Hardy Tropicals UK

My humilis has developed what is known in the trade as brewers droop,is there a known cause for this,some five or six stems have developed this since last summer,where the stems have bent double

Do you have a thicket of basal shoots where the leaves and petioles chafe and rub against each other? I have a lot of these on my old Chammy and in the general tangle some shoots get caught up with each other resulting in the petioles 'double=backing' on themselves.

Looks etiolated from too much shade. Give it full sun dawn to dusk, and the petioles will be shorter, stouter and stronger.

No,no basal shoots,this plant itself was a division of one much larger about 10 years ago and has been in this position since then but the stem problem has been only in the past year.I first thought of lack of water but that isn't the case.The stems seem firm enough but they obviously shouldn't be bent.The plant itself had to be separated from it's parent by using a trolley jack as it was bonded so firmly but it survived the treatment although it sulked a bit for a year or so.

nicebutdim wrote:No,no basal shoots,this plant itself was a division of one much larger about 10 years ago and has been in this position since then but the stem problem has been only in the past year.I first thought of lack of water but that isn't the case.The stems seem firm enough but they obviously shouldn't be bent.The plant itself had to be separated from it's parent by using a trolley jack as it was bonded so firmly but it survived the treatment although it sulked a bit for a year or so.

could be due to excessive nitrogen fertilizer?

It appears to be growing under a conifer so shade and lack of water might be the issue.

Yorkshire Kris wrote:It appears to be growing under a conifer so shade and lack of water might be the issue.

Shade, yes (as I already said ), but not water - it's highly drought tolerant

looks like its got too leggy to me

I agree with whats been posted already i.e not enough direct sunlight.It could be showing more this year, because we had a fairly warm summer(so it's grown in a similar way to palms grown in the shade in a greenhouse).Or, you have the worlds first chammy/Trachycarpus nova hybrid