Author Topic: Golden Cane Palm---SCORE!!!!!!!!!! (Read 2302 times)

LilithFair · « **on:** November 17, 2006, 04:12:50 AM »

When I was in Miami last weekend, my friend that we stayed with gave me this great palm. It was an extra he had been going to plant in his yard til he realized he didn't have space for it. Its a Dypsis lutescens (Butterly palm, Golden Cane Palm, Areca Palm). They sell them commonly in box stores, but very tiny specimens like about 12 inches tall. This is a 10 gallon specimen. Its about 4 ft tall, eventually it will get about 20ft but that takes a while :-)

Its only marginally hardy here, it will survive down to about 25F and we can get to about 20, so I am going to keep it as an indoor plant. I am going to get a really nice planter for it and put it under my skylights in the living room.

We went to go to the Ramble, a big plant sale at Fairchild Gardens. I also got a Seychelles Stiltroot palm (Verschaffeltia splendida), a Croton "Picasso's Paintbrush", a neat little sanseveria species, a phenomenal Orthophytum vagans in a 3 gal container...it was a lot of fun.

Jerry · « **Reply #1 on:** November 17, 2006, 08:03:54 AM »

Great score!

I didn't realize Gainsville got that cold.

LilithFair · « **Reply #2 on:** November 17, 2006, 11:25:03 AM »

Unfortunately, we can get either absolutely NO 20's, or a few isolated hard freezes between 20-28. Usually, its a night or 2 a winter around 20-23. Its not bad at all, just bad enough that one year, you MIGHT lose something you really like. I do fine with what I have out as far as tropical plants goes, I either plant ones that go dormant naturally in winter, or have them in microclimates in the yard that protect them well.

Mikey · « **Reply #3 on:** November 17, 2006, 01:12:27 PM »

Congratulations on having such a nice friend.

I think your Dypsis lutescens must be synonymous with my Chrysalidocarpus lutescens as they look very much alike and have the same common names. The C. lutescens is my favorite palm as it has such a neat tropical look. The palm branches come off very cleanly giving the trunk a nice clean look. Several years ago my nursery wanted about $120.00 for a cluster that was about 8' tall. I really wanted it but I couldn't pay that kind of money. It was soon thereafter that I learned on the Internet that the common small house plant sold as the Areca Palm was actually a young Chrysalidocarpus lutescens that is sold as "Areca Palm". So I bought a small potted Areca Palm that was about 12-14" tall, divided it into three plants and re-potted them. That was about six years ago. One is still in a pot and about 6' tall and the other two are in the ground, the tallest of which is now about 10' tall. Not bad for a plant that cost me three bucks and now the three are worth a few hundred dollars..... but more importantly they look great. I like them so much I bought another small "Areca Palm", divided it into three pots and those are now about 3' tall. I need to get them into the ground because I notice they grow much quicker once they get into the ground....

LilithFair · « **Reply #4 on:** November 17, 2006, 04:36:04 PM »

Mikey, no one I know knows WHY they call this palm an "Areca" palm! Since Areca is its own palm genus, and this palm was never in the Areca genus, it was always in Dypsis! However, it ***does***slightly resemble some Arecas in the pinnate leaf form. You are correct though, it did get moved over from Dypsis into Chrysalidocarpus. You can buy small specimens of this palm in every box store in FL for uner $5. The trick is getting a large specimen! And one that shows a lot of yellow. The yellow on the trunk tends to vanish with age, but the midribs of the fronds usually retain some gold color in this particular palm. I really like it. Its very common in yards in So FL but rare up here to have a big specimen. The one I received was $35 when my friend bought it.

PondmaninAL · « **Reply #5 on:** November 17, 2006, 05:37:44 PM »

Actually, Gainesville can get colder than that. We have been down to 19°F here in Ocala which is 30 or so miles south of Gainesville.

Scott

LilithFair · « **Reply #6 on:** November 18, 2006, 06:13:57 AM »

Yes, Scott, it CAN get colder, but it rarely does. In the 15 years going on 16 I have lived here, the all time low has been 20 in town. Teens are common in outlying rural areas like Newberry, Hawthorne, Keystone Heights etc etc etc but not in town. I believe the last teens recorded in town proper were in 1989. All the concrete and radiational heat from the buildings keeps is warmer...you know, microclimate? But, because is ***can*** conceivably get that low, (all time record low for Gainesville is I think I recall 10F) that is why I won't plant my palm outdoors.

