How to keep a palm alive indoors, and all about parlor palms.
If aesthetics were a plant, they would certainly take the form of a palm. Graceful, flowing, and occasionally forming parts according to the golden ratio, these plants have been sought for hundreds of years as ornamental plants.
Of course, with such beauty and grace, the jealous are likely to start rumors, and rumors they did start! “Palms are finicky”, “Palms are hard”, are all tropes that you hear. The thing is, the rumor mill was absolutely right about this one. Indeed, palms ARE hard to grow plants. They DO have a narrow range of “acceptable” growing conditions, and they ATTRACT many pests into the home (examples here, here, and here).
To top the fact that they are hard to grow, many plants are called palms that are not palms at all, but look like palms – Sago Palm, Ponytail palm, Madagascar Palm, etc. “Sago Palm” is one that really irks me. It’s a cycad, which isn’t even remotely close to being a palm… Anyway, palms are notoriously difficult to grow, so I do not recommend them for beginners. I’ll still give the care information below, in case you dare to try.
One last thing – NEVER buy cut palm leaves. To date, there are no largescale growers of palm fronds. ALL palm fronds in your florist shops are wild-harvested, which causes habitat and tree destruction, so DO NOT BUY THEM!
I’ll focus on Chamaedorea elegans, also known as the Neanthe Bella Parlor Palm. This plant hails from the tropical Americas, and is a rhizomatous palm, meaning that its stem is horizontal underground. These types of palms are also called “clumping palms”, and they are much easier to recover if something goes wrong than arborescent (tree-like) palms.
Unlike other members of the family Arecaceae (the palm family), this plant produces inedible fruit from flowers at the base of the plant. Cultivated since the Victorian era, this species of palm is prized for its resilience to indoor conditions and reliable habit.
Other than that, there’s not too much to say about this plant other than it can change sex whenever it wants to. Go figure.
General Care
Sunlight
Where do you think of most palms living? That’s right, in direct tropical sun! While Chamaedorea elegans is technically a shade palm, the old adage “The darkest shade outdoors is still brighter than direct sun indoors” rings true! That means stick them in a sunny south-facing window, where they can absorb >6h of sun a day.
Water
Keep the soil perpetually moist, or if it dries out, water as soon as it dries. This varies depending on light and heat, so a best practice is to just check on them every few days, even if no action is needed.
Humidity
These DO care about humidity, but don’t like to be wet, so have a humidifier nearby, but not blowing the mist on the plant.
Temperature
Prefers warm room temperature to hot temperatures.
Common Problems
SYMPTOM: Brown, crispy tips
CAUSE: Thirsty plant, low humidity
SYMPTOM: Black tips, universal across all tips of the plant.
CAUSE: Water too hard / soil has too many salts / overfertilized
SYMPTOM: Yellowing leaves, black stems
CAUSE: Who the hell knows; palms have a sudden-death mentality… But it’s probably temperature or light-related. Occasionally, it’s root rot.
SYMPTOM: Irregular light-brown/grey patchese, usually surrounded with yellow borders
CAUSE: Fungus. Treat with Fungicide.
Courtesy of C. Kadooka; American Phytopathological Society
Other Notes
This plant is pet-friendly, but the best practice is always to keep houseplants out of reach of small children and pets. Honestly, these are super prone to foliar infections, and you can keep the foliar infections at bay if given more light, and do not spritz the plant. Water-sensitive; needs to have rain water or some kind of distilled, as they do not like salts from hard water (How do I know if my water is hard?).
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