Foliage Friday: Rhapis Palms

I have to say, I don't really like palms.  To my eye, they look strange and naked in our lush, semi-tropical climate.  The proportion looks wrong to me, especially when planted singly.  And given that we do occasionally experience a hard freeze (remember last winter?), it's hard to believe there are so many planted in the Houston area..  That said, I do like palms that look more like shrubs.  We have some pretty palmettos that are native Texans and are quite cold-hardy. 

Closeup of Rhapis excelsa leaves

But my favorite palm is the Lady Palm, or Rhapis excelsa.  This relative of the Areca palm looks like bamboo, and is sometimes called Bamboo Palm.  I like the lush, tropical look of the foliage and the height: typically Lady Palm grows to a height of only 10-12 feet. 

Rhapis palm at Houston Zoo

Although this palm looks tropical, it's actually fairly cold hardy.  Older specimens survived our freezes last winter with no problems.  The picture above, taken in May of 2010, shows Lady Palms planted in the ground at the Houston Zoo.  You can hardly tell there was a freeze.

Rhapis palms -- lush and tropical

There are many different cultivated varieties on the market, and some are quite expensive.  They are said to be slow-growing when young, which may explain the high price.  But for a tropical look, or a rich, dense visual screen, they are perfect.  Plant in light shade or part sun for best results around here.  Full sun will cause yellowing and damage to foliage.

Another hardy palm that has a more delicate, finely textured look is Hardy Bamboo Palm, or Chamaeadorea microspadix.  It's got a very similar appearance, but the fronds are less fan-like.  I like that one too -- perhaps because it doesn't look like a palm!

Don't Believe Everything You Read

This kind of thing really aggravates me.  A local discount tree nursery has a new ad proclaiming that "it's never too hot to plant Big Tex Trees!"  They claim that their trees and palms are heat acclimated and guaranteed to grow.  Moreover, they claim that since their queen palms (Syagrus romanzoffiana) are grown in Ventura County, California instead of Florida, they will perform better in the Houston area.  They have even gone so far as to name their queen palms after the little town in California where, presumably, they are grown.  As if there's a difference between Piru queen palms and any other queen palm.

Well, you know what?  It is too hot to plant trees.  And anyone who's ever tried to water a newly planted tree in the middle of July knows it.  Let's just say you talk yourself into a large live oak, maybe 4-inch caliper.  This tree will need 20 to 30 gallons of water per week, from you or from the rain.  Imagine filling a 5-gallon bucket almost every single day and slowly letting it pour around the root ball.  Your sprinkler system isn't going to cut it.  It will have to be watered by hand.  And that's if we don't get a long spell of hot, dry, windy weather.  A strong southwest wind can strip the moisture from the leaves of a young tree faster than the roots can carry it up, no matter how much you water.  Far better to wait until October to plant trees.

It doesn't matter where those palm trees are grown, either.  They are containerized:  the root system is no bigger than the container it comes in.  What's important about where they were grown?  They were watered every single day there.  And you're going to have to water them every single day here, too.  And if we get another winter like we did last year, newly planted queen palms are in serious jeopardy.  Even if they were grown in Ventura County.

Queen palms are not reliably hardy here, although older, established ones may survive a hard freeze.  For a list of cold-hardy palms suitable for the Fort Bend County area, click here.

Palm Trees: A Surprising Recovery

After the freezes in December 2009 and January 2010, many of us mourned the loss of palm trees all over the city.  The fan palms seemed to weather the cold, but the finer-textured palms, like Queen Palms and Pygmy Date Palms, seemed like goners.  They lost their foliage entirely and for months remained leafless and sad.

But now that the weather is hot, day and night, even some of these tropical palm trees have begun to leave out, much to my surprise and relief.  Some newly planted palms certainly died in the cold, but many of the well-established ones seem to be recovering.  Depending on the damage they sustained, it's still possible for even green palms to die this summer, especially if they are stressed by drought.  But I am much encouraged by the sight of all those green fronds!

(On the left: February 7.  On the right: July 4)

Some palms didn't die of exposure, though:  they died from improper pruning.  The "heart" of a palm, the growing tip or meristem, is at the top of the trunk, where the fronds emerge.  Some people were a tad aggressive when removing brown fronds -- they cut the palm too low and inadvertently removed the palm's heart.  These trees will not recover.  Palms typically cannot regenerate the heart and have only limited ability to regenerate tissue along the trunk.

This pygmy date palm is regrowing from the roots because the top was so badly damaged.

Next winter, protect this growing tip by wrapping it or tying the foliage up and around the top of the trunk.  Make sure that the palm isn't under any environmental stress going into winter by providing sufficient water and fertilizer designed specifically for palm trees.

This queen palm was planted in the summer of 2009 and not properly watered.  It was young and stressed when the cold weather blew in and it doesn't look like it's going to make it.

