Ending a houseplant hiatus with a Kentia. My first palm.

[enon]

I haven't kept plants for several years, but some recent household changes have enabled keeping them again. I had a good size space to fill, so I decided to get a palm, and chose a Kentia from a pretty reputable specialty store here. I am hoping this goes well, but I can share some photos if you wanna rate my setup for adequacy. I'm in Chicago and this is a south facing window with some large trees across the street that block a good bit of light. I think I should be getting plenty of light for this plant. In giving the plant a once over, the only real concern I have is that 1 of the 3 plants is a bit darker green than the other 2, and its producing 2 fronds that look a bit funky to me, but that may just be my unfamiliarity. They are browning, and one of them looks to have gone wavy after splitting. Photos attached. Is this normal? Or a sign of recent poor care that I might continue to be problematic?

Hope all goes well, and that I can add more plants to keep this palm company. Thanks for reading!

[Fusca]

19 minutes ago, enon said:

I haven't kept plants for several years, but some recent household changes have enabled keeping them again. I had a good size space to fill, so I decided to get a palm, and chose a Kentia from a pretty reputable specialty store here. I am hoping this goes well, but I can share some photos if you wanna rate my setup for adequacy. I'm in Chicago and this is a south facing window with some large trees across the street that block a good bit of light. I think I should be getting plenty of light for this plant. In giving the plant a once over, the only real concern I have is that 1 of the 3 plants is a bit darker green than the other 2, and its producing 2 fronds that look a bit funky to me, but that may just be my unfamiliarity. They are browning, and one of them looks to have gone wavy after splitting. Photos attached. Is this normal? Or a sign of recent poor care that I might continue to be problematic?

Hope all goes well, and that I can add more plants to keep this palm company. Thanks for reading!

Excellent choice of an indoor palm!  Sounds like you have a good spot for them too.  Palms look pretty good to me.  The funky looking frond does happen on occasion with potted palms but it looks like the palm has grown past the issue since the odd frond is one of the older fronds and the newer ones look fine.  I wouldn't worry about it.  As long as the soil is well draining you should be fine.  It's normal for the oldest fronds to turn brown at some point when the palm is done with them and it's actively growing.

[enon]

18 hours ago, Fusca said:

Excellent choice of an indoor palm!  Sounds like you have a good spot for them too.  Palms look pretty good to me.  The funky looking frond does happen on occasion with potted palms but it looks like the palm has grown past the issue since the odd frond is one of the older fronds and the newer ones look fine.  I wouldn't worry about it.  As long as the soil is well draining you should be fine.  It's normal for the oldest fronds to turn brown at some point when the palm is done with them and it's actively growing.

Thanks for your reply. I will stay the course then and see what happens. If the funky wavy frond isn't a greater issue, is there any harm in pruning it off at some point once I've established that the plant seems to be doing well? I'm not sure how these plants take to pruning of things like this, or if there's maybe a best season for pruning or something. And yes, the soil it came in seems very appropriately well draining.

edit: After reading a bit, it sounds like I probably shouldn't prune that funky frond until it goes fully brown, since the tree can re-absorb its nutrients for new growth.