Cordyline Australis as a cheap, fast and easy palm
The Northern tropicalesque gardener has a dilemma, in our climate Zone 5 and colder palm trees really can't stay in the ground and get BIG without serious protection-often involving strings of lights, heat tape and rigid stand alone protective structures...
Sheesh, that's alotta of work, what about the so called Cabbage palm aka Cordyline Australis? They can be vigorous growers in the right conditions. I ran across some nurserys in the UK that sell them in sizes up to 2m, I think they look awesome. You mostly see the green ones but I have seen some nice large red examples too. I know you can over winter them outdoors with protection in my zone but you should NEVER TRY THIS, as they may survive but you are likely to loose the trunk and it will take way to long to recover. The obvious and easy solution is to pot them up and leave them in a garage basement or sun room for the winter, just make sure they don't dehydrate, by keeping the temperature cool they will go dormant.You can keep them growing easily near a window like I am this year. The moral of the story is: 3 years from a cheap little green spike to a 5 foot palm with a nice prominent trunk. Total cost a couple a bucks.
I'm curious if anyone over on this side of the pond has any nice older cordyline astralis specimens they would care to show or tell us about?
The one in the pic is just one growing season old, it was bought in the spring for 2 bucks.
Here is a link to a grower in the UK.
Regards Harold
Here is a link that might be useful: Paramount Plants
Comments (28)
Embothrium
9 years ago
Edie
9 years agoRelated Discussions
Florida - fast, cheap and 3 feet high
Comments (8)Here's a clue, don't shop a Home Depot expecting good planting design advice! Full service garden center or nursery, or hire a good landscape designer to consult. Fast and cheap usually correlates to larger mature sizes and constant maintenance, majority of smaller mature sized plantings with year round presence may take more time, or not be cheap. If cheap and fast is the most important requirement, spend the time getting good local advice, and work with a better gardening service that will follow your directives. Even cut-rate gardening services can do a good job if you make the effort to properly communicate, and they are given the time and reimbursement necessary to do the job right. I see these sorts of complaints all the time, and generally know it isn't just the gardener's fault, but unrealistic expectations and too cheap maintenance budgets. Plant types like Agaves, Bromeliads, Daylilies, Sanseverias, Crinums might fit the bill, they all top out at predetermined heights, but require research to determine initial cost, speed of growth, other characteristics which may appeal or reject them from consideration. Local Florida native plants are worth consideration also....See MoreThese red Dracaena/Cordyline are fabulous!
Comments (19)So? How did this plant variety do over the winter? Will it be going out again this summer? One year, after a light frost, my cordylines (2 - regular green) still looked good, so I thought I'll try to keep over the winter - maybe I'll have a HUGE spike to plant out next spring with my geraniums. Everyone here calls these plants 'spikes', they are sold in masses in the spring, in teeny 2" pots, the plants have only 4-7 leaves, and that's what mine had started out as. But it grew well, so after this frost, I semi-carefully dug it out of the pot, it had lots of long roots, which I trimmed off so I could fit it into a 1 gallon nursery pot to bring indoors. With all the root pruning, and I only had to trim back a few older leaves that were dying, I did not lose any growth after bringing it in. It continued to grow over the winter, so much so that it's diameter was 4 feet, and I could hardly wait to take it back outside 'cause it was taking up valuable living space. It was placed in a large 6 foot SW facing window, and got good sun. I watered it as little as possible, no fertilizer until late in February. In the spring, the special treatment I had to give it was that I fashioned a 'cast' out of paper, sort of like a narrow toilet paper tube, to put around the newer center leaves, since we get strong winds in the spring, and the new growth would not be strong enough to handle that. After I couple of weeks outside I could remove his paper cast (there would have been new outdoor leaves coming up) and he grew happily, though this big cordyline did not leave a whole lot of room for my flowers! But he looked majestic beginning of June, whereas most years they look that way come the end of August. The other thing is that I would have originally paid $1 for him when he was little, for the size I stuck out the following year, those ones ran at $10 in the local nurseries, and they still weren't near as big as mine! Since I would never fork out that kind of moola for a 'spike', it was satisfying to me that I could have a big one at the cost of reusing a recycled nursery pot, and some potting soil - cheap....kioni....See MoreCan I cut a palm tree and make it produce roots?
