Bamboo Palm Chamaedorea seifrizii

Bamboo palm is a suckering clump of thin reed like canes, each ringed at the nodes in a way that earns the common name, carrying fine narrow leaflets on short feathery fronds. What sets it apart is light tolerance: it holds a dense, even habit in genuinely dim conditions where most palms stretch and thin out. Interior planting contractors have used it for decades for exactly that, and outdoors it does the same job in shaded courtyards, lightwells and narrow beds along a shaded fence line.

Shade is the requirement

It suits warm temperate through to tropical gardens, always out of direct sun, and it takes no frost, so cold inland positions need shelter or a pot that can be moved under cover. Light is shade to part shade and that is not a suggestion; direct summer sun bleaches the fine leaflets to a yellow green and then burns the tips. Soil should be free draining with organic matter through it, mulched, and kept evenly moist in summer, with moderate water otherwise. Growth is slow, and it suckers steadily outward rather than upward, which is what makes it a workable soft screen in a narrow space where a single trunk palm looks wrong. Space plants so the clumps knit together. The failure mode is two spotted mite, and it is nearly always an indoor or under eave problem: dry, still, heated air brings it on, and it shows first as fine pale speckling across the leaflets, then webbing on the undersides. By the time the fronds look grey the clump is well infested, so check the undersides monthly and hose or wipe the foliage regularly.

Which bamboo palm, and which Chamaedorea

Do not confuse it with the single stemmed parlour palm; this one clumps. Against its own selection, Florida Form is fuller in the leaflet and denser in the clump, so it screens where plain seifrizii decorates. Chamaedorea atrovirens is darker and softer again and suits the dimmest corners. Pick plain seifrizii when you want the fine, airy, upright cane look and the lowest light tolerance of the group, particularly for interior work. If the position is outdoors, shaded, and wider than a Chamaedorea will cover in reasonable time, Areca triandra is the larger shade clump to look at instead, though it will not hold up at interior light levels.

Canes, not stems, and light feeding

Take spent canes out at ground level rather than shortening them, because a cut cane never regrows a tip and leaves a stump in the clump. Do that thinning in spring so new suckers fill the gap through the warm months. Feed sparingly, twice over spring and summer with a palm fertiliser, since a heavy hand browns the leaflet tips on a shade palm. Female plants set small fruit that ripens black and stains paving, so cut those bunches off if they sit over a path. More options in advanced trees.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 8 sizes, from 125mm up to 45L, priced from $16.95 to $279.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. The smaller pots hold younger plants that cost less each and establish quickly, which suits hedges, screens and mass planting where the plant count adds up. The larger sizes carry several more years of growth on the farm and give height and presence straight away, which is what you want for a single feature position or a screen that cannot wait. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to when to plant in Australia.