Last week I paused to take a photo of our Parlour palm (Chamaedorea elegans) that seemed to be doing really well since being moved to our NorthEast windowsill.
For a long time, it was living a bit of a sheltered life sitting in a spot where it was overshadowed by a multi-storey goosefoot and a peace lily. I’m sure it was struggling to get its fair share of attention (and light).
So after a consultation with the Mrs. We decided it was time for a change of scenery. I swapped the palm with a money tree plant and it settled in nicely next to our dragon tree plant.
Almost immediately, the palm started pushing out a massive, towering centre frond—by far the largest and newest growth it has managed since starting out as a cutting several years ago. I was impressed by this development because palms are pretty slow growing compared to other plants in our house and finding one with a new stalk on it is usually a pleasant surprise tucked under the previous canopy.
So that’s why I decided to take a picture of it for my blog and then I noticed something strange; a branched stalk covered in tiny, bead-like green nodes. Could it be? My palm isn’t just growing… it’s getting ready to flower!
We have several flowering houseplants; the peace lilies seem to bloom every time I water them and just last month our aloe vera bloomed for the first time but never our palms. I have several from that original plant and to be honest most of the cuttings look like they’ll never recover from separation anxiety. So much so I have to believe that getting one to bloom means that at least this one is healthy and getting the perfect amount of light. I fed all my plants last month and frequently use rain water instead of tap when we have it but there’s no magic sauce that I can impart to you. When I say ‘get to bloom’ I usually mean ‘bloomed despite all the reasons not to.’
Anyway, right now the flower spike looks like a collection of tiny green beads strung together. If all goes well and my research is correct, these will mature into bright, cheerful, yellow puff-ball flowers. They won’t have petals, and they won’t fill the room with a heady fragrance, but I will count it as a lucky event for a novice gardener like moi.
It’s tempting to try and improve upon this success by repeating what I’ve done so far. Should I fertilise it again? Move it again? Water it more? But like I said, I have no idea what worked this time, not for certain anyway. And what more could I want? It’s pushed out a giant new frond and a flower stalk all in the same season so I guess it already loves its new life on the northeast windowsill. I’m going to sit back, let nature do its thing, and with any luck, I’ll be sharing photos of those tiny yellow flowers in just a few days or weeks.
Cheers!
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