Desert Water Requirements for Establishing Sago Palm and Bay Laurel

Q. I would like some more of your expert advice if you have time. As part of our landscape renovation completed last November, a Sago Palm and a Bay Laurel were planted. The Sago Palm is approximately 7" in diameter and 3 feet tall while the Bay Laurel is about 4 feet tall. They both have one drip near the base and two further away with 1 GPH Emitters, They are watered for 90 minutes following the water district watering schedule for lawns this first year. Is this adequate watering and what would you recommend as the plants grow?

A. If you are watering for 90 minutes then I would recommend four each, 5 gallon per hour emitters on the Sago palm placed about 12 inches from the trunk in a rectangular spacing for the first year after it is moved. The second year I would keep the same emitters but move them out to about 18 inches from the trunk. Unlike the Bay Laurel the amount of water will not change as they get taller. 

Make sure the hole dug for the Sago palm is three times the width of the root ball. Make sure the soil is amended with compost at the time of planting with one shovelful of compost mixed into 2 to 3 shovelful's of soil for the backfill. You will use this ratio of compost to soil also on the Bay Laurel.

Bay Laurel Water Use

The Bay Laurel is still quite small and so about 15 gallons per application is all that is needed. However, in two years you will bump that up to 30 gallons per application as the tree gets larger. Because the Bay Laurel will be a larger tree I would recommend using drip tubing coiled in a spiral around the tree instead of drip emitters. This spiral of drip tubing will be attached to the mainline spiral around the trunk of the tree and reconnected back into the mainline. Spiraling the drip tubing around the tree and reconnecting it back to the lateral will eliminate the need for flushing for that tree. If the drip tubing dead ends at the tree then the drip tubing must be flushed on a regular basis. 

If you use drip tubing with 1 gallon per hour drip emitters embedded into the drip tubing every 12 inches then you will only need about 10 feet of drip tubing spiraled around the tree to give you 15 gallons of water in 90 minutes. If you use drip tubing with drip emitters spaced every 12 inches and the drip emitters emitting 1/2 gallon per hour then you will need about 20 feet of drip tubing spiraled around the tree. The spiral should be staked so that each spiral is about 12 to 18 inches apart around the tree. 

Personally I would use the 1 gallon per hour drip tubing with emitters spaced 12 inches apart. It's very easy to come by locally. As the tree gets larger every two or three years you will splice in another spiral of drip tubing To give it more water because it's larger.