Thick trunked Dypsis lutescens?

[Hardypalms]

Hi

These 4 feet tall D. lutescens they sell at big box stores. If i buy one, take it out if the pot, carefully separate like 1 stem (Or trunk, not sure of exact word). Repot it. Do i have a better chance to grow just one with a thick trunk (Like a  single bamboo)?

I would think it is virtually impossible to do that with the whole tree.

(I m in 7b) and would have to provide the best conditions in and out of the house.

Thxs

Pat

[James B]

It could be thicker as a single. But this palm even outside won’t get more than 4-5” across or so even when outside and mature. 
 

Indoors where it won’t be able to get past 8 feet tall perhaps it could get say 3” across?

[PalmatierMeg]

I had a solitary lutescens I germinated planted among clustering ones on a berm overlooking our canal. All were in full sun. At best it was marginally thicker than its clustering siblings. I cut all the inflorescences off the clusters in hopes I could obtain self-pollinated seeds from the solitary but it aborted its crop every year. Too late now - a contractor knocked all of them down to build a sea wall.

[Billeb]

Yeah, I don’t think being a singular will make it any fatter so to speak. Probably grow faster than keeping it a cluster but I’m not even convinced of that. Lutescens love to split and split and split. I had a really large clump similar to the one you posted @Hardypalms but in a 15G so there were quite a few larger ones to pick from. I butchered it down to 3 trunks and threw it in a super sunny location last fall. It didn’t skip a beat. The plan is to keep it to 3 trunks but I can already see it splitting. Gonna have to get out the shears. 
 

-dale 

[Tracy]

7 hours ago, Hardypalms said:

If i buy one, take it out if the pot, carefully separate like 1 stem (Or trunk, not sure of exact word). Repot it. Do i have a better chance to grow just one with a thick trunk (Like a  single bamboo)?

 

41 minutes ago, Billeb said:

Lutescens love to split and split and split.

 

1 hour ago, PalmatierMeg said:

I had a solitary lutescens I germinated planted among clustering ones on a berm overlooking our canal. All were in full sun. At best it was marginally thicker than its clustering siblings. I cut all the inflorescences off the clusters in hopes I could obtain self-pollinated seeds from the solitary but it aborted its crop every year. Too late now - a contractor knocked all of them down to build a sea wall.

As Dale and Meg note, these love to split.  The fact that Meg was going to the effort to try to get seed off her one solitary one speaks to how uncommon it is for this species to remain solitary.  Isolating one stem from a mass planting will likely allow you to keep it indoors a little longer, but ultimately don't expect it to remain a solitary trunk.  A clumping specimen will  still result in a very different look than what you show in the photo, which is a bunch of seedlings in a common pot.  They will crowd each other out as they split themselves and probably give you more trunks coming out at angles reaching for light away from the central core.  What you show with the mass planting will end up being a bit of what I would call a "hot mess" as it grows larger.

Relative to trunk girth, the only comparison I can add is that I have a few Chrysalidocarpus pembanus (formerly Dypsis pembana) and two that are solitary today.  They are only marginally wider in girth than their clumping brethren and that only became noticeable after they all had several feet of ringed trunk.  So it would be unlikely that you would notice a trunk width difference for the same number of rings on a trunk of the biggest in a clump versus a solitary, assuming you would ever be lucky enough to find a specimen that remained solitary.  Good luck with it.

[Hardypalms]

Ok, i appreciate all the answers which make me decide not to do it.  The constant splitting, growing sideways is not what i want to achieve. 
Too many potential palm tree related projects i want to try to waste time with some.

Thxs

Pat