I am responsible for the plant maintenance account of a four star hotel. The indoor pool room had two rather sorry looking palm trees when I started... I have a very green thumb and couldn't get them to look good. So the owner of the plant business ordered two new Kentia Palm trees. They looked ok for the first week, but seemed to have white scaly texture on frond bases... I watered them after one week and they looked ok. I came back to water them the second week and about half of the fronds were brown and crunchy. They had black speckles on stems and white flaky appearance had worsened. It was so sudden! The supplier blamed me for not watering properly and gave no credit for plants.
The plants are surrounded by south facing Windows and are also next to an exit door to the patio. We just had our first very cold weather so we concluded that between poor beginning health and cold air they were damaged.
We ordered new larger Kentia palms to replace them. They looked much healthier. I went in to check on them every day the first week and they looked great. We were having warmer temperatures.
I watered them after one week and mossed the pots for aesthetics. I checked them a couple days later... Still good. Then on day 7 I came in to find several browning fronds. The soil had dried out quite a lot compared to what I expected from just one week so I gave them a nice drink till a little water came out the bottom. I clipped off bad fronds and misted plants. The one by the door seemed to be worse and we had been having colder temperatures at night again. Also the door side is on southwest facing of building.
Today I returned to find several more fronds turning yellow and brown.
My boss is super upset and I'm struggling to figure out what to do!
Is it the chlorine from the pool and hot tub? Is it the direct afternoon sunlight? Is it the door that the overnight pool maintenance might be opening when cleaning the pool?
I have never struggled so much with plants in 30 years of caring for them and I've never been responsible for plants that cost over $200 each either!!!!
Please help!!!!!!!!!!
