Sounds like lack of humidity and possibly an issue with spider mites. I'm wintering several palms and bananas indoors at a retail store I own. I've been learning along the way also... Among the similar palms I have, an almost 5-foot 4-trunk pygmy date and a 4 1/2 foot washy. Ironically both the washy and pygmy are doing as well as any of my palms, actually excellent. We are colder here and the hard cold hit earlier and it is very dry indoors. These are growing very well under bright florescent lighting, they really seem to like it. Wasahy/pygmy: Water, water! Mine seem to drink like fish. I literally have to water the washy every day, or every other day at the least. If not it gets the tell-tale droopy lower fronds. Keep it watered and it is opening a new fan every other week and growing like mad surprisingly! I still can't believe how fast my washy is growing in a pot indoors, it's amazing. Pygmy date seems to be a heavy drinker also, definitely keep it well watered with clean, preferably home-distilled water. I mist these palms, along with all the palms in the store, about 2x a week. It is quite a job, takes me a good hour to get to all of them! Also wintering indoors are many large basjoos, trachys, xmas palms, etc. These all love to be misted and well watered. Check for spider mites. They can be hard to spot on palms. I did have a smaller trachy get them, caught it on time and its doing fine now. Look for those little spider webs... My basjoos got attacked bad early in the winter. I got it under control eventually with a little trial and error. They look great now that new leaves have replaced the chewed ones and have been able to be pruned. Again, water, water, and mist for these! My largest basjoo which has 4 more pups now is in danger of exceeding the 14' ceiling in the store. I don't know what I'm going to do if it does before I can take it home and put it back in the ground this spring. It has slowed to putting out one new leaf a week but they are in excess of 6 feet long and at least 2 feet wide. Most of my other bananas ranging from 4 to 8 feet tall are still putting out a new leaf every 3 to 5 days now. I'd also advise against fertilizing them during the winter. Good luck with your palms! P.S. If you have spider mites on palms, Home Depot carries the stuff I use on palms and bananas. It works AWESOME and is actually labeled for use on palms and others. Volck Oil Spray (concentrate). About $5 for a bottle which makes something like 30 gallons mixed. One or two treatments and they are good for the winter. Killed all the mites on my bananas and little trachy, have not seen any mite evidence for a long time now with just 2 treatments. My bananas had them BAD also! Shines up the leaves and makes the plants look real good also.

Purple I'm so jealous of those palms! I live in Canada too and have the drafty cold windows as well but I have various plants that grow in the windowsill. All year round, day and night, I have my schefflera, haworthia, and Pony Palm growing up against the window while during the day I put 2 of my Spiders, wandering Jew, and COT on the window. I have Never had problems with any damage what so ever as I move the more 'sensitive' plants such as the Spiders and the wandering jew away from the window at night. All though, during the cold spells of - 40 and 30 I don't place them in the windowsill at all as that's just too cold. You can probably get away with placing the palm in the windowsill but if it is a parlor Palm, they can handle very low light situations. My neighbour has one growing 20 ft away from a North window that has its blinds shut all day and it flowers (not saying thats what they prefer) Want that Palm so bad! And as everyone else has mentioned they are notoriously slow growers.

Wipe every stem carefully with baby wipes and remove the scale. If the weather is still warm enough where you are I find a vacation outdoors is helpful in clearing scale, aphids etc. from house plants. That is if the problem really is scale. But I've not seen scale cause leaves to turn brown and fall off. Perhaps you can give us some pictures so we can make sure you have the right diagnosis? i have no experience with fish emulsion but I'm not sure what it would do for scale. I've only heard of it as a fertiliser. Maybe it's the excessive fish emulsion which is causing the leaves to die? oops - was typing at the same time as Dave. But seems we are on the same page.

"I water it probably once a week" Try not to water on a set schedule-water when the plant needs it. There are many ways to tell when a plant needs watering-one commonly used is the wooden dowel method. Take a wooden dowel or chopstick, stick it all the way into the soil, wait ten minutes, then pull it out. If the dowel is dirty/dark/obviously wet, withhold watering. If the dowel is clean/normal colored/obviously dry, water. "but I don't water it a lot each time" Is the soil pulling away from the edges of the pot? Peat-based soils like MG have a bad tendency to become water repelling if left to dry for too long. They can harden to the consistency of a brick. Any water the grower gives will simply run over the top, down the sides of the dry root ball, and out the drainage hole. If this is happening, then I would take a bucket or a large sink big enough to fit the pot, fill the bucket or sink to the top, then slowly submerge the pot. Bubbles will begin flowing from the soil-this is just stale air in the root system being forced out of the dry soil by the fresh water pouring in. Hold it there for a few minutes, maybe five minutes after bubbling stops to ensure the entire root ball is saturated. I would then lift the pot, let it drain well, then set it back in its usual place. "I purchased some palm tree spikes, broke one up, and put it in the pot." I've read on Gardenweb that many people don't recommend the spikes because they may cause a large concentration of fertilizer salts in one area without properly spreading throughout the root system. I would take out the spikes and switch to a 3:1:2 ratio fertilizer, like Foliage Pro 9-3-6 or MG 12-4-8/ 24-8-16. Be sure to flush the pot before fertilizing-first saturate the entire root ball, wait for maybe ten minutes, then slowly pour water so that an amount of water equal to 10 times the volume of the container exits the drainage hole. Good luck! Also, word of advice-the next time you prune something or otherwise use tools to create a wound in the plant (like a cut, etc.) sterilize the tools beforehand. You can use rubbing alcohol-wipe the blades thoroughly or soak the blades for a few minutes, then let dry. This can lower the risk of introducing infectious agents into the plant because of your cut. It may seem unnecessary, but it certainly doesn't hurt.