Dypsis prestoniana

This is one of the heavyweights of the genus, a Madagascan palm on a scale well beyond the golden canes. It builds a thick solitary trunk topped with a big arching crown of pinnate fronds, and the identifying detail is colour: reddish to bronze tones run through the new leaf and the leaf bases, warming the whole crown in a way no other Dypsis here does. It is a feature specimen, planted where the entire crown can be seen and where it will not be crowded by anything else.

Rainforest margins, not dry country

It grows away well in coastal Queensland and the warmer parts of New South Wales, taking part shade through to full sun with moderate steady water and moderate growth once it is settled. Frost and long cold wet spells check it or finish it, so in cooler districts it belongs in a sheltered courtyard against a north facing wall. The failure mode is thin soil. This is a palm of moist forest margins, and planted into a sandy or compacted profile with nothing organic in it, it does not die outright; it sits, holds a small crown, and never develops the trunk mass that is the reason for buying it. Prepare a wide planting area rather than a narrow hole, work compost and aged manure through it, mulch heavily and keep the mulch topped up every year, because that is where the surface roots feed. Allow genuine width when you place it. A crown of this size against a wall or over a path ends up cut back, and a cut crown on a solitary palm never rebuilds symmetry.

The largest of the Madagascans here

Against Dypsis ampasindavae, the other solitary species in this batch, prestoniana is heavier in every dimension, with a thicker trunk, a bigger crown and the reddish leaf base colour; ampasindavae is the one for a garden bed of ordinary size. Dypsis madagascariensis clumps rather than standing as one trunk, and screens where this makes a statement. Take prestoniana when the site is large, warm and sheltered, and the palm is the subject. Outlay per plant is not the comparison to make here; finished size is, because a bed sized for ampasindavae will be overwhelmed by this one within a few seasons and the crown ends up cut back on the wall side.

Establish it well, then feed it hard

Keep the water up through the first two summers, deeply and over the original root ball, since a big crown on new roots is the vulnerable stage. Feed three times across spring and summer with a palm fertiliser carrying potassium and magnesium, spread out to the edge of the crown, because a palm this size is a heavy feeder and pale, frizzled older fronds are the first sign it is short. Prune only fronds that have browned fully, cut at the stalk base, and leave the green ones. More of the range sits in palm trees.

Choosing a size

This plant is supplied in one size, 400mm, at $399.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot it arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to when to plant in Australia.