Joshua Siskin writes each week about gardening in Southern California.
The subject of last week’s column was palm trees and that will be the subject for this column as well. around his home. I was astonished by this number. In more than 40 years of plant watching in the Los Angeles area, I have barely encountered 20 different palm tree species. It is enlightening to realize how many options there are when it comes to plant choices, even if we have to make do with a paltry selection in our local nurseries.
Queen palm and king palm are among the most popular palms that hold court in many of our gardens and landscapes. The queen palm, however, is a maintenance headache owing to fronds that constantly droop and need to be removed at least twice a year to maintain a clean and attractive look. These fronds are also torn up by wind so make sure there is protection from gusts like those you encounter in ocean-facing exposures.
Now we come to the Kentia palm. It comes from Lord Howe Island, a tiny dot in the ocean between Australia and New Zealand. It’s said that no human footprints were made here before the arrival of a British ship in 1788. This island is only 7 miles long and 3 and 1/2 miles wide and yet it constitutes the exclusive habitat of Kentia, the most popular indoor palm in the world. If you see a palm tree in a hotel lobby, it’s most likely a kentia.
Another palm seen in both indoor and outdoor settings is fishtail palm This palm is highly unusual for several reasons. First of all, it is the only palm genus with bipinnate foliage. There are two types of palms: fan palms and pinnate or feather palms, the latter having leaflets on either side of the leaf stem or rachis. Each leaflet of a fishtail palm, however, is bipinnate, meaning that it has rows of leaflets on either side of its stem as well.
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