Messy Palm Trees are Females...Sometimes.

Flowers emerging from the spathe on a Canary Island date palm.

Q. We have several Mexican fan palms, plus a few identified as hybrid California and Mexican fan palms, in our backyard. They are sending out flower stalks and make a huge mess for anybody who has a pool. One of my neighbors said that only female palm trees produce these messy stalks. True?

Dates (fruit) produced by a female date palm.

A. There are hundreds of different kinds of palm trees and palms are variable whether they are male, female or produce both types of flowers on the same tree! For instance, both the Mexican and California fan palms have male and female flowers on the same tree. But the date palms, both the true date and the Canary Island date palm, are either all male trees or all female trees but they never have male and female flowers on the same tree.

Suckers from date palm. They can be removed and planted when they are older and their chances of survival are better. The suckers will be the same sex as the parent tree.

            So, if you have the California or Mexican fan palms then all of them are “messy”.  But date palms are different. Male date palms are less messy around pools than female date palms. Look for fruit on older female date palms if you aren’t sure whether they are male or female (they must be about six feet tall before females start producing fruit).

            It is nearly impossible to “sex” a tree before it starts producing flowers or fruit if grown from seed. Palms propagated from suckers will be the same sex as the parent tree. California and Mexican fan palms are started from seed. Date palms may be started from seed or suckers.