transplanting coconut palms?

[1FinickyOne]

I love them and would want to put a few in my new landscape project... Does anyone have experience with this?

 

How tall an existing tree can be purchased and re-planted and any idea of costs for buying and transporting?

[drtreelove]

I've only moved a few  coconut palms in Thailand, but I moved and supervised moving of thousands of palms in my early career as a foreman for a field-grown nursery in the US. So I will say this from experience, be very careful with your investment and get one year guarantees and a preferably maintenance contract with appropriate water management,  Thai tree movers are extremely brutal and take far smaller soil/root balls than what is acceptable in western professional best management practices, so trees sustain extreme physiological stress.

 

Go with small to medium size palms, maybe 5 meter trunks at the most. The more mature the trees the higher the transplant failure rate, and the greater the financial loss.  Taller trunks are hard to prop dependably to withstand storm events, and the small root balls don't provide a good stability base.  Buy palms that have been dug and out of the ground for a few months so that the survival from the digging and root cutting process has been proven and new root growth has initiated.    Freshly dug palms have just suffered a major trauma with loss of an extensive absorbing root system; whether they can recover or not is not a sure thing. 

 

The site, climate and soil conditions are important to consider, and do you have irrigation water available. Drought-stressed coconut palms are more susceptible to killer pests like coconut rhiniceros beetle and red palm weevil.