Fan Palm Licuala elegans

Licuala elegans carries the same near circular, deeply pleated fronds as the Australian fan palm, held flat like open fans on long stems above a slim solitary trunk. It is one of the names that palm travels under in the Australian trade, and plants sold under either label look the same in the ground. Its use is close range and architectural: an understorey feature in a shaded courtyard, an atrium planting, a pool surround under canopy, or a large interior pot where the geometry of the leaf is the point.

Shade grown stock, and how to move it outdoors

It wants warmth, humidity, shelter and soil that stays moist and rich, in tropical and subtropical gardens or protected positions further south, and it takes no frost. Light is shade to part shade, and growth is genuinely slow, which is why the larger sizes already carrying a formed crown are worth the difference over a small plant that will test your patience for years. Water is moderate and regular through summer, on soil with heavy organic matter and a permanent mulch. The failure mode is the move out of the shadehouse. This stock is grown under dense shade cloth, and taken straight from that into a bright position, even a filtered one, the fans scorch to bleached patches within days and those patches never green up. Harden it over several weeks in progressively brighter shade before final planting, plant in the cooler part of the day, and keep it out of hot dry wind, which shreds the pleats.

The same look under two names

Treat this and Licuala ramsayi as interchangeable for design purposes and buy on the stock and size in front of you rather than the label. The real decision is against Licuala sallehana, which is a smaller Malaysian species that clusters at the base and stays low for many years, with a more toothed leaf margin. Take elegans or ramsayi when you want a trunked fan palm with height in a shaded courtyard, and sallehana when you want a low, close up specimen in a pot or at the front of a shade bed. Advanced sizes matter more here than in almost anything else in this batch, because a small Licuala can spend years before it shows a trunk at all, and no amount of feeding shortens that wait.

Handle the leaf, feed the roots

Wear gloves; the leaf stalk bases are armed. Prune only fully browned fronds, cutting at the stalk base rather than tearing, and leave any frond still holding green, since a slow palm cannot spare it. Do the work in the warm months. Feed lightly twice over spring and summer with a palm fertiliser containing magnesium, keeping the rate low, because concentrated fertiliser near the roots of a shade palm shows as scorched leaf margins inside a month. Keep leaf litter or bark mulch deep over the root zone. More advanced stock is in semi advanced trees.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 5 sizes, from 250mm up to 90L, priced from $119.00 to $1209.00 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.