Family Arecaceae
Originating from Northern Myanmar to Central China
- A true palm that we can grow outside without protection in the UK.
- Evergreen and architectural, it is adaptable to many styles of gardens.
- Easy to grow in any soil in sun or shade.
An Introduction to Trachycarpus fortunei, the Chusan Fan Palm.
Palms evoke images of exotic holidays, luxury, abundance, and exuberance. By planting them in your garden, you can experience the escapism of a palm-filled landscape without the need to board a flight. Far from requiring a white sand beach or sunbathing tourists to be appreciated, this remarkable species can endure temperatures as low as -18°C, making it the hardiest of all trunk-forming palms.
The Chusan Palm features a crown of up to 50 large, fan-shaped evergreen leaves that cascade gracefully. This abundant foliage is often the primary reason for its inclusion in gardens. However, beyond its flamboyant crown, the Chusan, or Windmill Palm, produces an impressive display of flowers, fruits, and seeds on female plants. This intricate and ever-changing aspect is often overlooked but elevates its value from merely an evergreen architectural plant to one that provides a striking floral display.
Despite its exotic appearance, this species is exceptionally robust. In addition to its remarkable cold hardiness, it thrives in various soil conditions and can even tolerate neglect. Maintenance is optional; it can thrive independently once established, though gardeners may choose to manicure it. With basic techniques, gardeners can create palms that look drastically different. A carefully styled Trachycarpus can resemble an entirely different species to one left to grow naturally in a wild form.
In the detailed description below, you’ll find various techniques to shape your palm. Additionally, the descriptions of its physical characteristics provide deeper insight into this extraordinary species.
The Physical Characteristics of Trachycarpus fortunei.
Palms are a unique family of plants. Their evolution has maintained characteristics that set them apart from most plants; they have one growing tip and do not branch (with very few exceptions). They do not have woody growth like trees, which form annual rings; their trunks are a mass of vascular tubes. They are dioecious, meaning that individuals are male or female.
Reproduction and variation.
The Chusan Palm is a prolific species and readily sets seed. Often, a ‘lawn’ of seedlings is found under female plants, resulting in a dense natural ‘colony’ of adult and juvenile plants as they mature. There is a wide range of genetic variation in T. fortunei, sometimes resulting in very different-looking plants. Leaf size and form are the most obvious, but the girth of the trunk and the fibres that wrap around it also vary. Trachycarpus fortunei also readily hybridises with other species, such as T. wagnerianus, T. martianus and T. takil, resulting in many intermediate forms.
Trunk and Roots.
The growing tip or apical bud of the plant is in the centre of the crown, at the very tip of the trunk. This soft mass of vegetative matter is sometimes used as a food source, having the texture of an artichoke heart after cooking. It contains the hormones necessary for leaf and flower growth; the new leaves emerge directly from it. If damaged or removed, the palm will die, unlike most woody plants that develop a crown or canopy of foliage that has numerous apical buds. Trachycarpus does not produce branches and cannot be pruned to encourage bushier growth.
Old leaf bases cling to the trunk long after the leaves have fallen or been removed, forming its outer covering. Each leaf base wraps around the trunk and secures the leaf to it, using fibres that emerge from the trunk’s outer edge. The ‘shagginess’ and colour of the fibres are extremely variable in individual specimens. Some have tightly ‘woven’ ones in a paler grey/tan colour that adhere closely to the trunk. In this instance, the cloth, the weave of the hessian-like fibres, is often more apparent. Other plants have rich brown, hair-like masses of fibres, giving the trunk a soft and fuzzy appearance.
A Trachycarpus trunk is much softer than the woody growth of broadleaf or coniferous trees. Its strength lies in its flexibility. A 13m tall specimen can have a trunk as little as 20cm thick at ground level, making an impossibly slender-looking stem. Despite this, it can support a hefty crown, even in exposed coastal locations on the West coast of Scotland. Additionally, palm roots are entirely different from most trees, never becoming thicker than around 15mm. They form a densely packed mass in the soil and anchor the palm successfully by their prolific nature.
Foliage and flowers.
