Lady palm
Also called Broadleaf lady palm, Bamboo palm, Ground rattan.
| Light | low light |
|---|---|
| Water | Every 8 days in the growing season, every 16 in winter |
| Pets | Cats not known, dogs not known |
Source: ASPCA Animal Poison Control, toxic and non-toxic plants list, checked for Rhapis excelsa.
The lady palm comes from southern China and Taiwan, where it grows as an understorey clump of slender canes rather than a single trunk. That habit makes it unusually useful indoors: it spreads sideways into a dense screen rather than reaching for the ceiling, it can be divided, and losing one cane costs nothing. It is among the most shade tolerant palms in cultivation and among the most cold tolerant, comfortable in a cool hallway that would kill an areca over a winter. In exchange it grows very slowly, which is the standing trade for shade tolerance in palms. Like every palm it cannot be topped, since each cane grows from a single tip, so a plant that is too tall is thinned by cutting whole canes out at the base rather than shortened.
Ailments observed
| Brown tips on otherwise healthy leaves | Dry air, fluoridated tap water, or feed salts. Use rainwater, flush the pot occasionally, and raise the humidity. |
|---|---|
| Yellow leaves at the bottom of the plant | An old frond dying back, or overwatering. One at a time is normal. Several at once with wet compost means the roots are drowning. |
| Fine webbing between the leaves | Spider mites in dry heated air. Rinse the whole plant under a shower and repeat weekly until nothing new appears. |
Questions from the margin
How cold can a lady palm take?
Colder than most houseplants. It handles a cool hallway down to about 5 degrees without complaint, which is why it turns up in draughty entrances and unheated conservatories where an areca would not last a winter.
Filed underPlants for a room the sun never really reaches, Plants for a bedroom, Plants that forgive a beginner
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