I have 8 Walking Stick Palms (Linospadix monostachya) but originally had 10 but gave 2 away.
Basically, they are slow to get established but then grow like crazy thereafter. They grow 2-4 metres tall and their orange or red fruit are edible. They are native to tropical Queensland and subtropical northern NSW. They are difficult to purchase from a nursery but when they are available they are worth getting, especially seed grown plants.
Being tropical/subtropical understory plants I find mine love growing anywhere inside. They seem to love rich organic matter which I top up daily or several times a week with anything really. A leaf here, bits of celery there, dried out onion leaves, as well as spent flowers and capsicum seeds. I also add leaves, bark and bits of twigs brought home from any nearby tree.
The one thing I found surprising is when still in their tubestock pots, Walking Stick Palms don't mind sitting in water for weeks on end, dry them out for a few days, then submerge them again for more days or weeks on end. They really don't care less, and they seem to get darker green when they are basically their roots are wet all the time.
I tend to overwater my indoor plants but these palms just love me overwatering them. When it rains heavily I put them outside in the rain, along with all my other indoor plants, to flush out the tap water in the potting mix.
These palms are really tough to a lot of indoor conditions. They will also tolerate being washed down and gently scrubbed with hand soap and then rinsed off. I smoke inside so they get slightly covered in cigarette smoke - hence their regular baths.
I also move them around my place every couple of weeks but always to the same side of the house (east). Sometimes they'll get brighter light than before, sometimes less, other times about the same amount of light.
Another thing is nurseries say to be gentle when transplanting these palms as they are delicate and might die on you if you are rough when transplanting them. Baloney! You can be rough with transplanting them. I think the reason why any plant dies when transplanted is because too much of the roots are deliberately damaged, and the plant can't recover from that damage. So, if you don't damage their roots they'll survive the transplant.
These palms are supposed to not like wind either and I read that they get wind burnt. That's not true, they get brown edges on their leaves because they get sunburnt not wind burnt. This has occurred with many of my outdoor plants especially with my cabbage palm growing in the garden. My Walking Stick Palms haven't seen enough direct sunlight to get sunburnt yet.
Over a period of about a month I introduced them to wind every day, and a month later they were tolerating and thriving in my bedroom with my pedestal fan blowing wind in their direction all day long basically.
The thing is, what nurseries say about these palms are not true in most cases, probably with the exception of not putting them in direct sunlight when young. These palms are very adaptable and tolerant of almost all indoor conditions.
Anyone else growing these palms?
Edit: I thought I'd change the name of this thread to include other tropical plants I'm growing in my garden.
I expect anything which replicates the conditions these palms naturally grow in would be good for them, Shirley.
You planning on dishing out some good old school discipline to your neighbour Shirl lol. Beautiful looking plants in a cluster, I hope yours fruit for you. I had a crack at linning a fence line at my old place with these. Came accross them all the time bushwalking and thought I could use the species as a hedge plant under some heavy shade. 50% success I'm affraid, I think the towering small leaved fig Ficus obliqua they were under claimed most of the water. Even after running the over flow from the water tank didn't help. But they were put into heavy loam, far from what they would find in a rain forrest.
Hey Shirl, life after smoking is grand, and you can still clean the leaves if you like. I smoked for 15 years and still rate the day I gave up as one of the best days of my life. Up there with getting married and the birth of the kids. Not lecturing, just worth pondering. It took me sereral attempts over many years. The money saved, the time given back to you, the food, wine, and life all taste better. I felt like I was saying good bye to an old friend cause smoking was always the constant through the highs, lows, and the mundan. But that friend I have not missed, or think about at all. I would however love to punch that CEO of a tobaco company in the mounth.....it's far more than just seelling products for a company and they know it.
I eventually used these blokes. I'm not sure exactly how it works these days, but initally I felt the claims seemed unrealistic, and I was fearful of the cost to failure ratio. But I had had enough, I need my life back, and I wanted it. I went, my girlfried at the time didn't...guess who still smokes.
http://www.smokenders.com.au
Ipswich Shire Eastern flanks
can they survive drying out and dark positions, shirely?
Yeah, I expect so too, Woko.
Jason, what did you mean by "You planning on dishing out some good old school discipline to your neighbour"? I don't understand what you mean.
Anywho, it's a shame your Walking Stick Palms didn't do all that good under your small leaved fig tree. I think it may have been the soil conditions rather than the root competition from the fig tree as these plants seem to do best with tonnes of organic matter and regular drinks of water in my experience. Your palms should've done okay but I'm guessing there may have also been other problems occurring that caused the 50% success rate - slugs perhaps? Thanks also for the advice about quitting smoking.
zosterops....Yes, they can survive drying out and actually do better in darker positions than lighter positions. Remember, you have to adapt them to these conditions if that's how you want them to grow. I'm adding a pic of my walking stick palms to give you an idea of the light conditions mine are growing in. They are in the north west corner of my bedroom. They receive indirect sunlight from the east window and it gets really hot in my bedroom - more hot and humid than anything because of the carpet and basically no insultation in the roof or walls, and galvanised iron roof that's not far above the interior ceiling of the flats. I'm slowly reducing their waterings and don't let them sit in water for very long with our summer's heat - to prevent algae buildups in the potting mix and on their roots. Besides, tap water goes off in a day or two when in direct sunlight here so I have to be mindful of the potential algae buildups and prevent it where possible.