Palm leaves can be feather or fan-shaped, and the pleated leaflets of Trachycarpus species are typical of a fan palm. The leaves emerge as solid spikes from the tip of the trunk, with as many as five or six at a time reaching skywards. As the leaf stem (petiole) emerges and pushes the leaf upwards, it slowly splays outwards like an opening fan. Genetic variation in the species is most evident in their leaf character; when the leaf has fully opened, the radiating leaflets may take the form of a half circle or a complete circle, even overlapping themselves. The leaflets may be divided only one-third of their length from their tips; others can be divided three-quarters down towards the tip of their petiole. Each leaflet retains a degree of ‘fold’, meaning it has a ‘v’ shape when looked at end on. This complex structure gives each leaf an undulating surface and a lovely ruffled or corrugated texture when viewed from a distance.
When such an intricate leaf form is repeated many times in a large, healthy crown of leaves, a truly stunning spectacle is evident. As the leaves mature from an upright spike to a newly opened leaf, they gradually recline over a period of several seasons. They end their life in an utterly pendulous position, cladding the trunk. The leaf may remain green and healthy for up to 3 or 4 years before drying and turning light brown, an effect that makes the crown appear as a cascade of foliage. The plant begins a unique floral display in early summer that adorns the crown for many months.
Large, rich yellow, branching flowering structures, known as inflorescences, are produced high in the crown during spring and can reach up to 40 cm long. They arch downward, initially enclosed in rugged, dull, brownish-yellow protective sheaths. As the sheaths loosen, they reveal clusters of tightly packed flower buds, resembling weird bananas from a distance. Closer inspection reveals a texture more akin to greenish-yellow fish roe.
Both male and female plants produce hundreds of tiny, three-petalled, slightly waxy-looking flowers on each inflorescence. Male flowers are larger and release pollen clouds before withering and falling away. After fulfilling this month-long role, the branching structure of male inflorescences dries out and dies. In contrast, female plants develop seeds after flowering, adding another layer of interest to their seasonal display.
We have removed lower leaves from our female plants to show off the exquisite female infructescences (fruit-bearing branching structures), bearing abundant masses of fresh, light turquoise young fruits. The considerable weight of the fruit bunches is borne on an ever-darkening branching structure. Stiffening and becoming more woody, it turns from its green colour during the flowering stage to a rich amber colour. Turquoise fruit and amber branches – what an exotic array of colours! As the fruits mature and harden, they turn to a dusky, powdery plum purple, and the branches of the infructescence continue to darken to a dusky orange. Gradually, the seeds dry and become black as the branches that bear them wither, harden and hang flaccidly against the trunk.
Amazingly, before they reach this fully mature stage, the new seasons flowers are developing so that the plant bears maturing bunches of seeds and flowers simultaneously. The outstanding, incredibly exotic flowering and fruiting cycle of female Trachycarpus is often overlooked in descriptions of this species. However, its contribution to gardens can spectacularly impact planting schemes.
The History and Uses of the Chusan Palm.
Robert Fortune, the renowned plant collector, discovered Trachycarpus fortunei and introduced it to the UK in the 19th Century; the species is named after him. He collected seed from the small Chinese island of Chusan in 1843 – hence the plant’s common name. Victorian gardeners favoured palms and planted many of the ancient specimens still found in UK gardens today. At Culzean Castle in Ayrshire, Scotland, there is an impressive planting of 45 specimens towering around 10m tall. The tallest in the UK is in Trebah Gardens in Cornwall, which is 13m tall.
In China, people have traditionally used the fibres from the leaf bases that cover the trunk to make ponchos. Stripping the trunk reveals tough fibres that grow in a woven formation, aggregating into a rigid triangle of leathery material as they converge to form the petiole (leaf stalk). If enough of the leaf bases were stitched together, using the fibres of the leaf base, they could afford rudimentary protection from rain. People also used them to make basic brooms and crafted ropes from the fibres.
There are many ethnological uses of Trachycarpus fortunei in China. The young inflorescences and flowers are edible and cooked like bamboo shoots. The heart of the growing tip is removed and baked to produce an artichoke heart-like vegetable dish, causing the plant to die, hence its name (applied mainly to tropical species palm hearts) ‘Millionaires salad’. The roots, flowers, and seeds are considered haemostatic (used to stop bleeding).
