Topic: Help Needed

[Amazingrotavator(Derby)]

           

My housebound disabled neighbour has 1 of these either side of her path. First of all, is it a palm? A couple of years ago during a storm, these were damaged and she thought they were dead. Last year they began growing again. Now visitors can hardly get to her front door because of these triffids. She has asked if they can be trimmed back without killing them. Are the bottom leaves just cut back to the stem leaving the top alone? One of them has 2 stems, can 1 of these be cut off? PLease help as she is getting desparate. Thanks.

[ed dibbles]

Not a true palm but a cabbage palm or Torbay palm (cordyline australis).  They are in fact a member of the asparagus family.

You can certainly cut off the lower leaves without damaging the plant making it look more "palm like". You can also reduce the double trunked plant to one although expect regrowth from the cut off part.

They are pretty tough so getting the leaves higher up out of the way by cutting the lower ones off may be the solution. It will also make the plant look more palm like.

True palm trees generally only have one growing point so cannot bud out from lower down if the top get damaged. Cordylines will regrow even if you cut them right down as you found out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordyline_australis

[ACE]

Don't think it is a cabbage palm they shed leaves from the bottom and grow tree like, more like a Yucky yucca, needs loads of room, wrong plant in the wrong place. Cut them off and they spring up again, just one bit of root will grow again, The good thing is they transplant very easily. Dig up with a big root ball and plant them somewhere else or be like me and take them to the tip.

[johhnyco15]

im with you on this ace think its a yucca

[Silverleaf]

Looks like a cordyline to me.

There's two at the front of my house which both died back that winter we had the heavy snow (about 4ft here). They grew back eventually, although one of them took 2 years to start sprouting again!

Useful to know that I can remove the lower leaves, the one near the door is trying to take over the world and it's getting in the way a bit.

[picman]

Cordyline , yucca regrow from the roots, trim all the lower leaves back to the stem , cut or tie back to train upright offending 'branches' keep 3 looks best.