I will add, zosterops, that if you give these plants a month to adapt properly, by slowly introducing the type of conditions you want them to grow in, they will survive. Drying out the soil between waterings, I feel, should be done slowly, and preferably whilst still in tubestock containers. Why? Because it toughens up their roots, making their roots look and feel firmer in general. They seem to adapt better whilst still in rootstock containers.
Here's how you do it.......Begin by watering them every day. You can even let them sit in water for days on end, they won't care less. Do this for a couple of weeks. In summer, change their water regularly to prevent the water stagnating. Change their light conditions by moving them to a new position in your house. After a few days in their new position and new light conditions, reduce the amount of time you water them. Basically delay it by a day or two then water them again. Repeat this for about a week or two. Then give them a really good drenching and soak them in water for a few hours. Let them drain properly - I do this by tilting the pot on an angle to get all the excess water out of the pot. Put them back into their new location in your house and leave them alone for about 4-5 days. When you repeat this process, give them minimal amounts of water top ups between good soakings. Eventually, you can extend the amount of time between good soakings, from a week to a few weeks. In theory it should work but not in my case in my bedroom where it's hot and humid all the time. If in a cool, dark place it possibly could work. At this point though, add something like bark chips to the surface of the potting mix to prevent water evaporation from the potting mix/soil as it will eliminate the palms stressing out and dieing on you. zosterops, it entirely depends upon where you grow the palms inside your house vs the climate conditions of that area/room, will dictate how often you'll need to water them to begin with.
Also, you can actually acclimatise these palms to grow in different soil types by slowly introducing a cupful of the soil you want them to grow in at a later date when they're young (after you've transplanted them into pots, of course). The idea is to slowly replace the potting mix with soil without losing the volume of organic matter in the process. It will happen sooner or later down the track anyway when all the potting mix eventually rots away.
They can be transplanted any time of the year, I guess. I still have 2 in tubestock containers and they are growing new leaves. All my palms are growing new leaves, even my indoor-growing cabbage palm. The ones I've potted up into bigger containers are putting out root growth as well. You can transplant them into any sort of container as long as there is drainage. I have 2 growing in 1 litre clear water bottle containers.(I wanted to watch their root developement). When I first got my palms I left them in their containers and put them in the bathroom where the light was the darkest and the flat was the coolest. They got no real air flow and very little light at all. They had daily doses of hot steam (hot showers) before summer's heat kicked in.
Also, I read online that Walking Stick Palms will go into shock and will die if you water them with cold water, even icy cold water. That's a load of cods wallop. In nature, its extremely rare for rain to be warm to touch. Its mostly cold.
These palms do better if you don't smother them with mothering them or treating them like delicate, fragile little things. They are tough as a Holden/Ford ute. The only thing they DON'T like and do suffer from is having organic matter on their leaves. The organic matter makes their leaves rot. Even something like a capsicum seed on their leaves will create a dead white patch on their leaves. That and direct sunlight when they're young are the only two things to avoid when caring for these plants.
About insects and these palms. If you keep the organic matter up to these palms you'll probably end up with a lot of small insects attracted to the rotting organic matter. There are gnats in my palms' organic matter which don't seem to be doing any damage to the palms at all. There's a spider in amongst these palms somewhere - hopefully its still there. As long as there is some form of insect life that won't damage the palms, don't ever spray the palms to control the insects. Just introduce more spiders if you can to control their numbers or put them in a new position where there are spiders or start reducing the amount of water you give them.
If you replicate nature as much as possible with their human made growing conditions the plants will adapt to almost anything else you throw at them. Plants that adapt to all kinds of human treatment are the survivors. Just remember they need to feel their environment as well as experience it so they can adapt to it all, and that includes other lifeforms so they can communicate with their environment and attract predators if it comes to that. All plants are the same in that respect.
I'm at Tenterfield, NSW. (Formerly known as "Hyperbirds".)
sounds like they are quite versatile, shirley.
if so they could have potential as a mainstream houseplant to provide some variation from peace lilies and kentias.
growth rate? maximum size indoors?
Yes, zosterops, they are quite versatile. They make excellent house plants actually. I'm still learning about my palms and am a bit concerned that their roots will outgrow the pots they're in before this season is over. Seems their roots grow rapidly when they put on new leaf growth, or just before that.