The fibres at the tip of the crown can be dense enough near to accommodate nesting birds. The leaf bases are stout enough to support nests for smaller birds, and they can weave the fibres to form the nest itself. A wild-growing Trachycarpus may develop a ‘skirt’ of hanging leaves, providing a warm and safe haven for wildlife. The hanging dead inflorescences inside the skirt make cavities within it, allowing easy access for nesting or roosting birds and insects to the warm and protected interior. The fibres are a great source of nesting material for birds, and they will go to great lengths to pull off as many as possible. The older fibres towards the base of the trunk are looser than those higher up the trunk, and we have witnessed blackbirds tugging at them furiously for many hours during the nesting season. Pigeons and blackbirds eat the seeds and probably any bird large enough, such as Jays and the naturalised ring-necked parakeets.
For an in-depth account of Trachycarpus fortunei’s introduction to the UK, botanical description and list of notable specimens growing in the UK, visit https://www.treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/trachycarpus/trachycarpus-fortunei/
For a grower’s guide and more photos, visit https://www.palmpedia.net/wiki/Trachycarpus_fortunei
Using Trachycarpus fortunei in Gardens.
Trachycarpus can grow as tall as 13m, attaining tree-like proportions. The crown of leaves is borne at varying heights throughout its different stages of growth.
- The leaves begin life at ground level, making a shrub-like plant with no trunk.
- Young plants, such as our home-grown 3L stock, will reach about 1.5m tall after 2 – 3 seasons before the palm’s woody base broadens and grows into a cone-like shape.
- Over the next 3 – 4 seasons, the plant will bear leaves down to ground level, maintaining a shrub-like appearance. The maturing leaves will make a 2m tall and wide plant.
- During the following 2 – 3 seasons, the trunk will become more evident, and the young palm will start to grow upwards more noticeably. During this growth stage, the leaves reach their mature size of up to 1.5m long.
Consisting of a 50 to 80cm long leaf stem and a broad, nearly circular fan-shaped leaf up to 80cm wide. Once the trunk has reached its mature girth at ground level, which can be up to 30cm across (varying from plant to plant), the palm starts to grow vigorously upwards at a rate of up to 30cm a year.
The nursery trade benefits greatly from Trachycarpus fortunei’s tolerance of transplanting; specimens of any size are lifted from field-grown sites and containerised with almost no losses. Consequently, any size of this fantastic palm is available to gardeners and is easy to add to gardens. From seedlings in a 9cm pot to juvenile plants in a 3L pot to mature plants with practically any trunk height.
Planting Trachycarpus that have already formed a trunk leaves space for underplanting and bypasses the young shrub-like stage of the palm’s development. The availability of mature specimens allows gardeners to compose a planting scheme that includes the palm as it will appear for most of its life (a single trunk with a crown of foliage). Adding mature plants is especially useful if planting near a path or sitting area. Instead of the low crown of a young plant blocking access or infringing on patio space, one can walk past or sit under the plant.
This fantastic species’ lush and tropical appearance belies its hardiness and offers the gardener many qualities. Its exotic appearance is adaptable to many garden styles, being less ostentatiously ‘jungle style’ than banana plants or canna lilies. Its evergreen architectural look makes it perfect for contemporary gardens and courtyards, where it can add a strong structural framework or striking accent. Perhaps because it was planted when first introduced to the UK in the Victorian era, it also looks at home in English-style gardens.
Growing amongst trees in its natural habitat and, in contrast, on rocky outcrops, it makes an excellent addition to woodland gardens. Its Asian origins and elegant poise, adaptability to pruning, and various styling techniques (described in more detail below) make it eminently suitable for Zen or any serene, minimalist composition. It is ideal for growing in pots or any large container (considering it will become tall with age), tolerating limited root spread and requiring re-potting a little less regularly than other plants.
It’s impossible to identify the sex of Trachycarpus plants until they flower; however, if both sexes are present in a garden or neighbourhood, you may find carpets of seedlings underneath the females and the odd plant growing in random places, as birds distribute the seeds. The fecundity of this species can lead to dense colonies forming. If you have the space to allow this, a stunning palm jungle is achievable in time. At the Abbotsbury Subtropical Garden in Dorset, UK, a very tightly packed clump may have been planted as individuals but certainly looks like a wild stand.
