Houseplant · Arecaceae
Lady Palm
Rhapis excelsa
Slow, shade-tolerant, and safe around pets, the lady palm is one of the easiest indoor palms to live with.
Bright indirect
55–81°F · 13–27°C
USDA 9–11
4–15 ft · 1.2–4.6 m
Overview
The lady palm is a clumping fan palm from the forests of southern China and Vietnam, where it grows in the shade under taller trees. That shady start is why it copes so well indoors. It sends up slim, bamboo-like canes wrapped in dark fiber, each topped with glossy fans of broad leaf segments.
Growth is slow, which is part of the appeal. A lady palm holds its shape for years and rarely outgrows a room, spreading instead by quiet offshoots from the base until it forms a full, leafy clump. Indoors it stands around 6 feet tall, though it can climb higher with age and space.
It earns its keep as a houseplant by being tough and forgiving. It puts up with low light, ordinary household air, and a fair amount of neglect, and it's non-toxic to people and pets. Give it bright indirect light and steady water and it will reward you, but it won't punish you much for falling short.
Care
The short version: bright indirect light, though it tolerates shade and low light, with soil kept evenly moist in the growing season and drier in winter. Feed it lightly, give it ordinary room humidity, and leave it root-confined; it grows slowly and asks for little.
Light
Lady palm does best in bright indirect light, but it's one of the few palms that will also take medium light, partial shade, and even genuine low light. Keep it out of harsh direct sun, which scorches the fronds. Less light just means slower growth, not a sick plant.
Water
Through spring and summer, keep the mix evenly moist and water freely, letting the surface dry a little between thorough soakings. Cut back through winter, and never let the pot sit in standing water. A couple of times a year, drench it heavily to flush out fertilizer salts.
Soil
Plant it in a rich, porous, well-drained mix with plenty of organic matter; an African violet type blend works well. It likes things on the acidic side, a pH of 5.0 to 6.0, so skip limey or heavy soils.
Temperature
Normal room warmth suits it, ideally 55°F to 81°F (13°C to 27°C). Bring it indoors before the cold sets in, since it doesn't want to drop near freezing.
Humidity
Average household air is fine, so there's no number to fuss over. The palm tolerates dry rooms, and the only sign it wants more moisture is brown leaf tips, which a little extra humidity helps prevent.
Feeding
This slow grower barely needs feeding. A balanced liquid or slow-release fertilizer at low rates, only during the spring and summer growth, is plenty. Overfeeding does more harm than good and is the usual cause of brown tips.
Pruning
Cut away dead or damaged canes and fronds right at the base. Never cut the growing tip of a living cane, because a topped cane won't regrow; the clump renews itself from new shoots at the soil instead.
Repotting
Repot only every 2 to 3 years, and only once roots have filled the pot. The plant actually prefers to be a touch root-confined, so resist the urge to move it into something much larger.
Size & spacing
Indoors it commonly reaches around 6 feet, but the species ranges from 4 to 15 feet (1.2 to 4.5 m) tall and spreads 6 to 15 feet (1.8 to 4.5 m) wide as the clump fills out. Give it room for the fronds to arch without crowding.
Troubleshooting
The lady palm is rarely much trouble, and the few problems it does have read clearly on its leaves. Brown tips and pest bumps are the two to know. Match what you see below and step in early, while the fix is still simple.
Sticky film, yellow speckling, or tiny bumps on the fronds
Scale insects are the main culprit on lady palms, and they tuck themselves into the fibrous leaf bases where they are easy to miss. Fine webbing with stippled, faded leaves instead points to spider mites, which move in when the air turns dry and warm. Move the plant away from your others, wipe off the scale and treat with horticultural oil or insecticidal soap, and rinse the fronds to push the mites back.
Fix:
- Isolate the plant from other houseplants
- Wipe or wash off scale and treat with horticultural oil or insecticidal soap, repeating as needed
- Raise humidity and rinse foliage to discourage spider mites
- Inspect new growth and leaf bases regularly
Brown, dead tips on the older lower leaves
Most often this is fertilizer salt buildup in the mix from feeding too much or too often, and it shows up first on the oldest leaves. Dry air and skimpy watering bring on the same browning across the whole plant. Drench the pot heavily a couple of times to flush the salts out, ease off the feed, and keep the mix evenly moist.
Fix:
- Drench the pot heavily and repeatedly to leach excess salts (do this about twice a year)
- Reduce fertilizer to low rates and only during active growth
- Keep the mix evenly moist and avoid letting it fully dry
- Trim only the dead tip tissue if desired
Toxicity
Good news for anyone with curious pets: the lady palm is non-toxic across the board. The ASPCA lists it as safe for cats and dogs, and nothing in it threatens horses, rabbits, livestock, birds, or people. A pet that chews a frond might get a brief, mild stomachache from the fiber, but that's the worst of it.
Safe for
People · Cats · Dogs · Horses · Rabbits · Livestock · Birds
Cats None
The ASPCA lists this palm as non-toxic to cats. A cat that nibbles a frond may get a mildly upset stomach from the fiber, and that passes on its own.
Dogs None
Safe for dogs by the ASPCA. Chewing a large amount of foliage can bring on some brief drooling or loose stool, but nothing more.
Horses Safe
No toxins here that would harm a horse. The tough, fibrous fronds aren't worth grazing and won't poison one that tries.
Rabbits Safe
Nothing in the plant is poisonous to rabbits, though a big helping of the coarse leaves may loosen the gut for a day.
Livestock Safe
Cattle, goats, and sheep can be around it without risk. The fronds carry no toxin, just fiber that's hard to digest in quantity.
Birds Safe
A safe plant to keep near pet birds. The foliage holds no compounds that would trouble them.
People Safe
Not poisonous to people, which is part of why it's such a popular indoor palm. It isn't grown to be eaten, so there's no reason to taste it.
Varieties
Lady palm is usually sold as the plain green species, but a couple of forms turn up worth knowing by name.
'Variegata'
Its leaves are striped with creamy white, and it grows slower than the plain green form while asking for less light and less feed.
Rhapis humilis (reed rhapis / slender lady palm)
A close relative with taller, more slender canes and a greater number of narrow leaf segments than R. excelsa.
How to propagate
Lady palm is easiest to multiply by splitting an established clump, since it naturally throws up new shoots from the base. Growing it from seed is possible, just slow and fussy.
DivisionEasy
Spring · Several months to root and resume active growth
Division is the usual way to make more of this palm at home. Since it spreads by rhizome offshoots, you lift a rooted sucker in spring with as much root as you can save, take care not to wound the parent, and pot it just big enough to hold the roots. Give it several months to settle in and start growing again before you expect much.
SeedModerate
When ripe seed is available · Slow; germination and growth take a long time
You can grow it from seed, but it's a long, patient job. The plant is dioecious, so you need both a male and a female to get viable seed in the first place, and even then germination and early growth crawl along over many months.
Myths
Lady palm needs constant high humidity to survive indoors.
This palm settles into ordinary household air and asks for very little humidity. It enjoys a damp room, but dry air mostly shows up as brown leaf tips, not a dying plant, so there's no need to crowd it with humidifiers.
A cut or topped lady palm cane will branch and regrow from its cut.
Each cane grows from one tip, and cutting that tip ends the cane for good. The clump renews itself instead from rhizome offshoots at the base, which is why you remove spent canes low and let new ones come up on their own.