Question
I live in Modesto, calif and apprx 8 years ago we planted about 20 queen palm trees in our yard they were all only about 4ft tall and in 10 or 15 gallon cans that we transplanted to ground from- They are all doing great- only 1 died from unusually cold weather 2 years ago-it dropped to about 20 degrees-Are Summers avg. 100 degrees and are winters average about 55 daytime and 40's in the p.m. sometimes we drop to the 30's. One of my mature Queens-about 25 ft. tall to 30 ft. tall, roots have been coming out of the ground and spreading out to the sides of the tree on both sides growing out along the top of the ground- the tree is healthy and still growing- can you tell me why it is doing this an if I should do something about it- the tree is starting to lean to one side now and it never did that before. Please advise asap.  Thank you very much. Sami.

Answer
Hi Sami, that is a pretty common phenomenon , often the tissue (not bark, for Palms have tissue...) will curl up and expose the roots, or the soil will erode away exposing the roots, in either case you need to just leave it be, there really isn't anything you can do about it, unless you want to hire an excavator to come in and uproot the entire Palm and replant it, but this would be extremely expensive and not advisable. The leaning cannot be corrected without doing this for the root system is too extensive at that size to attempt to push it back upright and brace it. The Palm isn't suffering from this and is not being harmed, again, it is a phenomenon.Nick