An Encyclopedia of Cultivated Palms

Cowritten by the author of the award-winning The Tropical Look, An Encyclopedia of Cultivated Palms offers a definitive account of palms that may be grown in the garden and landscape. Because palms are often underutilized as a result of their unfamiliarity — even to tropical gardeners — Robert Lee Riffle and Paul Craft have exhaustively documented every genus in the palm family. Approximately 890 species are described in detail, including cold hardiness, water needs, height, and any special requirements. Generously illustrated with more than 900 photos, this volume is as valuable as an identification guide as it is a practical handbook. It even contains photos of several palm species that have never before appeared in a general encyclopedia. Interesting snippets of history, ethnobotany, and biology inform the text and make this a lively catalog of these remarkable plants.

Palms are the most underused design elements in nearly every garden, even most of those in the tropics or subtropics. Fortunate indeed are gardeners who live in regions where at least a few palms grow, as their unique variety of forms cannot begin to be simulated by anything other than massive ferns, yuccas, and cordylines, which themselves are tropical or subtropical.

The biggest reason these princes of the plant world are eschewed even where they can be grown is probably lack of space: most palms species are relatively large. This problem is compounded by the gardener's desire for color. The desire is, of course, an important one, but color is greatly overused at the expense of variety of form. The smaller the garden, the more the use of color alone tends to become overwhelming and even tiring, somewhat analagous to eating a diet of cake and ice cream only, or listening to only one type of music. Variety is the operative word and is what palms excel at with their ineluctably different forms. In addition, palms are often coloful, especially the tropical species. Their crownshafts, inflorescences, and leaf colors are sometimes extraordinary. Palms lend to the landscape a more controlled and subtle color palette than that of most "flowering plants."

A few points should be considered when incorporating palms into the landscape. First, palms don't look good planted in straight lines, but what type of plant does? This arrangement is unnatural in the sense that it doesn't occur in nature. The larger palms are magnificence itself when lining streets or avenues, but the dictum still applies: a curving street, path, or driveway is infinitely more aesthetically pleasing than a straight one where variety is the missing element.

Second, palms generally look their best when planted in small groups or groves rather than as a single tree surrounded by space. Again, the reason is that palms do not occur singly in nature. Furthermore the discrete groups look best when the number of individuals are of varying heights; if each palm is the same height, the crowns visually "fight." Variety is the missing element in groups of same-height palms.

Third, a landscape whose horizon is basically at one level is incredibly less interesting and beautiful than one of varying levels. Nothing fixes the imbalance better than using palms as canopy-scapes, where the crowns of trees float above the general level of the surrounding vegetation. Such palms substitute remarkably well for a lack of mountains. Again, variety of form!

Fourth, the wall of vegetation that constitutes the horizon of the garden is so much less appearling if it is of one form or of one color. There are no plants better suited to fix this than palms, whether large or small, fan leaved or feather leaved. Palms are the sine-qua-non elements to create the needed form and texture. Again, variety of form!

A few palm species are so large and impressive that they can be advantageously planted alone as specimen plants surrounded by space and still look good. They would look even better if planted in groups, but the size or other limitations of a given landscape or garden can often make this difficult or impossible.