Wild Style Chusan Palms.
Every gardener has a preferred planting style, and gardens can encompass many different looks. The wild and rugged Trachycarpus is not for everyone or every garden style but has a unique character. It can set the tone for a naturalistic, even primaeval garden.
Set your palm free! Let it grow naturally and enjoy its rugged, shaggy woodland or jungle character. Mature wild-looking palms have a different character from primped and styled plants; they could almost be a distinct species. If the hanging dead leaves are allowed to remain on the plant, a thick skirt of ruffled and layered straw-coloured foliage forms, making the usually slender trunk look enormous. Instead of being only 20 – 30cm thick, the ‘skirt’ can be up to 1.5m wide.
If a skirt is not wanted the leaves can be removed, even roughly, leaving various lengths of petiole, or trimmed close to the trunk.
Refined Style Trachycarpus.
The first step in maintaining a refined Trachycarpus fortunei is to remove dead and hanging leaves, not allowing a skirt to form. Gardeners can achieve neater-looking plants by removing less than entirely healthy leaves. After spending several years on the plant, they can become yellowed or wind-battered yet still provide energy. There are varying degrees of leaf removal that are ultimately a question of taste, but one should remember that any partially green leaf can photosynthesise.
The next stage is to remove any dead inflorescences (flower-bearing branches) or infructescences (fruit-bearing branches). The latter can be heavy if still bearing most of its crop of seeds, so care should be taken if handling them from a ladder or when dropping them to the ground. Furthermore, this can be a tricky job as the dried and tough bracts that encased the developing flowers are still attached to the base of the branches, making the stem too wide to cut with secateurs and requiring loppers or a pruning saw.
Removing leaf bases is the next phase, a most urgent task on plants brought at a mature size with unevenly trimmed petioles (leaf stems), hastily pruned by busy nursery workers for all or some of the plant’s life. A roughly trimmed length of dried and hardened petiole is not only unsightly if you are aiming for a neat palm, but it can have incredibly sharp edges. Be wary of their potential to cause nasty cuts when working with the plant, walking by, or sitting close to the trunk.
Removal of the leaf bases and all of their fibres from the trunk makes the ultimate refined Trachycarpus. The oldest ones fall naturally from the base of the plant upwards to varying degrees on older specimens, revealing the ‘true’ ringed cinnamon brown trunk. However, removing all but the last leaf’s bases, ones still bearing healthy leaves, results in a subtly multi-coloured trunk. A sharp Stanley knife is the best tool, cutting away the fibres where they are weakest and most loosely ‘woven’. Working around the trunk until the point at which they aggregate to make the leathery leaf base itself. One must pull the blade through this thick section of the leaf base to the other side, where the fibres begin to thin out again. Depending on the palm size, this can take several hours, but the results are spectacular.
The remaining very lowest part of the leaf base, which joins the trunk, forms the rings and may have green and cream colours and tan, darkening to rich cinnamon. Although these colours dull over several years, the effect of having a ringed trunk is so drastic that it is like adding a species of tropical-looking palm to your garden. Counterintuitively, this process does not affect the hardiness or health of the palm at all. This style of palm trimming is particularly apt for courtyard or patio adjacent plants where the rugged and wild look seems too coarse and less comfortable to sit or walk close to. It also enhances their architectural and contemporary qualities.
Planting Suggestions for Trachycarpus fortunei.
Planting any tree requires careful planning, as the potential for them to grow into large plants with wide-spreading crowns can affect the light and shade in garden spaces. Situations where they can Overhang plants around them or block sunlight for people using the garden, around or underneath a newly added tree, should be envisaged before planting and, if possible, avoided. The same applies to roots, which can grab the moisture from the soil and crowd out some species.
Trees can also have structural effects on buildings. Some of these factors need to be considered when planting Trachycarpus, but not all; their roots do not get thick and woody like trees, instead remaining at about 5mm thick, so they do not threaten buildings from the pressure they can exert on foundations. They also have a limited and predictable crown size, unlike trees, which may develop a wide canopy with no more than a 2.5m spread of foliage, and whilst they may lean slightly towards the light, their single growing tip means that they will generally grow straight upwards.
