Gifts are always fun. Gardening gifts are the best, and gifts of plants always warm my heart. A living plant is a gift from the heart, and it creates a special bond between giver and receiver as the plant grows on and develops into its potential.
That said, sometimes those gifted plant can get too enthusiastic and create work down the road. But when that happens, I try to dig up those I can’t use and share them with someone else. I love trying new plants I’ve not grown before. Most gardeners I know love expanding their gardening experience by growing out new types of plants.
When California Horticulturalist, Tony Tomeo, who I’ve been corresponding with for the last several years through our respective blogs, offered to send me some windmill palms, Trachycarpus fortunei, I immediately accepted his kind offer. He told me these were babies, and he assured me that they should grow OK here in coastal Virginia.
I’ve not grown palms before. What a wonderful opportunity to learn something new! I know that they will do well on my sheltered front patio. Since these are slow growing, I can keep them in pots on the patio for the time being, to watch them grow. Once they settle in and grow more roots, I expect to transplant two of these beautiful palms into large pots on either side of my front porch.
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Windmill palm is not necessarily slow growing. They are rather variable. Mine has grown slowly because it remains potted. I do not want it to grow too fast, since palms can not be pruned back like ‘other’ plants. Once in the ground, it can grow at a moderate rate, although not as fast as other more vigorous palms. It responds very favorably to watering and fertilizer. Keep in mind though that once the canopy of a palm reaches full size, it does not grow any larger. It just gets higher as the trunk grows. The trunk does not get any wider, but only gets taller. Lower leaves die below as readily as new leaves develop on top. Young palms spend their first few or many years developing their canopy without developing a trunk. Once the terminal but gets wide enough, it ‘launches’ as it develops a trunk from below.
Anyway, I am SO pleased to see them happy in a new home where they will be appreciated. If they had stayed here, they would have been planted where they are not necessarily the best species, just because I did not want to keep them confined to cans for too long.