Rhopalostylis Species, Nikau Palm, Shaving Brush Palm

There is a nice specimen growing in a private garden in Brookings/ Harbor Oregon in the southern Pacific Northwest, it’s still relative...Read Morely young but it has been in the ground for at least 8 years. This climate is absolutely PERFECT for this palm. We get 75”-80” of rainfall every year, and summer temps are cool and rarely ever get above 75 degrees F. The winter temps range from the high 50’s in the day to the low 40’s and sometimes high 30’s on occasion at night, and it is very foggy and rainy. Brookings/ Harbor is zone 9b/bordering 10a. This palm should be tried in cool maritime climates because that most closely replicates its natural environment in New Zealand. This is a extremely unique, hardy and very tropical looking palm for Southern Oregon and possibly even further north in the PNW to try if you can find it!

A very exotic looking palm endemic to New Zealand. It is well adapted to Mediterranean climates, and can easily handle a wide range of a...Read Moredverse conditions.

Zone 9b Coastal Otago NZ
This is a New Zealand native palm with a couple of difficult to differentiate sub species, the main being...Read More the NZ mainland variety with the others I know of being a Banks Peninsula form and one from Norfolk and Kermadec Island(s) called R bauerii, which is reputed to be a lot faster growing, though perhaps not as cold hardy as the NZ nikau.
Here on the South Island their home is really the West Coast province, on the other side of the alps from our location, where the wet temperate rainforest is their native habitat and they thrive on the incredibly high rainfall and lack of hardcore frosting.
Though palm freaks might not like to hear this, these palms are at their best when surrounded, if not inundated by, other evergreen species and grow faster and stronger with this shelter. The anaemic looking unfortunates you see struggling in specimen plantings are pining for company. When young they will tolerate, and actually seem to prefer, the almost complete shade of an understorey situation, which they will outgrow in their own good time. They're forest palms, and if you could only see them in all their overcrowded jostling glory you would drool from both corners of the mouth, and give up planting them in the middle of friendless nowhere.
Its true theyre not keen on being moved, but this is mainly because irresponsible pirates like to hack them out of the bush and break their taproots, resulting in death. Plants taken from a good pot dont mind being planted out at all, and can be successfully shifted if not too established.
There is a large specimen growing happily amongst other shrubs higher up on our exposed peninsula suburb, taking good frosts, hot dry summers and soggy winters. Note that it's surrounded by other plants and would certainly have perished if this was not the case.
Im growing three beneath a canopy of Cyathea tree ferns, and they're very happy, if small.
The seeds are apparently edible, but err... you go first :-)
Ive posted two pics, taken across the road from each other near Punakaiki on the West Coast of the Sth Island. Here the native old growth podocarp and broadleaf forest comes right down to the beach, where it hasn't been bulldozed by farmers. The two enormous ancients in the first pic are far happier and healthier than the slowly declining grove across the road that has been denuded of its original forest. Note the only seedlings visible in this second pic are coming up in the second growth shelter in the background.

One of the most fantastic palms, with large, stiff fronds. I planted one in autumn and since then it has been attacked by the coldest te...Read Moremperature in 21 years (-4.9 C / 23.2F). All of the fronds have gone brown and crispy, and now the growth bud has begun to shrivel. It's not looking good!