Palm trees are excellent to have, as they’re hardy and easy to grow at home. Even if your home doesn’t get much sun, they can adjust to that low-light condition.
Moreover, they don’t take too large of a space in your hallway, patio, or small garden. And their foliage grows lush and exquisite, which can class up your house or office.
Anyways, we will explore the indoor palm tree more in this guide. We will also feature 11 of the loveliest types of palm trees you can grow inside your crib and how to care for them!
What are the benefits of growing an indoor palm tree?
Here are several benefits of growing a palm tree inside your house:
- Stylish form – Do you love tropical trees? If you do, you may want to have one for your home in the form of an indoor palm tree.
Their fan and quill-shaped leaves are stylish and unique. They also have a distinct stem or trunk that can be like that of a bamboo plant or an elephant’s foot.
These decorative features can add a tranquil vibe to your house. It can even match your decor too!
- Tough perennial – Indoor palm trees can survive neglect, dryness, or insufficient light, although their growth and development will be slowed as a result.
Its hardiness doesn’t mean that you can abuse the palm tree. You should still tend to their sunlight, temperature, soil, and water requirements consistently.
- Long-lasting – Indoor palm trees often last for ten or more years if you take care of them the right way. So they can stay around to adorn your house year after year.
On the other hand, palm trees in their wild habitats can live to be a hundred years old.
- Air purification – All palm trees, whether they be grown indoors or outdoors, are excellent air purifiers.
They can get rid of toxic gases or substances like carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, chloroform, and benzene, which can affect your and your family’s health.
What are the different types of indoor palm trees?
Below is a list of some of the most beautiful varieties of palm trees you can have indoors:
1) Banana Palm
Botanical name: Musa oriana
Mature height: 6 feet
Sun needs: Full sunlight
Water when top 1/2 – 1 inch of soil is dry
The Banana Palm sports an elongated, wavy, and eye-catching leaf pattern. Its shoots and roots sprout from a single rhizome underground (like that of the ginger spice).
It loves full exposure to sun rays from your window or garden space. It thrives in fertile and moist soil and must be watered whenever 1/2 to 1 inch of its topsoil becomes dry.
The ever-lovely potted plant can reach up to a height of 6 feet indoors when it has matured. It can therefore make your house feel like an oasis that people find relaxing and serene to be in.
2) Chinese Fan Palm
Botanical name: Livistona chinensis
Mature height: 10 – 30 feet
Sun needs: Direct or indirect sunlight
Water when top 1/2 – 1 inch of soil is dry
The Chinese Fan Palm, otherwise known as the Fountain Palm, is another much sought-after indoor palm tree.
It has unique long leaves that split into thinner parts called fronds. The dividing or spreading shape resembles the timeless and traditional Chinese fan.
It’s a colossal plant that’s notable for its longevity because it can stay alive for several long decades.
What’s great about this palm tree is it requires minimal care. It’s pretty hardy too, as it won’t mind the temperature, moisture, and sunlight around it as much as other plants do.
Still, however, the extraordinary plant is best to be given direct or indirect sunlight. But note that young plants would need to be shielded from the harsh sunlight.
3) Fishtail Palm
Botanical name: Caryota mitis
Mature height: 20 feet
Sun needs: Bright shaded sunlight
Water when top 1 – 2 inches of soil are dry
Fishtail Palm trees have fin-shaped leaves growing on both sides of the stem’s nodes. A node is a slender, green, branch-like structure from where the leaves sprout.
Unlike other varieties of palm trees, they are a lot harder to care for. They need bright shaded or partly shaded sun and frequent watering.
You may also observe unattractive leaf spots on the Fishtail Palm. But you don’t have to worry; this is often a sign that it needs more magnesium.
Basking them in sunlight and sprinkling them with water with Epsom salt should remedy it.
Also, repotting them should be done while they’re young. Otherwise, when they’ve grown huge, it would be virtually impossible to do that due to their cumbersome weight and structure.
4) Areca Palm
Botanical name: Dypsis lutescens
Mature height: 4 – 12 feet
Sun needs: Full to partly shaded sunlight
Water when top 1 – 2 inches of soil are dry
With flamboyant tropical spike leaves, the Areca Palm is one of the favorite palm trees for indoor spaces.
Besides its stylishness, this houseplant can detoxify the air of hazardous and toxic industrial chemicals such as formaldehyde, toluene, and xylene, all of which can cause people to be ill.
It’s versatile but most at home in full or filtered sunlight. It’s a relatively small palm plant that attains only a height of 4 to 12 feet.
Just a tip when growing it: Give it some moisture but not too much. Since it is drought-hardy, it can be watered once every one or two weeks during the hot summer.
5) Ponytail Palm
Botanical name: Beaucarnea recurvata
Mature height: 6 – 30 feet
Sun needs: Direct sunlight
Water when top 2 – 3 inches of soil are dry
Contrary to its moniker, the Ponytail Palm tree fashions long, trailing, and canopy leaves separated from each other. They honestly look more like spider legs than the tail of a horse.
If you also notice, they don’t have an ordinary stem but have one that looks like a tree’s trunk. And its other name, Elephant’s Foot Trunk, is quite accurate.
Another interesting fact is that it’s classified as a succulent plant, so it can tolerate dry periods in the summer and spring months. It’s an impressive plant that’s great to be placed on windowsills or corners.