The biggest issue for planting around Trachycarpus is planning for the changing height of the crown; over 10 years, it may rise by 1.5 – 2m, increasing the available height for plants under them to grow into. As a palm matures, it packs the ground around its base with roots, drying and impoverishing the soil, creating an ever more challenging environment for establishing plants under it. It is still possible to underplant with extra care for newly added specimens, with additional attention given to their watering and feeding while they establish.
When planting a medium-sized shrub, for example, next to a palm, a delicate balance must be maintained before its root system becomes too well established. Removing the lower leaves from the palm that might crowd the shrub and trimming the shrub to stop it from crowding the palm crown will allow both plants to establish contemporaneously. This method requires some attention during the growing season but leads to more substantial, healthier plants coexisting as a community, set to mature in balance over the long term.
Underplanting of young Trachycarpus that would normally bear leaves right down to ground level depends on removing all but the most upright leaves. Planting in such limited space is only feasible around plants with around 20-30cm of trunk. Select low-growing or ground-covering species for shady, woodland or jungle gardens, such as Pachysandra terminalis ‘Green Sheen’, Pachysandra terminalis ‘variegata’, Epimedium x warleyense and Epimedium x rubrum, and Ajuga reptans ‘Black Scallop’. Slightly taller options are Astelia ‘Red Shadow’, Bergenia ‘Autumn Magic’ or ferns such as Blechnum spicant, Asplenium scolopendrium or Dryopteris affinis ‘Crispa Gracilis Congesta’. For sunny positions where stricter control of the palm crown is acceptable, underplanting with ground-covering species such as Lampranthus roseus, Lampranthus Spectabilis ‘Tresco Purple’, or Delosperma sutherlandii is possible for a big splash of colour. Slightly taller options like Artemisia Makana Silver, Helianthemum ‘Ben Heckla’, or Helianthemum ‘Henfield Brilliant’will also make a showy understory below the young crown.
Planting under Trachycarpus with 1 – 1.5m of trunk allows you to choose from a broader range of plants, instead of waiting for a younger specimen to develop a trunk. Low shrubby varieties such as Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘Silver Ball’, Nandina domestica Flirt (‘Murasaki’), or Loropetalum Chinense f. rubrum ‘Fire Dance’ can be used provided the lowest leaves of the palm are removed. As the palm grows taller, fewer leaves will need to be removed, and light pruning of the shrubs will no longer be required. For palms that have 1.8m of trunk, larger shrubs such as Veronica stenophylla, Callistemon ‘Havering Gold’, Edgeworthia chrysantha and Grevillea ‘Jean O’Neill’ can be planted. If planting under very well-established palms, species such as Yucca, Phormium, Cordyline and Astelia tolerate root competition very well – varieties such as Phormium Black Velvet, Yucca ‘Color Guard‘, Yucca gloriosa Bright Star, and Yucca baccata will create a colourful and architectural spiky composition with the Trachycarpus. Cordyline ‘Festival Burgundy’ and Cordyline ‘Festival Lime’ will make a stunning colourful, lower growing accompaniment, whereas Cordyline australis Charlie Boy, Cordyline ‘Jive’ and Cordyline obtecta ‘Superstar’ are perfect for planting with the tallest Trachycarpus as they have an ultimate height of only 2m.
Planting and Care of Trachycarpus.
This exotic-looking palm is one of the toughest and easiest plants you can grow in the UK. It thrives in all soil types except in the driest and thinnest poor chalk, and seems to thrive in heavy wet clay. The only preferred condition for achieving the most lush and healthy-looking specimen is for shelter from strong winds, although it will grow just as vigorously in them, so this is a gardener’s preference rather than the palms. Very young plants may benefit from fleecing in severe winter conditions if temperatures are below -6 or -8 degrees for a prolonged period.
Height and spread after 4 – 5 years 1.5m x 1m
Semi-mature height and spread after 8 – 10 years 3.5m x 2.5m
Potential height and spread after 20 – 50 years: 12m x 2.5m
