When do bottle palms get bottle shape (Hyophorbe lagenicaulis)?

[David_Sweden]

Hyophorbe lagenicaulis can have an amazingly beautiful thick stem (3rd pic is me guessing it is a H lagenicaulis, text said Butia palm but they don't look at all like that):

But when I look at palms available to buy they don't have this beautiful shape, just a vague bottle shape hidden by a lot of old dried-up petioles or something:

1st pic is "110-130cm", 2nd "170-180cm", 3rd I'm guessing almost 2m (they seem to count from ground under pot).

Makes me wonder: Can one just peel off the dull material and reveal a stem that looks like "as if it were cast in smooth grey concrete" like Palmpedia describes it? Or does one have to wait an additional number of months/years to obtain this?

Palmpedia also says they are dwafs palms with final height 3.1-3.7m (altough it says up to 6m at another place) and that the bottle shape is most pronounced when young and that it gets less wide (at least relatively speaking) when getting taller. I'm guessing it doesn't shrink in width, that it just elongates? So that old ones look something like this:

At least judging by all the pics at Palmpedia they seem to end up something like that (altough there's a pic of an exceptionally tall & narrow one). Palmpedia says "trunk diameter 60cm".

I'm asking mainly because I at some point would like to buy one to have indoors. Some palms look very pretty even when small so I might buy a small one or even grow from seed, but this is slow so I'd better get a big one then. But even the ones I find which are "170-180cm" look like the first row of pics above. So I don't know what to aim at height-wise or what to look for to get the nicest bottle shape.

Hyophorbe verschaffeltii seems rather similar but gets up to 7,5m and trunk diameter 25-50cm says palmpedia:

1st pic is "200cm", 2nd pic I don't know. So H lagenicaulis seems a better choice indoors.

Also found this interesting thread on H lagenicaulis in pots. "Irnasd90" has one outdoors (or in greenhouse ver winter) in a pot with very nice shape that he says grows fast, it doesn't look taller than the ones of 160-180cm above which don't have the nice shape which confuses me. There also are pics of old ones, which still are thick but varying, but usually quite nice shape still after decades.

[Nakheel1412]

Hi,

I have absolutely no experience growing a bottle palm (H. lagenicaulis), but I'll try to give you some info that might help you decide what to do :

- H. lagenicaulis is EXTREMELY variable in shape, to the point that owning an old yet superb specimen is quite rare ; Many are "deformed" and do not have that "perfect" bottle shape, and that doesn't even have to do with climate ; Therefore, when you buy one, do not expect it to grow for sure as a gorgeous specimen ; Personally, that's why I'll probably never buy a juvenile (= expensive where I live) to plant in my garden considering the risk of ending up with a deformed (ugly) palm ; H. verschaffeltii is much more reliable in terms of shape, that might be why people tend to prefer them ;

- Watering a bottle palm a lot might have it widen at the base, therefore I would avoid overwatering it ;

- From my understanding they do not elongate much with age, rather the trunk tends to widen at the base more than it widens at the top ;

- I guess you can remove the remains of former fronds, nurseries might not do it because it would take too much time and effort?

- @Kris owns a superb (just my opinion) specimen that he grows in a container, I already asked him whether he had some special growing technique and his answer was no :
Please note that it doesn't have that very rounded shape, yet it isn't deformed which is good enough for me :

Edited April 7, 2018 by Nakheel1412

[Kim]

I once had a potted specimen. You can read about my limited experience in this thread: Bottle palm.  I kept it in a pot because my winters were just a tad too cold for the species to thrive on its own outdoors.  I sold it not long after I posted about it.

[David_Sweden]

Thanks. Very interesting. So I guess one has 2 choices: To buy only one that already looks great, or to buy one with "dead petioles" that is really swollen and clean it up and hope it will look nice.

Found this German shop with all sizes of Hyophorbes from 0,4 to 7m, unfortunately none between 1,2 and 3,25m, wonder if maybe those sell out first. Lots of pics to look at there too. Those over 3,25m always have a wide-ish trunk (but often not very wide), and free from "dead petioles". The shorter ones for sale always have the "dead petioles", even this 3,25m H lagenicaulis:

They charge €1320 for it. Seems odd if they don't remove dead petioles just out of convenience then, if they expect such a price. Also funny how in the pic there are some very nice shorter ones in the background, but maybe they have been sold recently. I think the same about this 180cm specimen for €250, seems like the best buy yet (too expensive for me though) but why don't they clean it up? It would sell 10 times quicker.

Do you mean excess watering might make it less wide?

[Kris]

21 hours ago, Nakheel1412 said:

Hi,
- @Kris owns a superb (just my opinion) specimen that he grows in a container, I already asked him whether he had some special growing technique and his answer was no :
Please note that it doesn't have that very rounded shape, yet it isn't deformed which is good enough for me :

Hi,

Actually i did not grow that palm from seed,But bought from a local nursery and what was amazing was the pot was not too big but it had a very beautiful round base which prompted me to buy that palm.I was told that it was around 4 years old then.Once it came to our house i repotted it into this blue industrial barrel and it did grow fast but the shape changed a lot.It is in that barrel for about 9 years now.Iam thinking of changing the soil and renew it in cooler months this year.

And since i live in Hot wet tropics with high humidity,their is no frost or cold.So needs no protection from excess heat or cold.

Love,

Kris.

Btw. I feed my palms with D.A.P(Di-Ammonium Phosphate)granules every month.And they seem to like it.While the soil medium is washed river sand which keeps all my palms safe during the wet monsoon season.

[David_Sweden]

Thanks. I got a message from lrnasd90 who has a pic of a very nice Bottle Palm in the thread i linked to. Besides this, he also mentioned a species I didn't know about: Gaussia gomez-pompae.

They get their bottle shape even as seedlings. Here's seedlings and 1 GAL versions (pic from another Palmtalk thread):

They used to be impossible to buy but today seeds are available at both RPS and ebay as well as seedlings. And lrnasd90 says they have close to 100% germination yield and grow fast. So they seem much more suitable if one wants a bottle-shaped palm in a pot. One could even start from seed and so I just ordered 10 seeds. When big (4 to 5m) maybe Hyophorbe is prettier but when small (<3m) Gaussia looks a bit prettier to me.