Solitaire Palm Ptychosperma elegans (Seaforthia elegans)

Solitaire palm holds a single slim grey trunk marked with clean ring scars, a green crownshaft and a small head of arching fronds with bluntly cut leaflets, so it takes almost no ground and casts very little shade. It is a Queensland rainforest palm that never suckers, which means the footprint you plant is the footprint you keep. Narrow spaces are where it does its work: lightwells, side setbacks, the strip between a wall and a fence, and staggered groups of three or five.

Shelter, warmth, and a crop of seedlings

It takes part shade through to full sun, wants moderate watering with regular attention over summer, and grows slowly, so allow years rather than seasons for real height. Soil should be rich and free draining, mulched, with the crown sheltered from strong wind, since an exposed position shreds the leaflets and leaves the palm looking tattered. Frost is out. The failure mode is one nobody mentions at the point of sale: it fruits heavily from a young age, the red fruit drops, and seedlings come up through garden beds, lawn, gutters and neighbouring bushland. In parts of south-east Queensland it has naturalised for exactly this reason. If you back onto a reserve, a creek line or remnant vegetation, cut the fruit stalks off while they are still green and keep doing it, or plant something else. In a paved courtyard the same fruit stains light-coloured surfaces, and seedlings appear in the joints and in neighbouring pots.

Solitaire against its clumping and taller relatives

The obvious comparison is Macarthur palm, which shares the square-cut leaflet but suckers into a spreading clump. Take Macarthur where you want mass and can give it width; take solitaire where the bed is narrow and a widening base would push against paving or a wall. Against Veitchia joannis, the difference is weight: the Fijian palm is a much larger tree with broad drooping leaflets and needs a big site, while solitaire stays slim enough to plant three in a space that would hold one Veitchia. Both shed their own fronds, so the maintenance argument is a wash, and the decision comes down to how much room the bed actually has and how much fruit you are prepared to clean up. Larger stock is grouped in the 100L range.

Fruit stalks first, fronds hardly at all

The crownshaft does the frond work for you: spent leaves abscise and drop cleanly, so there is no brown skirt and no annual climb. Cut off only a frond that has died and hung up on the crown. The pruning that matters is the fruit. Take flower and fruit stalks off at the crownshaft while they are green, in the warm months, which is far easier than weeding seedlings later. Feed with a controlled release palm fertiliser carrying potassium and magnesium in early spring and again in mid summer, spread across the root zone rather than at the trunk, and keep the mulch topped up.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 8 sizes, from 200mm up to 200L, priced from $30.95 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. 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.