It would be nice to know how fast they do actually grow and what maximum size they get to if grown indoors. All I know is they are slow to take off and grow faster when they're bigger. That's not helpful at all really. I've read there are the odd rare occurrances of these palms growing in the wild to 15 metres. It looks like they go to fruit when they're about 5 feet tall but that's just a guess. Mine are about 15-20cm tall on average so I'll only find these things out when they start growing.
I'm at Tenterfield, NSW. (Formerly known as "Hyperbirds".)
Shirl, thought the neighbour could be a bit of a dill at times. A cane as thick as a walking stick was probably a common device to issus some behaviour correction theropy at some point in history. Appologies if my humour is confusing. I must give up on it.
Ipswich Shire Eastern flanks
Ha ha, jason. I wouldn't waste a walking stick on my neighbour across the road. I'm a lot more sadistic than that toward her but wouldn't waste my energy on her either. She's a narcissist (I actually done research to find out her personality type) and one nasty B****. Her boyfriend is not a narcissist but is something like a psychic vampire. Being psychic I try to block out their "behaviour" especially his, as he projects it at me at times. I'd use a scud missile on them if I had one. I just let karma get them.
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I'm at Tenterfield, NSW. (Formerly known as "Hyperbirds".)
I've had a lot going on with my life hence my absence from this site of late. If anyone is interested here is an update on my 8 Walking Stick palms. Firstly, they are all still alive and still green. They survived Tenterfield's 5 and a 1/2 months of summer. I don't think I did though. I unconsciously, over summer, reduced their water availability, often for 2 weeks at a time. Couldn't help it. My brain fried. Rain was scarce, very scarce - even now. After what I thought was "summer's heat had ended" and a heavy downpour of rain, I just left them out the front. They began getting direct sunlight and stinking hot heat at that. I moved them into the shade after a couple of hours of morning sunlight - for about a week roughly. Then I didn't move them. They got direct sunlight up until about 1 or 2PM then shade from the house. Then I moved them further out into the garden, so now they're getting direct sunlight up until about 5 PM every day. Four of them have already been planted in the garden and are doing fine. The others are still in their pots as I'm indecisive as to where to plant them in the garden. They all seem to be coping with being outside in the environment, out in nature.
I'm hoping they will develope more root growth than what they have. They have barely developed any root growth since I bought them. I guess they lacked the sun's warmth to encourage them to grow roots.
I basically got tired of having to take them outside every time it rained. I now have no indoor pot plants to attend to as they're either in the garden or in pots in the garden.
Walking Stick Palms are slug proof. Slugs won't eat them at all. Also, since getting direct sunlight their leaves have begun turning a darker green colour but their leaves look perfectly healthy.
I'm at Tenterfield, NSW. (Formerly known as "Hyperbirds".)
I decided to include in this thread my other known tropical plants in my garden: what I've planted; if they have survived or not; when they flower; their growing conditions; etc.
I've already discussed my Walking Stick Palms and how they're adapting. Now I want to discuss my 2 Cabbage Palms. I planted one in the garden prior to last summer and the other one was in a pot inside and recently was planted into the garden at the end of summer just gone.
The first palm endured a long hot summer and it suffered from sunburn for a few months until it adapted to the strong, intense sunlight and high temperatures and minimal rainfall. It is growing rapidly now and has begun developing spines on it's leaves.I planted it in the garden with a thick layer of pine bark chips. It now has lush green leaves that are no longer getting sunburnt. The soil was moist for the most part but allowed to dry out between waterings. I watered the garden once a week unless it rained. If it rained I'd water a week later.
The other palm spent summer inside getting regular watering (twice weekly in some cases) and it began to grow taller than the other one in the ground. I decided, toward the end of summer, to put all my palms outside to get sunlight including my Walking Stick Palms. Several weeks later I planted my 2nd cabbage palm in the garden, and is currently enduring sunburn and longer sunlight hours.
The garden beds, currently, are on the east side of the property and are exposed to strong winds, intense sunlight for all but 2 hours of each day, heavy frosts, snow (when it happens in July) and plant competition for nutrients. The garden beds are in strips of approximately 3 feet in depth by about 20cm above the ground. Their lengths vary. The soil is all the same - poor - with heavy clay about 2 and a half feet down. There's also a mixture of sand, clay and a light dirt texture happening at various depths. Organic matter is added regular but spontaneously to the garden beds, mostly added during summer, autumn and winter, including kitchen scraps. What is pulled out or pruned from the garden goes back into the garden except the lawn runners and some weeds.
Once adapted to the strong intense sunlight, a cabbage palm will begin to grow new leaves with spines. It does not seem to gain much height but it does start growing new leaves one after the other even days apart. If grown indoors, however, they will not develope spines on their leaves nor will there be a lot of leaf growth. It will simply grow in height with little else happening apart from one new leaf growing over a five month period in summer/autumn.
I'm at Tenterfield, NSW. (Formerly known as "Hyperbirds".)