The lady palm is a shady palm

Most palms do best in full sun locations where growth is sustained and enhanced.  However, the lady palm, also known as Rhapis excels, is famous for its ability to do well low light environments.  Growing in shade to partial shade conditions, the lady palm is a great fit for many difficult landscape nooks and crannies.  This southeast China native is a gem!

Lady palms are relatively short with individual stalks barely getting seven feet tall.  They slowly spread by means of underground rhizomes and eventually develop into quite a dense thicket of plants.  Shiny palmate leaves form fans of dark green connecting to bamboo-like trunks surrounded by brown fiber.  Besides being shade-loving plants, they are also very cold-hardy in our area.  If they get too much sun, they will actually fade to yellow-green and may develop some marginal tip browning. 

Lady palms make a good slow-growing screen in shaded areas.  Also consider them for northern foundation plantings or to accent shady entrances.  Alkaline soils can cause them to develop a manganese deficiency (frizzled new leaves) so check your soil pH and/or provide proper fertilization.  Iron deficiency (light, greenish-yellow leaves) is another common problem that can be reduced with proper fertilization or chelated iron applications.    Just like all palms, we would recommend that you use an 8-2-12-4 in November, February and May, as per label directions, and a 0-0-16-6 in August.

While lady palms do great in our landscapes, they are also ideal for containers and as indoor houseplants.  You have probably seen lady palms in hotel lobbies, at malls and similar public places thriving in these artificial environments.  Although lady palms are slow-growing, container grown specimens will eventually fill their root capacity and need to be stepped up into another large container.  You can carefully divide larger clumps and start new plants. 

While the lady palm all by itself is a beautiful foliage plant, there is a variegated form that has stunning green, white and creamy yellow stripes.  This variegation adds another dimension in your plant pallet selection.

I bought a lady palm at a Master Gardener Plant Sale (the next one is November 19^th by the way) about three years ago as a small division barely one foot high.   This plant is now at least two and one-half feet tall with a similar width.  The palm did have a manganese deficiency problem which I was able to fix and it is developing into a fine landscape plant – I like it!    For more information on all types of shade-loving plants, please call our Master Gardener volunteers on the Plant Lifeline on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 1 to 4 pm at 764-4340 for gardening help and insight into their role as an Extension volunteer.  Don't forget to visit our other County Plant Clinics in the area.  Please check this link for a complete list of site locations, dates and times - http://charlotte.ifas.ufl.edu/horticulture/Plant%20Clinics%20Schedule.pdf.

Resources:

Broschat, T. K. (2016) Rhapis excelsa – Lady Palm.  The University of Florida Extension Service, IFAS. 

Gilman, E. F. (1999) Rhapis excelsa.  The University of Florida Extension Service, IFAS. 

Scheper, J. (1998) Rhapis excelsa.  Floridata.com. Tallahassee, FL.