When I was a boy, I had to endure long waits on sooty railway stations – yes, it was the age of steam – whose grimy walls were plastered with posters of sun-drenched resorts with azure seas, white sands, bronzed maidens and swaying palm trees. In austerity Britain, no beach in the UK looked remotely like that: it was years later that I glimpsed my first grove of bona-fide palms as I drove a rickety ‘banger’ across southern Spain.
Those first sightings were probably of coconut palms; indeed any discussion of palm trees ought to start with cocos nucifera. After all, it is the most famous and the most utilitarian tree in Southeast Asia, and life without it would be unthinkable to Thais.
Every little bit has its uses ‒ the flesh, the milk, the husk, the wood, the leaves. Most Thai curries contain coconut milk or pulp, and the juice not only makes a refreshing drink, but is the only naturally occurring liquid to have exactly the same Ph as blood plasma. When dried, the husk (copra) yields commercial oils, and the fronds make attractive and extremely durable thatching. The wood is attractively grained, and the fibres can be woven into mats and canopies. And what would we gardeners do without coconut husk as a potting mix ingredient and soil amendment? All in all, cocos nucifera is a treasure…
Sadly this palm is too grand for the average garden, reaching as much as 30 metres tall, but it graces many parks with distinction. Further sadly, coconut groves are a diminishing feature of the island’s landscape. This inexorable decline is a consequence of the twin-pronged attack of property developers and the larvae of hispine beetles.
Back to the garden and manageable palms. Of all the smaller palms, the lady palm (rhapis) is probably the easiest to cultivate. One specimen will produce a clump of slender trunks which feature dark and hairy fibres. Often it is seen in garden centres with its root ball wrapped in plastic, a testimony to its durability. It is a small tree, at most three metres tall, but its great virtue is that it can survive in areas of deep shade where other sun-loving palms are difficult to grow. Its dense foliage is very eye-catching, especially when rhapis is grown in clumps.
Not only is it useful for covering up those bare patches in the garden, it is also one of the few palms that can tolerate conditions indoors. Rhapis has characteristic dark green fan-shaped leaves and can be propagated by rooted offshoots. Give it plenty of moisture.
Less durable but even more striking is the genus of fan palms, or licuala. There are about 100 species, and some of them can be found in your local plant nursery. They have huge deeply-pleated, glossy fronds with notched edges which are nearly circular in shape. The commonest is probably Licuala grandis, recognisable by its deeply indented leaves. L orbiculis has more symmetrical foliage and is one of the most beautiful of all the small palms. They will all grow in sun, but prefer filtered shade. What they cannot tolerate is an exposed position; the fragile, sail-[ike leaves need protection from strong winds.
Perhaps the most graceful of all palms is the foxtail (Wodyetia bifurcata).It is a matter for regret that I did not include it in my original garden plantings, for it is a beautiful tree with little in the way of those dying and unsightly fronds that characterise some other palms. It features a slim, smooth, ringed trunk and a crown of long, delicately drooping fronds from which the leaflets radiate all around the rib. Hence the fronds’ resemblance to a fox’s brush. Because of its dainty appearance, it is increasingly being cultivated as an ornamental in small gardens, often situated on lawns as a specimen tree. It is also widely employed for decorating suburban avenues, on account of its neat form and low maintenance requirements.The fruits are reddish and can be used for propagation. A must for your new garden.
Patrick Campbell’s book ‘The Tropic Gardener’, described in one Bangkok review as the best book on Thai gardening for 50 years, is available for B500 (half price) to personal callers from 59/84 Soi Saiyuan 13 in Rawai (Tel: 076-61227 or 085-7827551).