If you believe the new zonal maps that have been published (someone on Gweb posted a link a week or so ago), Gainesville and some areas up into South GA have now been relegated to zone 9A. Areas of So FL previously in 9B have switched to 10A. This is just on paper though....reality is often different from paper. They are blaming Global Warming, of course. I will see if I can find the link and post it, its a pretty neat map, shows before and after.

LeeAnne151 · « **Reply #7 on:** November 25, 2006, 10:58:07 AM »

In some of my really old houseplant books it is called Areca lutescens, I've never heard of the genus Dypsis, I've always known it as Chrysalidocarpus.

They are very common here in 10" pots for under $20 about 4' tall. They are not easy houseplants here and most die.

It is too dark and cloudy here for nine months to give them enough light indoors here. They get spider mites really easily here.

That is a gorgeous one. They aren't ususally nearly that full or that yellow stemmed.

LilithFair · « **Reply #8 on:** November 27, 2006, 10:44:46 AM »

Its hard to believe you have never heard of the genus Dypsis!!! Its one of the largest genuses of palms (I think Geonoma and Chamaedorea are considered the largest and most taxonomically complex). Dypsis has between 140 and 160 species. Many are commonly grown outdoors in South FL and Southern CA. Most of them come from Madagascar, which has the moniker "Land of Dypsis" because of the fact that it has so many Dypsis species (and more are being discovered as habitat is lost).

LeeAnne151 · « **Reply #9 on:** November 27, 2006, 02:37:24 PM »

If they didn't grow in Phoenix or is an updated name for those that grow in Phoenix or are houseplants everywhere,
I would not have heard of it.

I've heard of Chamaedorea!

and Washingtonia, Rhaphis, Howea, Phoenix, Trachycarpus, Arecastrum, Chrysalidocarpus, Brahea, Butia, Chamaerops, and Caryota

some of those may be outdated, Haven't done much with Palms in Oregon.....

LilithFair · « **Reply #10 on:** November 27, 2006, 07:04:15 PM »

Those are all definitely in use LOL! I have really just started with palms, but I did research on them for over a year on and off before I started collecting them. I currently grow 110 different palms. The most represented genuses in my collection are Calyptrocalyx, Chamaedorea, Licuala, Pinanga and Dypsis. I have a smattering of a lot of diverse genuses though. Some of the ones I have, I know I have outdated names for...for instance, the genus Gronophyllum was recently changed to something else (rather the palms in that genus were consolidated into another genus) but I didn't ever get around to changing the tags and now I'd have to look it all up again. I guess at the moment I am too lazy to do that. Its a shame, but I don't know the names of a lot of common outdoor palms that grow in my area, and I don't even know what they are on sight, because the ones that I have put all my effort into are mostly greenhouse palms that are rainforest understory palms. I don't have anything that will get much over 20 ft, and I chose everything to be fairly slow growing, and I tried to only collect rare or endangered palms, because I like the idea that I am somehow holding off the possible eventual extinction of something whose natural habitat has been/is being decimated by keeping it going in cultivation. I grow a few gingers and other plants for that same reason.
One palm I chose because it has not been seen in the wild in its native habitat for over 70 years, and the only known specimens are cultivated ones, and there aren't a big whole lot of those. Others I chose because they are fairly recently described species in a genus, so its exciting to be growing something that is so new in some cases they don't have species names, just "location" names of where they were found.
You could grow a lot of the smaller low light palms as houseplants in Oregon!

Mikey · « **Reply #11 on:** November 28, 2006, 12:11:47 AM »

I have a 12-14' Chamaedorea plumosa that I really like. The trunk is straight as an arrow, perhaps 2 1/2 to 3" in diameter and because of the green bark/skin and the fact that the fronds come off cleanly, it looks very bamboo-like. I was hoping to propagate more from the seeds only to learn one needs a male/female in combination for it to produce the seeds..... I don't know if I have a male or female but I sure wish a nearby neighbor would plant one of the opposite sex

LilithFair · « **Reply #12 on:** November 28, 2006, 04:32:28 AM »

Mikey,
I have a young C. plumosa too. Its a very nice palm! Like you, I only have a single. I got 10 seeds from someone in Miami this last summer, but they have never germinated. I haven't given up hope though...palm seeds can be so slow. Another tall thin palm that looks really neat is Dypsis ambositrae. Its somewhat rare, but if you can find it, its cool. I recently got a Pinanga riparia...there is very little data available about this palm, but its going to be another like that, thin spare trunk with a bamboo-like look. Not all that typical of a Pinanga.

