Ivory Cane Palm Pinanga coronata

Ivory cane palm is a clumping understorey palm from the Indonesian rainforests, and it builds a thicket of slender, bamboo like canes rather than a single trunk, each cane topped with a smooth crownshaft. The detail worth buying it for is the new leaf, which unfurls mottled bronze, pink or maroon before hardening to green, so an established clump nearly always has something colouring up. In gardens it is used to fill a warm, sheltered pocket where the multiple canes read as a screen rather than a specimen.

Warmth, shelter and floor space

Everything about this palm traces back to its origins on the rainforest floor in Java and Sumatra. It wants humidity, warmth and protection from wind, and frost is out of the question. Outdoors that puts it in coastal Queensland and the far north of New South Wales, or in a protected atrium or glasshouse further south. Soil should be deep and open, with plenty of compost worked through and a heavy mulch layer keeping the root zone stable. Plan for the clump rather than the plant in the pot, because it suckers steadily and needs more floor space than a single trunk palm, so keep it away from tight paths and narrow side passages. The failure mode here is not death, it is seed. In warm wet gardens the palm fruits heavily and seedlings come up under the clump, in nearby beds and, in far north Queensland, in adjoining bush. Cut the fruiting stems off before the fruit colours, pull volunteers while they are small, and the clump stays where you put it.

Ivory cane palm beside lipstick palm

The obvious comparison is lipstick palm, the other clumping palm here. Cyrtostachys renda is the showier of the two and the far less forgiving, a tropical plant with no southern option, where Pinanga coronata is workable through the subtropics. If you garden anywhere south of Cairns, the pinanga is the realistic choice. Kentiopsis oliviformis is the alternative when you want one clean trunk and a formal head instead of a thicket, and it holds a tidier outline in a small courtyard. Buy the pinanga when the job is filling volume in a sheltered garden, not standing alone in the middle of it. More sizes sit in semi advanced trees.

Thinning canes and removing fruit

Cut spent fronds back to the base of the leaf sheath and leave the crownshaft alone, since damage there does not grow out. Once the clump is established, take the oldest and tallest canes right out at ground level every year or two, which keeps the middle of the clump open and stops it looking congested and bare at the bottom. Remove flower and fruit stems as they appear if you want the seedling problem under control. Feed with a complete palm fertiliser carrying potassium and magnesium in early spring and again in mid summer, spread across the whole root area rather than dumped at the base.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 4 sizes, from 250mm up to 90L, priced from $82.95 to $659.00 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.