Tony

Actually a "Torbay Palm" is not a palm. Properly called Cordyline australis, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordyline_australis, or Cabbage tree, a native of New Zealand, it is more closely related to yuccas, orchids and hyacinths than to palms.

If you look at the volume of leaves it has atop it, you will realise that it is a tiny fraction of the typical leaf volume of a medium to large tree that we might worry is a subsidence risk, like my neighbour's maple with a trunk a foot across near my garage that my architect got worried about, because the building regs said he had to be. We built the garage on a raft so that the tree could not affect it, when the neighbour said he wanted to keep the tree (even though he likes it so much he butchers it each year). So the amount of water it is sucking up is, which is what it is all about, is a tiny fraction of a tree that is a genuine subsidence risk. So I really wouldn't worry about it.

Unless you have access to a jcb so that you can move a very large rootball, in practice, you won't be able to move it without killing it.

I've planted a real palm right next to my house, like a foot away, this one, which is very hardy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chusan_palm Even with this real palm, the quantity of leaves that it has are so small in comparison to a worrisome tree that it is not a problem. I also have a fruit tree trained against my house wall. Ditto.

Thanks very much. The wiki description says they can grow up to 15m!! Wow, that would dwarf the house, let alone the conservatory. I cannot attach a picture of it, is there anyway i could get it to you perhaps?

Less concerned now, but don't want a 15m monster so close to the house :O Thanks :)

In British gardens they rarely get anywhere near that. There is a famous picture of one dwarfing a house at Rosslare in Ireland.
http://www.growingontheedge.net/view...b72aadf686031f
But for most of us in Britain they don't grow higher than about 4m, and remain fairly spindly even then. Look at the one from Loughborough further down the page - he's got his right next to his house and it isn't going to get much bigger than that. So unless you have a coastal garden in a very mild location, it's not going to happen.

They are really rather common in people's gardens, every garden centre sells them. Once you start looking, you'll see that many people have them, and they are popular for front gardens. Look around to see how your neighbours are doing.

If you want me to look at a picture, I suggest you join a free picture gallery site such as flickr and download it to that.

Hi there, i've placed a link below for a pic. That pic you talk about is as close as ours to the house, and if they're not worried, then neither am I. Confidence is high again, repeat confidence is high (is that the words from a film i wonder?!)

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/ChalkyWhite71/Palm

That's a Cordyline, and I would say it is performing closer to the wimp than to the Rosslare end of the vigour scale.