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.

Very cool that your fortunei made it they are remarkable palms to say the least! I have noticed with palms esp and some other plants that with these companies shipping bareroot that some of them think that means we just throw it in a box and bye bye good luck!and some of these(e-bay)growers are very carefull and do a great job protecting these plants I try and remember whos who when it comes to return biz ,this bare root thing is incredibly hard on palms esp and shipping in winter really makes recovery a LONG process esp this time of year,(some of my palms still have not recovered and one waggie is still in a slow decline!)all that said I did get a yunnan banana December 8th it was low 20s and sat outside for a few hrs when I opened it it was crispy and started to mush I cut it down to where it felt solid about 3" from soil line and in a day or two it was pushing up a new leaf!its on its 5th leaf now and has grown about a foot,if a banana plant can recover your needle sure can!but they grow slow this time of year esp considering your needles history the good news is its spring!so get that sucker planted out in the yard like blondboy47 says in some nice sandy fast draining soil,make sure to loosen the soil when you plant so the roots can expand out easily but I'd wait until then cuz its been through enough,speaking of enough.Good Luck!

You can check out some of our information on our website -- we specialize in specimen palms. Canary Island Date Palms and Dactyliferas as well. We ship nationwide. Here is a link that might be useful: Big Tree Specialist

Thank you, Palmmandan! I hadn't yet opened the bag when I posted my message. I now see that there's not really a way I could've mixed the fert. with water. It most likely would have just floated around. I appreciate you providing your formula for measuring, which is what I was looking for. Very helpful! Thanks again Tree_girl