Plus, as the Ponytail Palm can grow from 6 to 30 feet tall, we suggest that you put them in a spacious spot.
6) Kentia Palm
Botanical name: Howea forsteriana
Mature height: 3 – 12 feet
Sun needs: Indirect sunlight
Water when top 1 – 2 inches of soil are dry
The Kentia Palm had been used to decorate houses, gardens, and terraces during the Victorian Times.
It puts forth wonderful shoots and leaves in a somewhat V formation. It’s a beautiful indoor plant that can grow from 3 to 12 feet in height.
Its trunk is different from most palm trees in that it’s like that of a bamboo plant. These are the leaf remains of the plant as it gets older.
As for its light exposure, it favors any kind of indirect light, whether in partial or full shade. It needs to be consistently watered when its top 1 to 2 inches of soil have dried out.
Winter weather can be very drying for the Kentia Palm Tree. To make it comfortable, you can mist the foliage lightly so that it stays hydrated.
7) Lipstick Palm
Botanical name: Cyrtostachys renda
Mature height: 25 – 35 feet
Sun needs: Direct to indirect sunlight
Water when top 1/2 – 1 inch of soil is dry
The Lipstick Palm is another unique and great palm tree. The leaves are borne upon a bright red crownshaft supported by a green-and-white-ringed trunk.
Native to Southeast Asia, the mighty palm tree grows near ponds and rivers. There, they bear spectacular white flowers followed by black fruits.
It can grow up to a gigantic 25 to 35 feet outside. This means that you’d have to repot it every two to three years, which will be easier to do than waiting until it gets too big.
What’s more, they require full to partial light exposure, nutrient-rich and moist soil, and correct watering. Feeding them fertilizer would make them grow faster and healthier during the growing season.
8) Ruffled Fan Palm
Botanical name: Licuala grandis
Mature height: 8 feet
Sun needs: Partial shade
Water when top 1/2 – 1 inch of soil is dry
The scientific name of the Ruffled Fan Palm is Licuala grandis. This palm tree type is rare as opposed to the others we have listed here.
It can be found in lowland tropical jungles in the Vanuatu and Solomon Islands of New Guinea.
The wonderful plant is characterized by its single-leaved body with an alternating mountain-and-valley pattern like that of a paper fan.
But take care because their fan-shaped leaves are prone to wind or storm damage. At times, you’d have to move them indoors under inclement or violent weather.
For those with smaller interiors, you might want to grow Ruffled Fan Palm Trees. It typically grows only between 6 to 8 feet in height and 10 feet across.
9) Manila Palm
Botanical name: Veitchia merrillii
Mature height: 15 – 25 feet
Sun needs: Full to part sun
Water when top 1/2 – 1 inch of soil is dry
You may have encountered these majestic trees on a scenic sunset drive in the Philippines or Malaysia.
Manila Palms are absolutely beautiful, having thick, blade-shaped leaves and trunks that gently move in the breeze.
As an indoor house plant, Manila Palms are made for backyards and gardens due to their large body.
A young Manila Palm grows relatively fast up to 5 feet. After which it slows down till it reaches its maximum height.
It doesn’t deal well with the winter cold so you would have to move it indoors during this time. Furthermore, partial or full sun is fine for this tree, and adding mulch at the plant’s base will help it to retain moisture.
10) Majesty Palm
Botanical name: Ravenea rivularis
Mature height: 10 – 100 feet
Sun needs: Indirect sunlight
Water when top 1 – 2 inches of soil are dry
Though it’s a very impressive palm tree that grows to a massive size, the Majesty Palm is hard to maintain as a houseplant—even for veteran gardeners.
The reason is that it needs to have the right amount of correct sun, water, soil, and fertilizer.
For instance, forgetting to water it can make the leaves droop or fall, and it needs to be fed a liquid or slow-release fertilizer with an NPK balance of 18-6-12 every three months.
Keep in mind that the soil has to be lightly acidic (having a pH value of 5) and have excellent drainage. Otherwise, its growth will be hindered and overwatering can be an issue.
Lastly, in case you see extremely small pests feasting on your Majesty Palm, sort out the issue by spraying them with water and/or mild insecticidal soap.
11) Bamboo Palm
Botanical name: Chamaedorea seifrizii
Mature height: 5 – 7 feet
Sun needs: Bright indirect sunlight
Water when top 1 – 2 inches of soil are dry
Its name is a nod to its ringed trunks. The lovely Bamboo Palm features slender and pointy leaves hanging in all directions as well as reed-like stems.
It’s one of the hardiest and easiest palm plants to care for, suitable for all gardening skill levels.
It does fine in low-lit areas, though they will grow better in bright indirect light. In addition, you won’t have to water it often—only when the top inch or two of the soil has dried.
The bamboo palm is comparatively small, growing only up to 7 feet max. But that doesn’t keep it from being a stylish addition to your home, complementing any color of pot vessel.
Also, NASA concluded that bamboo palms can purify the air around you of unpleasant odors, harmful chemicals, and so on. So, it’s a great plant to have anywhere inside the house!
Do palm trees bring luck inside the home?
Many feng shui experts say that palm trees bring good luck, serenity, and prosperity to homeowners.
They recommend various types of palm trees. The most popular ones are the Areca Palm and Kentia Palm because of their exciting style and positive aura.