Comments (101)My tree-unfriendly neighbour cut today a big trunk of a Washingtonia robusta. I understand from this post that my chances of resprouting it in a pot are small but I think I'll give it a shot. Does anyone know which is the procedure with the root compound as tropicbreezent suggested on another post? Am I supposed to wrap it up somehow? Or perhaps put it in the compost mix? To be honest it's the first time I hear that such thing as root compound even exists....See Morecordyline australis hardiness
Comments (25)I live in the UK and see Cordyline australis everywhere. Indivisa isn't so common though, I know there are some in very wet parts of the UK like some gardens in Northern Ireland and Devon. Occasionally we have a cold winter and there's a mass die off inland, but it's no big deal really. Most come back very strongly from the roots, especially if they were a large, mature plant before they died in the winter they reach their former size in a couple of years and come back very fast from a strong root system with fresh, new growth. What actually kills them is when you see well-meaning but misguided people wrapping them up in winter with bubble wrap and frost fleece. It's the worst thing to do in my opinion, these things hate to be soaking wet in winter and the frost protection people put round them just makes them rot. I don't protect my ones that are in the ground. If they die back they dieback, the soil doesn't freeze deep enough in Britain to kill them in most cases. Container ones i just put in a cold greenhouse to keep them from dying from the damp of winter which is the real cause of death. I have noticed a lot of variation in the plants grown here. Some are very narrow leaved, but mature plants are usually wide leaved, not sure if the leaves get wider over time or different varieties are tougher. I suspect the narrow leaved plants are the "Atlantic green" variety whereas the wider leaved ones are generic australis with maybe some indivisa introgression, although according to something i read somewhere the narrow leaved varieties are meant to be hardier. I've also never seen a mature, large plant of the red, pink or variegated varieties though i know some examples exist, they're probably less hardy and were perhaps selected from stock from the North island....See More
katob Z6ish, NE Pa
9 years agopoaky1
6 years agosnowbanana
6 years agokatob Z6ish, NE Pa
6 years agoYeah that's really nice! I hope my new red one also puts a little weight on this summer, it's been sulking after a few winters of neglect.
The green on the other hand just keeps going and going. It's probably a good four or five feet tall now, with the pot it will pass me in height this summer (6 feet). I have a few others which are smaller, all usually start as cheap clearance plants from end of season sales and go for about a dollar or less.
This was last August, but I just put it out on the deck again this week and it looks promising.
poaky1
6 years agosnowbanana
6 years agosnowbanana
6 years agopoaky1
6 years agoEdie
6 years agopoaky1
6 years ago
linnea56 (zone 5b Chicago)
6 years agopoaky1
6 years agolinnea56 (zone 5b Chicago)
6 years agopoaky1
6 years agosnowbanana
6 years agoGetting near the end of the season. It was not a great year for my musa basjoos and ensetes, too droughty. The cordys thrived as usual.
poaky1
6 years agopoaky1
4 years agokatob Z6ish, NE Pa
4 years agopoaky, funny you mention hardy cacti. I had a few different kinds but last summer's endless rain rotted out most of the western opuntias, just the eastern yellow is left now.
My green cordyline are doing fine. The largest one got too dry the winter before last and the tip died out, but it's since sent out a few new shoots and will now have the branching look. I almost picked up a few tiny clearance ones last week, but convinced myself that three is enough. The largest is just over six feet including pot.
poaky1
4 years agopoaky1
4 years agokatob Z6ish, NE Pa
4 years agopoaky1
4 years agolast modified: 4 years agopoaky1
4 years ago
poaky1