Veitchia joannis

Veitchia joannis is a Fijian palm that builds a tall, clean-lined solitary trunk topped with a smooth green crownshaft and long arching fronds whose broad leaflets hang slightly. Mature plants carry heavy hanging clusters of bright red fruit below the crown, which is the detail most people notice first. Old fronds drop by themselves once spent, so there is no ragged skirt. It is a large-scale palm for warm gardens, used on avenues, resort forecourts and big blocks where a tall vertical is wanted.

Give it the room a big palm needs

Grow it in frost-free coastal gardens from northern New South Wales up through Queensland, in deep soil with organic matter and honest drainage, mulched across the root zone and sheltered from cold dry wind. It sulks in cool weather and will not survive frost, so treat it strictly as a warm subtropical to tropical plant. The failure mode is placement. This is a big, heavy palm, and it is regularly planted a metre or two from a house wall, over a driveway, or beside pool coping, where a shed frond and a truss of ripe fruit come down from height onto paving, cars and people. It also outgrows courtyard scale entirely, so a spot chosen around a young plant stops working later on. Site it where the crown will have clearance on all sides, well back from where people sit, and where a large palm reads as deliberate rather than accidental. Planted in a row along a boundary or a drive, it does that job well, provided the row is far enough off the fence line to stay clear of it.

Scale is the whole decision here

Against solitaire palm, which shares the crownshaft and the self-cleaning habit, this one is far taller and heavier with much broader leaflets, so solitaire is what you use in a lightwell or a narrow setback and Veitchia is what you use where the site can carry a tree. Against princess palm, the difference is exposure and compactness: Dictyosperma keeps a small crown and takes coastal gales, which suits a courtyard or a beachfront bed, while this palm wants shelter and space. Buy on the size of the site, not on the look of the crown, because the two smaller palms will fit a suburban courtyard and this one will outgrow it. Advanced stock sits in the semi-advanced range.

Little pruning, but manage the fruit

Frond removal is mostly unnecessary, since spent leaves abscise and fall, and the only cutting worth doing is a frond that has died and hung up in the crown. Never cut green fronds to open a view; the crown carries few leaves and each one counts. The job that matters is fruit. Where the palm overhangs paving, a path or a pool, take the flower or fruit stalks off while they are green, in the warm months, which prevents both staining and seedlings. Feed in early spring and again in mid summer with a controlled release palm fertiliser containing potassium and magnesium, spread across the root zone, then renew the mulch.

Choosing a size

This plant is supplied in one size, 90L, at $659.00 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.