LilithFair · « **Reply #13 on:** November 28, 2006, 05:02:12 AM »

This is one of my favorite palms at the moment, and its a testament to the fact that there ARE real deals to be found on eBay. This is a variegated Lary Palm (Rhapis excelsa), variety is Zuikon Nishiki. When I bought this plant, the seller had a reserve. I had watched several of his auctions over about a month, and noted the point that I thought the reserve was met. It was at $49.95. He had sold several plants for $135-160 each, which is generally, from what I have seen, a pretty median price for variegated Rhapis (depending on the cultivar). I waited til the very last minute and no one had met his reserve, so I bid $75 to be safe. As I had thought, the reserve was only $49.95, and I actually won the palm for that!
It was truly a bargain. The plant was 3 ft tall, gallon container size and very well bushed out for a Rhapis and had 5 new leads forming when I got it. Every leaf is variegated, there were no brown tips or ANYTHING. HUGE palm for $49.95. Since then, 2 of the new leads have broken ground and are forming new palm offshoots.
When we were at Fairchild Gardens earlier this month at Ramble, a vendor had some variegated rhapis Aya Nishiki in 4" pots, barely 10" tall and most with browning leaves for $125.

LeeAnne151 · « **Reply #14 on:** November 28, 2006, 09:56:32 AM »

That Rhapis is gorgeous. Never see the variegated ones here. Actually, I haven't seen a Rhapis in years.

It is sooooo grey and overcast here for sooooo many months of the year. The houseplants available here are few. I had a much wider variety to choose from in Phoenix twenty years ago. Even as a wholesale buyer for so long, the choices available to carry were very slim here. Even the two biggest garden centers in the area with greenhouses for indoor plants do not carry much more than big box stores.

My house has few windows and they aren't orientated right for plants so I have the least amount of houseplants than ever in my life after age 12. However, once DH gets the greenhouse fully weather proofed and electrified I am buying some palms and other houseplants that I've wanted for so long. I didn't know how much I had missed them until I started looking at my old books again....I have 8 houseplants and three of them are new! Sad and pathetic.

Mikey · « **Reply #15 on:** November 28, 2006, 10:25:06 AM »

I look forward to purchasing a Rhapis but I first have to wait for some of my trees to grow taller so that they can provide the shade it will need. That will also give me time to save up to purchase one.... The darn things are pretty pricey..... I had never seen a variegated one. That's pretty cool looking.

LilithFair · « **Reply #16 on:** November 28, 2006, 11:50:00 AM »

You can count the people who actually sell variegated Rhapis on a regular basis probably on one hand. It would be great if they would be more commonly available, (and at a lower price needless to say) but as Rhapis in general are so S-L-O-W growing I don't see it happening. I don't think they can be tissue cultured either. Someone told me that when they try to TC variegated plants it either comes out all green or all white.

You could go on and get a nice Rhapis and keep it as a house plant, probably by the time your trees were tall enough your palm would still be around the right size. I have a very small regular green one in the house. I keep it actually under the skylight, it gets a whole lot of light and doesn;t seem to mind. Lots of people plant Rhapis excelsa out here, its hardy, I might someday, its hard to plant out something that costs about $60 for a 3 gallon size. I'd like to get ahold og a nice Rhapis multifida but they almost never have them around here.

I did get ahold of a Chuniophoenix nana, which is a rare palm that resembles a Rhapis somewhat, makes a good houseplant. I haven't decided if its going ot be a GH palm or a house plant yet.

Lee Anne, how close is the GH to being up and going????

LilithFair · « **Reply #17 on:** November 28, 2006, 04:24:37 PM »

This is Chuniophoenix nana. Its a really nice palm. The fan palm behind it is Kerridoxa elegans (aka White Elephant Palm). The K. elegans is very rare. Its absolutely gorgeous when it gets larger. The leaves are entire (undivided) and look like big dinner plates with serrated edges. They tend to "lay out" flat like a lily pad. The palm only gets 5-6 ft tall but the leaves can be as big as the pads on a Victoria water lily.

LeeAnne151 · « **Reply #18 on:** November 29, 2006, 08:51:02 AM »

The greenhouse is up but not weatherproofed or electrified.

SheilaJ · « **Reply #19 on:** December 09, 2006, 05:34:52 PM »

I love rhapis. I care for a lot of them at work and I finally bought myself a small one a year ago. It was a 6 inch but I had to repot up to 8 inch and it put out lots of new little small shoots. I stopped fertilizing at the end of summer and it's just kind of stalled out since then, but that's OK. It's healthy, just not actively growing. I love the texture on the leaves.

Years ago I swore off of palms because mine always got spider mites, but rhapis seems much more resistant to them.