Gardening Questions What is this?

What is this?

Asked on 4 Sep, 2007

Hi all,
I'm not exactly green fingered but I do love plants and often come home from shopping with a new addittion that I just couldn't leave on the shelf (I have about 35 houseplants, not including multiples of aloe barbadensis! lol). I have brought three home recently that were sitting tormented on the bargain shelf at my local supermarket, they were labelled (or not labelled) as 'palms-various' but I don't have much of a clue what they are or how to care for them, for all I know they may not all be palms at all, you know what supermarkets are like!
Any help (the other two pics will follow in a mo) would be greatly appreciated, the proper botanical names would be a boon ;-)

Regards,
Stewart. :-)

PS: Great site, wish i'd found it ages ago!

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Replies

Spritzhenry

4 Sep, 2007

Sorry - I give up on this one! Had a try at your others, but have looked all through my houseplant book for this one - no luck. Maybe someone else has one?? Glad you found the site, great, isn't it!

Boglin

18 Oct, 2007

Sorry I can't ID it. I have one and was looking here for the same reason. Any luck yet?

Majeekahead

18 Oct, 2007

hi my first time on this site too - really enjoying myself! now this may sound a bit crazy but are you sure it is a house plant? because it looks very much like a laurrel to me! i'm a florist and we use laurrel a lot in arrangements, proper name would be laurus if i'm right, and it would need to be planted in the garden. please let me know if you get to the bottom of it! thanks angela.

Dapixellator

20 Oct, 2007

Okey dokey, thanks for boggling over this one anyway. As it happens, I do now know what this plant is, it's called a 'cardboard palm', which makes sense given the feel of its leaves!

This little thing is now in flower, so I must be doing something right!

Boglin

23 Oct, 2007

Mine is looking a bit sad. Some of the leaves are turning brown. How are you caring for yours? If it's flowering that means it's either really happy or just about to die.....

Dapixellator

23 Oct, 2007

Hmm, yes, mine is looking a bit sad too, it has also been dropping leaves, now you have me worried with the "it's either really happy or just about to die" remark, ooerr! lol

From what I can gather about the sparse info on this plant, it likes a humid environment, mine has just been moved to the bathroom to see if the humidity in there helps, it's a little cold inthere but apparently they are very tolerant of cold temps. I'll just have to wait and see what happens. I have a PDF on care and environment of various palms, I could email you that if you like? Just bung me a message to DaPixellator@aol.com and i'll send it straight back to you. I also think that maybe I overwatered it, apparently it has a reservoir of water in the badse of the trunk (beneath the soil) and it doesn't like to have wet feet.

Hope some of that helps, i'll update with further info as and when the poor little things condition worsens or improves.

Stu.