Excellent and Unusual Palm Tree For Growing Indoors

You see it? You see it? Look at that. Look at that. Oh, that's gonna be beautiful. What's up, friends? Jeff here. How's everybody doing? I hope you're doing well. I'm great. I was just out here doing a little watering, some pruning, some bug spraying, and noticing the inflorescence on my pacaya palms getting ready to open up. Let's talk about them. This is a plant that I've had for, this will be the third year now. I got these. It was in a video three years ago. Kind of wonky, but still pretty cool-looking. This one has something going on down in there, too. It's just further down into the container, so it's a smidge bit harder to see. And I had mentioned in that video that the main reason I got them was because I want to try different palms for indoors. Typically, you know, we see the majesties and the bamboos and the robalinis. That's a lot of what you see at the stores, at least if you live up north like I do. I don't live up north. You know, I'm in the Midwest, but you get what I'm saying. I don't live down south where you can just go to a nursery and there's palm trees everywhere. It's a limited selection, and a lot of them tend to just not do great indoors. I wanted to give these a try. I wanted to find some palms that have a nice, slender, smooth trunk on them and don't behave like an edinidia, which is the most common of the smooth-trunked palms that you'll find for sale, really nationwide, but especially just for people with houseplants. They make terrible houseplants, those edinidia palms. So I got these. I thought, well, this might be a better option. We have talked about the alexander palms, the king palms, the montgomeryanas. We've talked about a lot of palms on this channel, and I haven't really talked about these in their own dedicated videos since I got them. And I just have to report back with, these are great. Maybe one of my new favorites of the more unusual, I don't want to say rare, but they're harder to find palms to keep in the house. All right, now I have them out in my grow space. The first year I had them, they were inside. They kind of move in and out, which I probably shouldn't do, but they've pretty much always been fine with it. In and out, meaning between my grow space in here, which is fairly warm. Try and keep it mid-70s. It's pretty humid because, you know, water, waterfall. But there's a lot of wind blowing on these guys because they are right in the path, just about in the path of that 10,000 watt heater up there. And look, you would expect to see, well you'd expect to see what we got going on over here with the montgomery palm, the vichia right there. You see that? Yeah, that's ugly. Nope, doesn't care, doesn't care at all. Only thing they do seem to care about is having, uh, well, sun and cold on the foliage. They're frost sensitive. They can take some frost though. I let them take a little bit, but not too much because you get that. I suppose I'm two and a half minutes in. Should really give you a run on what I'm talking about. This is the camadoria, camadoria tepehelote. Did I say that right? Commonly called the picaia palm. These are grown really commonly because they have a nice small slender trunk. They have a medium to slow growth rate. Some people say it's fast. I would say much more on the medium side as far as growth goes. Medium to slow, maybe it just depends on where you live and the climate, right? For me, it's about medium. I've been getting about, I don't know, six to eight fronds a year out of them. That's pretty good. And they take change very well, which is something that we always look for in a plant that you're talking about to keep as a house plant is how well do they adjust to being moved around and having their environment changed? They don't really seem to mind. The only thing that they do that's not necessarily great is that when I move them outside, their foliage scorches up fairly quickly, even if I put them into deep shade. And I don't know, it doesn't really matter because by the time it's looking all tattered and ratty, they're pushing up a couple new spears. Just cut them off. And that's the same thing with a lot of palms. Eurekas do that, the adenidias, foxtails. That just goes back to how you harden them off and move them outside. I just stick them in the shade and they usually still throw a fit. And I think that's because of the change in the light and temperature and then going to having water sitting on top of their foliage. So that can, that can cause some of that spotting you see there. This guy did just open up a new frond, one of its spears opened, so I can go ahead and cut this one off. I typically let them brown up all the way before I cut them off, but I just think it'd be nice to be able to get I have two here. They're in two separate containers. One of them I repotted last summer and it did seem to appreciate that. The other one I left in its old mix. Growth rate wise, I actually have some more growth out of the one that didn't get the repot, which doesn't make a lot of sense because I feel like this one was throwing out more leaves and more spears. It