I’m looking for some expert advice regarding my Archontophoenix alexandrae. I live in Calafell (Tarragona, Spain), which has a Mediterranean climate.

I bought this palm in March 2025. It came in a 35L pot with only 3 leaves. After one year, it has produced 4 new leaves (7 in total now). I have it in a 50x50 cm (approx. 100L) terracotta pot. I know terracotta isn't ideal for moisture retention, but it’s its current home.

My goal and dilemma:

I eventually want to plant it in the ground, but I need it to reach a certain height first. Behind the palm, there is a fence/wall, and I need the trunk (stele) plus the crownshaft to reach at least 1.70 meters (approx. 5.5 feet) so the fronds can clear the fence without hitting it.

My questions for the forum:

Growth projection: Given that it produced 4 leaves in one growing season, how long do you think it will take to develop a 1-meter trunk plus the crownshaft in its current conditions?

Pot limitation: Will this 50x50 cm pot severely limit its vertical growth or trunk thickness (caliper) before it reaches my target height? Can I expect it to develop more rings on the trunk while still in this pot?

Advice: Should I keep it in this pot until it clears the fence height, or is it better to put it in the ground now even if the leaves hit the fence for a couple of years?

I’ve attached three photos: the day I bought it,

the day of the transplant,

and its current state one year later.

Thanks in advance for your help!

I lost my job in January, lost my car, lost my apartment. Depression hit me really hard. Really hard. Not going into details, but if a friend of mine didn't happen to catch a layover in Texas, I wouldn't be here. He rented me a U-Haul to help me get back to my family's house in Mississippi. I wasn't in the greatest mindset, and I left most of my palms and plants in the apartment. I brought my spindle, C. Plumosa, my L. Weddellaniums, a couple snake plants, a Mangave, and my BxLyto. Everything else was left in the apartment and donated to the staff. They must be happy, because they didn't charge me for breaking the lease or not leaving the apartment barren. 

My mom (she had a stroke last year) wanted to put everything in a window, and dropped one of the Wedds and shattered the pot. She meant well, I'm not upset. Anyway - on to positives. 

I threw out a feeler in the Freebies forum, and this community is amazing and wonderful. I'd like to formally and publicly thank @Darold Petty @jimmyt @kinzyjr @DoomsDave @PalmatierMeg @Reyes Vargas for all the seeds and sprouts, and definitely @Barry for all the super awesome and exotic seedlings.

It's an adjustmentment, personally and ummm palmily. My mom and brother have been adopting feral cats for 20 years or so, and one very sick cat has decided my spindle palm makes an excellent toilet. A kitten thinks my Mangave makes an excellent bed. Same kitten pretty much forced me to bring the Plumosa inside. 

Sancho is adjusting well, aside from the fleas since we're deep in the country now. My brother refurbished an old desk and shelf for my green buddies and threw in a grow light, since...well, tbh I've been here for 2 months and I still haven't unpacked and still don't remember what I brought and what I left behind. 

Anyway, the rebuild begins, and if anybody has anything green that they're tired of looking at, I'll give it a home. I'm looking for work and trying to get my life back together. Thanks again to this kind and wonderful community! I'll try to be more active on here and keep y'all updated, and definitely try to keep these exotics going. 

1. Based on their (considerable) size, how long can I keep them in these 7 gallon nursery pots while I am looking for more permanent ones? I see one root already coming out of the drainage hole.

2. What are the biggest pots can I safely repot them to? The reason I ask is that nice pots are expensive, and the wife likes nice pots. But I am not sure the bank account can take repotting every two years if I keep pots small and expensive. Would a bigger pot allow me to repot, say, in 5 years? The current pot diameter is 14". I read that palms are pretty good with being root-bound. So here is where I seek group's advice - minimizing repotting frequency in this specific case! Edit - I just read about a pot-in-pot method of cheap nursery pots in expensive decorative pots. That's what I will do, but what size nursery pot should I use next?

3. Do palms like filler materials on the bottom of the pot? What kind? I will make sure I have good drainage holes.

Any other tips appreciated! Thanks and I hope to contribute to the collective knowledge with my beautiful pygmy dates!

