Redneck Palm Dypsis lastelliana

The redneck palm is a solitary Madagascan palm with a stout, ringed grey trunk and a compact crown of stiffly arching pinnate fronds. Between the two sits the reason to grow it: a short, thick crownshaft wrapped in dense rust-brown felt, a colour and texture no other palm in this batch matches at that size. It is planted as a feature where people walk past it, and in staggered groups of three or five where a warm garden needs tropical screening with some weight to it.

Wind is what ruins the good bit

Give it part shade to full sun, moderate watering with more attention over the first summers, and free-draining soil enriched with organic matter and kept mulched. It suits the tropics, the subtropics and warm frost-free coastal gardens, with young plants preferring some overhead protection and moving into open positions as they gain height, which is how they come up along rainforest edges at home. The failure mode is exposure. Funnelled wind between buildings, or salt-laden gales on an unprotected coastal block, shreds the long fronds into tatters and scours the felt off the crownshaft, which is the entire feature you paid for and which does not grow back on that section of stem. Site it where a fence, a wall or existing planting breaks the prevailing wind, and avoid the gap between two buildings where a breeze becomes a jet. Give the crown clearance, since fronds rubbing on a wall wear through in the same way.

Redneck or teddy bear, and where Areca fits

The palm it is confused with is teddy bear palm, which carries similar felted colouring, and stock genuinely does move between nurseries under the wrong name. In practice, teddy bear is the slimmer plant with the more obviously furred, tapering collar and a looser, more pendulous crown, while redneck palm is the stockier build with stiffer fronds held closer to horizontal. If you are matching palms into an existing planting, look at the crown, not just the fur. For crownshaft colour at a much smaller scale, orange crownshaft palm does it in orange, but it is a warm-glasshouse and courtyard plant rather than a garden specimen. Either Dypsis is the choice for a bed that has to hold its own from a distance. More in the palm collection.

Feeding the felt and cutting almost nothing

Prune only fully brown fronds, cutting cleanly just above the crownshaft, and never trim into the felted section or hose it hard, since the tomentum rubs off and does not return. Do the work in the warm months. Feed with a controlled release palm fertiliser carrying potassium and magnesium in early spring and again in mid summer, spread over the root zone rather than in a ring at the trunk, and renew the mulch afterwards. On sandy coastal soil, yellowing and banding on the older fronds is a potassium shortage, and since a marked frond stays marked, feeding ahead of it is the only real fix.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 2 sizes, from 300mm up to 400mm, priced from $99.95 to $359.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. Every size here is established stock rather than a starter plant, so this line is intended for immediate effect rather than for growing on. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to when to plant in Australia.