- Make sure you choose a palm that won't grow too tall for your home. If your house has standard ceilings, you'll want to stick with a palm that will grow to no more than 5 feet. If you have high ceilings, you have more leeway when it comes to the final height of your tree.
For a shorter plant, try a parlor palm. This dwarf palm grows slowly and also is more tolerant of shade. It comes in sizes as short as 8 inches and its top height is from 4 feet to 6 feet. You also could consider palm ferns, which make a good interior decoration and are smaller and thicker than palm trees. One of these types of palms is the cabbage palm fern, which has dark green fronds and grows in a loose cluster. - Palm trees love sunlight. They also require a lot of water to mimic a rainy season. Make sure the tree has enough light. Most palms will require quite a bit of daily sunlight. You can place the palm in a room that gets a lot of natural light or you can use artificial light.
To mimic a palm tree's natural environment, it will require a large amount of water at times. Choosing a smaller palm will make this easier. It may sound strange, but one easy way to mimic those tropical and subtropical climates is to put your palm in the shower and let it get drenched on occasion. Make sure you have good drainage for your palm.
Use good composted soil or sandy soil. You shouldn't need fertilizer on your palm. In fact, most palms won't like fertilizer because they are used to less-than-great growing conditions, such as sandy soil. Palms do require high levels of manganese and potassium. - Remove any leaves that are brown. It's normal for bottom leaves to turn brown as the palm gets taller. Keep the palm moist in the spring and summer and drier in winter. Keep fronds clean. Spider mites like dusty fronds and can become a problem, especially in winter when humidity is lower.
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