has healthier growth. It's thicker, it's more stout. This one was also getting more light, which would explain why it's growth is more stout. This one stayed more in the shade and near spring core head. So it's getting water very frequently. I have these potted up in a mix that drains very, very, very quickly. And actually I need to top it off. You see those roots up there, they become exposed. You need to add some soil into the mix. I'm just going to add some of this right here. It's an all-purpose mix, has some sand and some grit added to it. I have a handful of compost. I should actually probably also some fertilizer. Since this guy has a spike on it, I don't need a lot. Too much with these smaller palms of this fertilizer can scorch them just a little bit. See, not much. Pull the bromeliad out that's just sitting in there and then we'll just scatter some of that around the top. Whoa, you couldn't even see what I was doing. It was all up inside that frond right there. You get it, a light sprinkling of continuous-release fertilizer that's made for palms. And I'm just gonna top that off. Get some more soil in there. I don't want that root flare. It's not quite what that is, but I don't want those roots to be exposed for too terribly long. If they start to get wood on them, then it can be tricky to backfill around them. So generally a good idea. See, I dropped an orchid over there I need to go pick up. Generally a good idea to not let them stay up for too long. This may help with how often I've been having to water this guy too. Having a fresh mix in there. I know it seems like there's a lot in there. It's good there is, but I'm just anticipating that a lot of this is going to flush out when I give this its first watering because, well, the soil blood in it is very porous. So a lot of that's going to wash out of there. Look at how cute those trunks are. Part of my shadow. Cute, smooth trunk. Very bamboo-like. And man, do they set flower. They're inflorescence. It's strong. And very frequent. They flower very frequently. Typically in the wintertime, and then they'll start to spike up for me again in the, I'd say, late summer. I usually get two flushes out of them. I don't know if that's normal or not. Y'all might need to let me know about that. They've been doing it though since they were, you know, their crown shaft was all the way down here. So from a small size, then getting the flower spikes out of them. And those flower spikes, or inflorescence is what that is, are so beautiful. Tefalotes. There we go. We talk about them. And there it is. Yeah, the picaia palm. Mine still have a ways to go. Look how beautiful that inflorescence is. Really, really great plants. The ones I've been growing have been so, so, so easy. And look at, come on, come on. Why would you not? Very manageable size to keep in the house. Oh, and the male inflorescence on these is edible. So when this gets a little bit larger, you could cut that off. People use them in salads and whatnot, more in their native range. But the fertilized inflorescence is beautiful. It's really pretty orangish red with the dark blackish purple seed on them. Really neat looking. And this is going to be the biggest set that I've gotten out of these yet. Yeah, and got inflorescence coming up on both of them. So you can see that kind of seed. It's hard to see. There's one there, there's one there, and have the two bigger ones right here. I haven't had pest issues so far. I wish I hadn't said that. I feel like I'm going to find something on there. Let's go through and give them a good look. Any signs of spider mites? Those are usually what I get worried about. Now, I think last year I had to squish a few mealybugs off of them. But that was it. Look at how beautiful that frond is. It is a really nice, just green, graceful frond. And the underside is very pretty. It's almost variegated. You can kind of see there's a stripe on there. See that stripe? That looks nice. They have a small stature too. Stature? Nope. They don't get all that big. Typically, some people say 20 feet. I've never seen one of these any bigger than about, let's say, maybe 8 to 12 feet, somewhere in there. So part of that probably depends on where you live. They don't get to that size all that quickly either, which is why I think this is probably a really good candidate to try in the house. They have that smaller size. They don't really just go nuts when you move them from place to place. So I can move them in and out of the house. They don't really seem to mind. I kept one in the shade. I kept one in a spot where it got a lot of very bright late morning into early afternoon sign, and it didn't care. These are known for being a palm that does very well in the shade, but this was getting a good amount of sign and it looked better during the summer than this one did. I think that's more because it rebounded more quickly from the shock it had on its foliage when they got moved out because it had more light so it just threw out new fronds more quickly. But overall, their growth rate has been close to the same. Get more stout thicker growth with one that's getting more light because