Macarthur Palm Ptychosperma macarthurii

Macarthur palm suckers from the base into a multi-stemmed clump of green ringed canes, each carrying a loose crown of arching fronds. The signature is the leaflet: broad, and cut off square at the tip with a jagged edge, as though something has bitten the end away. It comes from the wet tropics of northern Australia and New Guinea, and it is planted for shaded tropical courtyards, atriums and large pots, where a clump gives a rainforest floor look rather than a clipped screen.

Warmth first, everything else second

It takes part shade through to full sun, wants moderate watering with regular attention across summer, and grows slowly, so a clump fills in over seasons rather than months. Soil should be rich and moisture-retentive but still drain, with a deep mulch over the surface roots. Cold is the limit and the failure mode. This is a tropical to subtropical palm, and a frost or a run of cold nights burns the crowns on every cane at once, leaving brown, collapsed fronds that will not recover; the clump may push new suckers from the base in spring, but it comes back uneven and takes years to look composed again. South of the Queensland border it needs a genuinely warm, sheltered pocket, and in Sydney, Melbourne or Adelaide it belongs in a pot under cover rather than in open ground. It also drops heavy trusses of red fruit that stain pale paving, so keep clumps back from pool coping and entry paths.

Not a golden cane, and not a solitaire

It gets sold into the same jobs as golden cane palm, and the two behave differently. Golden cane has yellow canes, denser foliage and faster fill, so it is the screening plant; Macarthur has green canes, a looser crown and slower growth, so it is the courtyard plant that still looks like a rainforest palm at close range. If you want the same tropical detail without a spreading clump, solitaire palm is the single-trunked relative that never suckers, which suits narrow beds where a widening base would be a nuisance. Neither is a substitute if the jagged, square-cut leaflet is what you are after, since that belongs to the Ptychosperma group rather than to Dypsis. Both sit alongside it in the advanced tree range.

Thinning the clump and keeping fruit off the paving

Thin canes in the warm months, cutting the oldest or most crowded stems out at ground level to open the clump and show the ringed stems, or leave it dense if you are using it as a screen. Take fronds off only when fully brown. Cut fruit trusses off while they are still green if the clump overhangs paving or a pool surround, which saves both the stains and the crop of seedlings that follows. Feed with a controlled release palm fertiliser in early spring and again in mid summer, applied over the whole root zone, and renew the mulch afterwards. Wear gloves for cane removal, since the old fibrous leaf bases are abrasive.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 6 sizes, from 125mm up to 45L, priced from $16.95 to $329.00 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.