I've had majestic palms in pots for a year now sitting on the balcony. They've all gained some height, but all consistently have brown fronds like the photo attached.

I've used a regular potting mix and add a palm fertiliser a few times a year.

I generally water once a week during the colder months and twice a week during summer. Soil always feels more on the drier side rather than soggy.

I can't work out what's causing it, over watering, under watering? I have pots at either end of the house and they all have the same brown fronds.

I was thinking to take them out and re-pot back into the same 400mm pots adding some wetting agent and extra fertiliser using a fresh soil mix to try and give them a kick start going into summer.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I recently inherited this palm. I am wondering if it is a Parlor Palm / Chamaedorea elegans or something else.

Any tips? Should I look at the root system? Look into the soil and possibly repot?  Thank you in advance.

These were from yesterday August, 19th, 6:00pm, 2021! 

The oldest strap leaf seems to be dying back I think and most of them are working on their 5th leaf.

Most pygmy palms we store in the greenhouse called “Temperate house” the lowest it temperature it reaches is about 60 degrees fahrenheit, depending on the weather it can reach to 90 or higher. I have been observing their new growth and it is a bit paler, almost a yellow. We are on a constant liquid feed program 20-10-20 at a ratio of 1:100 ppm. I am unsure to why the pygmy palms still look as if they are struggling. Wanted to get any thoughts/ideas on it.

Also, for a couple of date palm that we have repotted the leaves seem to be going a bit greyish on it’s canopy and the leaf texture is a bit crispy. My theory is transplant shock, but a few others that have already been repotted are not showing the same symptoms. 

When repotting these palms a good amount of the roots are taken off to help it stay in the same container size, then it is watered in with the fertilizer water.  

Any thoughts or advice would be much appreciated! 

I got this 5G windmill palm a few months ago, planned to plant it on my backyard this season.

However it's not looking well at all

Is this leaf scorch?

- The palm stand in a relatively dark place (should I add artificial light for it?).

- I don't think we overwatered. Perhaps underwatered a little? However it's winter, so the humidity is low. 

- We didn't fertilize it, but it came with a fertilizer added already.

- There were no extreme heat, cold or cold drafts.

If this is indeed leaf scorch, does this plan look good?

- I'll get a longer soil moisture meter to make sure it reaches close to the bottom

- Add a little bit of potassium fertilizer

- Flush salts/fertilizer burn — Water heavily several times to leach excess salts

- It's hard to find a place with more light in my house where it would also be inaccessible to my all-destroying parrots. SHould I add some artificial light?

Living the dream!

Obviously it is a must to have bug free plants if they are indoors and live more than 1 year and are big (too big to shower several times per year in a bathroom) and also, if you have any big perennial plant then you don't want to mix it with one that can have bugs. 

I have bought I think at least 10 palm trees from Palmeperpaket.de over the years and every time but once they have been bug free, and when I told them they got very embarrased and immediately gave me my money back. Granted it is not easy to achieve 100% bug free status. Sadly PPP don't have a lot of palms these days but the same owner (who is a member here) has the world's by far biuggest, and only trustworthy, seed shop, rarepalmseeds.com, and surprisingly they sell some seedlings to since recently (I think grown in Asia), they claim they are bug free and I bought 5 Licuala peltata var. 'sumawongii' and I can confirm they were free from pests.

I bought a Bottle Palm from Plantencentrum Exotica in Herenthout, Belgium, and I believe they probably rinsed it becasue I saw nothing at first but after 2 months when to have a close look it was full of young spider mites and eggs (but no web yet). They admitted it was grown outdoors (on the Canary Islands) so obviously they are not suitable to sell for indoors use.

Hornbach I think have growers connected specifically to them and I bought several plants and palms there and had no problems.

Not many big online palm shops in Europe right now I think, there used to be more in Germany which don't exist anymore. 

One of the few remaining are mypalmshop.com, in Holland. Does anyone have experience of them?

If someone wants, I can delete "Europe" from the headline and put sections in this thread. But obviously this is rather continent focused (I have bought palms from both USA and Asia a few times, sometimes legally with phytosanitary certificate, and I do actually wonder how reliable such certificates are, I mean, 5 minutes after showered it is not easy to detect leaf living bugs).

Here are a few pics.    All advice is welcome