Did you lose your tropical palms (or give up on them too soon?)  Download a list of palms that are suitable for growing here, in zone 9A.

Field Trip: Moody Gardens in Galveston

Visited Moody Gardens in Galveston on Saturday with the family.  As you may know, the pyramids suffered extensive damage two years ago as a result of flooding caused by Hurricane Ike.  Fourteen feet of water inundated the parking lot and forced its way into the basement.  Many of the animals that weren't evacuated prior to the storm perished in the aftermath and rebuilding the facility will be a multi-year project.

My favorite part of Moody Gardens is (of course) the Rainforest Pyramid, featuring plants of the African, Asian and American tropics.  A great many bromeliads were blooming and the calathea were particularly beautiful.  Orchids and parrots lit up the foliage and unusual palm trees towered above the paths in the 10-story pyramid.

Outside, I was interested to see which palm trees survived the floodwaters of Ike and the freezes of last winter.  It appeared like a great many plants have been replaced but some older specimens are still flourishing.  I didn't get a good picture, but the Natal plum, planted as a low hedge, was especially nice -- dark, rich green with a few white flowers.

I put the pictures, and what notes I managed to capture, in a Flickr set, which you can view here.  Warning:  the botanical names are my best guess only!  I'll have to check back next spring, when the final phase of the renovations is complete.

Learned Something New Today!

These are the seedlings of a Mexican Fan Palm, or Washingtonia robusta.  They were growing by the hundreds in a flowerbed under the parent palm tree, looking for all the world like weeds.  I had never seen palm tree seedlings before.  I wish you could feel the texture of them.  They look like grass, but the leaf is much stiffer, almost like a little dracaena. 

All palm trees are grown from seeds, although much work is being done to try to propagate them vegetatively.  Mexican Fan Palms are apparently easy to grow from seed, and will germinate at temperatures between about 75 and 85 degrees F, in a very short time, perhaps two weeks.  That's good news for seed starters -- some palm trees require weeks at temperatures in excess of 100 degrees!

I may plant these little babies, just to see what happens.  I've never been a palm person, but since so many of them froze back this winter, I've been trying to learn more about them.  We'll see how they turn out!

Zoo Tour

Saturday I had the pleasure of a guided tour of the Houston Zoo, led by Manager of Horticulture Joe Williams.  I love visiting other people's gardens, and this tour was exactly that, albeit on a much grander scale.  Mr. Williams talked about winter protection, managing invasive plants, struggling to provide a beautiful environment for special events, wondering whether or not prized specimens would pull through the freeze.  Just like you do.  Just like I do.  That was refreshing, and reassuring, in a way.  And he also shared the particular problems he and his team encounter, in dealing with the public.  It never occurred to me that visitors would not only pluck leaves and flowers (I knew they did that!) but would carry them for hundreds of yards before finally throwing them into an animal exhibit!  I figured people would walk on the grass, but I didn't quite understand that they walk right through planting areas, if they aren't sufficiently thorny (the beds, not the visitors).  I'm glad, really, that I don't have to deal with that.  I wouldn't have the patience.  But I envy Mr. Williams the grand scale of his garden.  What a treat it must be!  I have nine trees.  His are uncountable.  I have one beautiful Baldcypress that I treasure.  He has many, and dwarf Baldcypress and Pond Cypress and Montezuma besides.  I was jealous of those trees for the remainder of the day.

I was happy to learn that the hard freeze Houston endured did not devastate the gardens at the Zoo.  Mr.  Williams estimates that they only lost 5 of the over 100 Pygmy Date Palms (Phoenix roebelenii) that are planted.  There is life yet in the Silk Floss Tree (Chorisia speciosa), the Royal Poinciana (Delonix regia) and most of the tropical palms.  The African bauhinia (Bauhinia galpinii) and the Hummingbird Bush (Hamelia patens) are coming back from the roots and the flowering fruit trees were in their glory.  All over the zoo, the pomegranates (Punica granatum) were blooming, along with the native flowering deciduous trees.

I asked Mr. Williams how he protected his plants.  He said they apply compost from Nature's Way twice a year.  They also benefit from a heat-island effect, surrounded by the Texas Medical Center and the smaller buildings of the zoo.  Their tree canopy also provides protection from night-time frosts and helps slow heat  loss.  He did not use copper fungicides on his palm trees, which is recommended by some experts immediately after a freeze that may damage a palm's heart.  There could be an issue with copper toxicity for the animals.  Instead he used a drench of hydrogen peroxide to help ward off attacks by opportunistic fungi.

I took many pictures on my tour, far too many to include here.  Visit my Flickr page for the entire set.  I've tried to annotate them, providing common and botanical names of all the plants I photographed.  I hope you all can join me on the next tour!