Noticed one of my palms trunks looking different. Sure enough it's rotten halfway in. Any clue what caused it? Freeze damage, bugs? The other two are a different variety and not damaged.

Guessing this is going to have to come down dang it.

Looks like termites with all those little holes.

Three palms with lights up the trunks makes for good party time atmosphere around the pool. The cool folks know this.

No active termites. Didn't see any termite poop. Looks like wood rot?

Are those Queens? My bet would be from the couple of really cold spells we had this winter.

Carpenter ants? We had this little buggers get into my neighbors red bud and kill it??

Top of tree looks healthy so I guess I'll see what happens. Could be old freeze damage. I also suspect carpenter ants.

Freeze damage, very common in queen palms.

Sooner Born said:

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Given the hammer sticking out of the tree, i'd say carpenter ants too.

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Nice one! My unterweb sleuthing says freeze damage. Makes since as we lost a butt load of tropicals in our 2 days of freezing weather. Also says the tree can survive

I'm not an arborist but should OP fill the cavity with cement?

MookieBlaylock said:

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Got my bug out bag ready

Where is this emergency?

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What's in your bug out bag?

Looks like Queen palms, the holes are from woodpeckers going after bugs in the rotting wood.
Not sure what happened, but Queens are marginal in much of Texas so I'd say freeze damage was the likely start of the problem to let bugs in.
Your palm is toast. Better off cutting it down than having it fall on your home or truck.

It is a queen palm, the other two I have are not and they don't seem to have any problems just the queen. It still healthy at the top so I'll watch it for a while And see what happens.

Big storms tomorrow so we'll see how she handles it.

SanAntoneAg said:

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I'm not an arborist but should OP fill the cavity with cement?

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Nope. This stuff. That way it grows with the tree.

I have some mature Queen Anne Palms and almost everyone has a rotten looking spot on the trunk. Been that way for years and they keep surviving the strong winds.