The short answer is, restore the root system to good health so it's not limiting the plant's vitality. The easy way is, get the plants into a soil you can water correctly w/o need to worry that what's happening will happen. The more difficult course is, learn to deal with excess water retention by tricking some of the excess water to exit the pot after you water. This can partially relieve some of the limitations, but still leaves you with a heavy soil with little gas exchange and containing less air than the plant would prefer, but it's still better than a waterlogged soil. Al

Please excuse me, I am entirely a newbie. Any help is extremely appreciated!! I am trying to grow an Areca Palm indoors. They grow to be up to 7 feet tall. I need soilless because I don't want any risk at all of bugs, etc. I just prefer the idea. I have an idea to make a deep water culture system. Just to take a large plastic planter (maybe two feet diameter), drill a hole in the top side, and feed an air pump tube through that hole, putting a stone on the end of that tube. I'll fill the planter with nutrient solution to the top almost. Then I'll put my net pot on top with ceramic balls in it and transfer a local garden store plant from its soil pot to my system. Will this work? I want to keep the plant for several years. Can I just add more nutrient solution as time goes on? Thanks so much!!

Ryan- Despite the fact that it’s called a bamboo palm, it has nothing to do with bamboo. I suggest you re-post this in the Palms and Cycads forum where you will get better answers.

It's normal for older leaves to yellow and die off, as long as you're getting new ones at the top. When it comes to watering it's best not to go by regular intervals. As weather fluctuates water evaporation rates change as does plant up take of water. You need to check moisture in the soil and water as needed. It's best to have fast draining potting soil as then it's more difficult to actually over water the plant. You can also give it an occasional good flush with water to prevent build up of excess mineral salts from fertiliser. I'd use the slow release fertiliser when repotting, they don't need a lot. With the vagueries of Melbourne weather I'd be careful about leaving it out all the time this time of year. (I'm in Darwin but know how it can be down there). The Bamboo Palm is Chamaedorea seifrizii and it's a multi trunked palm, so it will keep growing more trunks/stems (I have some with stems over 4 metres long). The Parlour Palm is Chamaedorea elegans which is a single trunked palm. So you have multiple plants in that pot. Due to competition from so many of them growing crowded together you'll have to expect some of the weaker ones to die off. That's normal. Otherwise, they're a good indoor palm and fairly slow growing. They can get up to a couple of metres tall, but you won't have to worry about that for quite a while.