it's getting more light. That's typically how that works. And it's a glossy green too. Glossy green on that smooth trunk and they typically hold on to that too. So your other smooth trunk palms that you see commonly for sale like the foxtail, the adenidias, even those vichias over there, the montgomery palms, this becomes woody over time and you have more of a gray smooth trunk. This maintains that green. You always have those really nice green looking, not green looking, they are green, green bamboo-like trunks. Camonderia, right? So think bamboo palms, parlor palms, it's a huge group of palms and that's a common thing you see with them. Those really nice smooth, smooth wood, very smooth green wood. I like that, very lush and just happy looking. So far they don't keep a very full crown. So some plants will have, I'm just doing a bug check right here, looks good. Some palms will hold on to a lot of fronds at a time. For me, at this size, they don't usually hold on to more than five at a time or five is about the max I've been able to keep before they start to look bad or like one of the older ones starts to look bad. Doesn't mean they're not capable. I have seen pictures of them where it will be several feet high and have hot ties. I say, what's wrong with me? Be several feet high is what I meant to say and have fronds popping out the trunk all the way up, meaning that they can hold on to them for a very long time. They aren't necessarily always going to try and just keep their fronds right up at the top in the right conditions. They'll hold on to them. For me, because the moving them in and out of the house and the change, you know, from being in here where it's warm and then moving them outside in the spring where things are a little bit more cool in the evenings, which they don't really mind but it's still a drastic change, usually their foliage starts to look kind of meh when I do that. But again, they flush out with new growth fairly quickly and it doesn't really matter. I pulled up the Google AI. You Google things and they tell you about the plant. I like to do that sometimes and just compare what they say to what my experience is. And on here as far as the care goes, I'm sure all these things are true. Oh, you may have wanted to know their native range. A lot of people are interested in where they come from. So that's the wet forest in Mexico, Central America and Northern Colombia. Forgot to mention that. It says they prefer diffuse light tolerating partial to full shade. Yeah, I mean, it is classically considered to be a low light palm, but with that in mind, we're getting a few hours of very direct sun in the mornings. And one of them was like late morning into mid afternoon when the sun is very strong. And it was fine with that. I also don't live that far down south. I'm not that close to the equator, so that makes a big difference, too. And you have humidity. When you have humidity and cooler temps, sometimes you can get away with those things. Consistent moisture of well-drained soil. Yeah. So they have been fine for me when I have been bad about keeping them moist. They never showed me that they needed water, but there have been times where I was like, oh, I haven't watered that in a couple of weeks. I probably should. That's a good sign. That's a good sign of a palm that might be fairly adaptable to grow in the house. At the same time, a lot of palms will just be like, oh, everything's fine. And then one day they start to shrivel up and it's too late. You get root rot when you try and bring them back. I do try and keep their soil consistently moist. They probably get watered every seven to 10 days out here in the growth space where the humidity today is quite high. So it's watered yesterday. It's like 90 percent in here. But typically the humidity is more like 65 percent to 70. I don't like for it to go much higher than that. You start to have issues with mold and your vapor pressure deficit. It's a whole thing. I'm not going to go down all that, but they've always been fine with that. When I've had them in the house where the humidity is much lower during the winter months, they didn't care. They didn't skip a beat. I also make sure they aren't in a spot where there's air blowing directly on them with that drier air. That could be a problem. But at the same time, the freaking hot air that pumps out of this thing is bone dry and it just doesn't care. So, yeah, I'd say that for the most part, everything it's saying on here is what I've been doing, just that I've been giving them a lot more light and the humidity is 60 to 80 percent optimal. So that's probably about where I've been keeping them in my house. Humidity ranges from 45 to up to 70, but that's rare. It's only 45 to 55 somewhere in there. They've been OK, but I haven't had them in the house long term. It's never been for more than like maybe three months. So, you know, do with that The only thing that might make these Pacaya palms annoying as a houseplant palm, I would say it would be that they're very wide. So you can see right here, this Montgomery palm right now at a smaller size, its leaves go up and then unfurl, whereas these come up and they go they're wide. So they do take up space, but you get some height on that and you can step underneath that space after several years. Yep, there it is. There's the update on these guys. They've been great, really easy. I'll keep everybody posted on the inflorescence on them. In the winter, sometimes those tend to bolt. It's just a matter of me trying to stay very consistent with watering, which shouldn't be too much of an issue since this one was repotted last year and that one has some fresh mix in the top that's going to help hold in some of that moisture. So I did have these in a blend that I think was drying too quickly. So I was having to water them very, very, very frequently. But, you know, common saying with plants, there's a lot of truth to this. I would rather have a plant that dries out too fast and stays wet too long, right? So I started off with something that dries very, very quickly because it's really porous, had some big chunky material in there, and I've been adding to it so it holds on to more moisture over time. In the springtime, I've also been adding a handful of compost into the mix and using the Slow Release Palm Fertilizer about, I don't know, two to three times a year. Maybe give it a try. If you have, I wouldn't say a low-light room. That can be confusing when things say, oh, they like low light. That's outdoors. Outdoor low light, that's not the same thing as low light in the house. I would say put these in a really nice, brightly lit room a few feet away from the window. If the sun beats on them for a little while in the morning, that's probably fine. Just really bright, diffused light for the bulk of the day, and they'd probably be pretty happy. I would say, you know, you want a minimum of eight to ten hours of that really bright light. They should be good. Keeps them consistently moist, although in my experience, they can dry out a smidge, and it's not a problem. And I guess watch for pests like spider mites, mealybugs, and scale. I've only seen a few mealybugs on them, and I've squished my fingers, and they haven't been showing up. I think that because I have other plants I keep out here that the mealybugs like a lot more, so they tend to flock to those plants. I think they end up on these, and they're like, uh-oh, I don't like you here, and then boom, I kill them, and you know, that's the end of that. Their foliage just screams spider mite to me, but it hasn't been a problem. Fingers crossed, hopefully it'll stay that way. I do try and make sure to blast their foliage off when I water, at least once a month. Typically, I water with my hose right down to the base of the plants, but at least once a month. I'm doing it more frequently now. I got a new UV sterilizer installed into this pond water, making sure that I'm also blasting the foliage on days when it's and warm in here. That way I can wash things off, and they can dry off quickly. They might be sensitive to some tap waters. Their pH, they prefer around 5.5 to 6.5. The pH of my tap water is typically anywhere from like 7.2 to about 8. It varies throughout the year. It hasn't been an issue. It hasn't been an issue at all. I don't use coconut coir, though, when I'm potting things up. I use peat. That helps acidify, since my water is more alkaline. It helps bring that down and acidify things, so maybe that's what that's about. I don't know. It hasn't been an issue, but if you have really hard water, then you might need to add an acidifier or use some other alternative way to water them. I don't know. Okay, that's enough. I could ramble about all the possibilities for a long time. You get it. It's a fun pond. I've been enjoying them. I really highly suggest, if you can find a pacaya pond, try them out, because they have really nice shape to them. Oh, and they can take some cold. They're rated down to about 30 degrees, and that's about as far as I've let them go so far, but they were fine with a little bit of light frost. It doesn't really bother them very much. They might get some blemishes on the foliage, but I haven't ever had any issues with crown rot or anything like that. They're in containers, so 30 degrees when you're in a container, that's even colder, right? Those roots are often exposed. They're very vulnerable. Also, maybe you live someplace, you know, where maybe you shouldn't be growing this, but you have a little warm pocket and might want to give it a try. I don't know. Being an at-bed influence. Comment down below. Have you tried them? Do you live someplace? Are you in, like, Southern California? I see these at the San Diego Zoo, and I've seen them around in San Diego area. I think I saw some in, like, Oceanside. I don't know. Just let me know. Let us all know what you're doing with them. If you're keeping them in the house, you have a greenhouse, all the fun things, or what are some of your favorite palms to try growing indoors that have done well for you? All right. As always, and most importantly, everybody, keep on growing. Bye-bye. Livistona boniensis, the bone in island. Really cool form to it. I like it. Don't know much about it. I just, I like it.