PlantFiles: Chinese Fan Palm, Fountain Palm
Livistona chinensis

very experemental. i bought a clump from walmart in spring. it contained about 20 plants. after i split them up, and they defoliated. i set them in the ground and only about 6 survived. only one added a complete new leaf. they are in full sun. so far they haved survived 7F with a milk jug over them. on the cold nights, i turn the christmas lights on that suround them on the ground. with no protection, they have cold dammage at 22F. all still have strap leaves.

update spring 08
all spears are green and healthy, though palms are completly defoliated. hope faster growth returns later this spring.

Palmate leaf with unique hanging leaf segment. Large gray-blue grape like seeds add to charm. Low maintenance and cold hardy. Slow growing, slightly faster with fertilizer. I have seen this palm misused as ground cover. Allow 4-5' radius of space around palm. This palm should be planted more frequently if planted properly. It is well worth the wait.

When I planted my "fan palm" about ten years ago, I really wanted it to stay small, since where I was planting it, I didn't have room for it to get big. It has not dissapointed. A very slow grower in my yard. It has done exactly what I expected it to do. I love it. My only negative is how sharp and how many dangerous spines there are on this plant. Use caution when near the stalks. I plant bromilead and ferns in the boot jacks. The Ruellia growing underneath my palm in the picture have been there for probably five or more years, so there is enough light to grow plants that will tollerate shade under a fan palm.

Hello all.I live 1 mile north of atlanta motor speedway in Hampton Ga [zone 8]. I started with 4 chinese fans last december that I bought really cheap from Lowes. Not knowing much about palms, I thought that if I planted them that they would grow here. After doing my homework a week later I assumed they would die before january. I just left them to their own devices and didn't bother to mulch them or cover them. After 9 months , 3 hurricanes and an ice storm with 3 inches of snow the next day they are still going strong.These were tiny 5 gal plants also.After reading up on them and asking about other peoples chinese fans I got really lucky with mine.I hope all of you have the same luck!

Surprise!Surprise!...Livistona chinensis will grow here in southern Illinois! I purchased a L. chinensis from Lowe's in May of 03', to serve as a nice tropical for the summer. I bought the palm, which was 9 gallon sized. I planted it in the ground and fertilized it heavily with nitrogen and phosphorus. When weather began to carry the "Banners of Fall," I knew I was going to miss my beautiful L. chinensis when winter came. I figured I would experiment with it, by trying to keep it alive through our zone 7a winter. I built a wire cage around the palm and lined it with a 1/8" thick polycarbonate covering. I placed dried Oak Leaves around the base of the palm, over the top of the growth bud. When December came, weather was still mild with highs in the low 50's and lows in the low 30's to upper 20's. L. chinensis looked great through Christmas and into January. During the 1st week of January, my region recieved 6 inches of snow overnight, with lows in the upper 20's. Unfortunately, the snow caused the wire cage around the palm to collapse, crushing the palm underneath. Luckily, the snow melted throughout the day due to highs in the low 40's. Two weeks later, we experienced are lowest temperature of the winter, with a low which bottomed out at 5deg. F. L. chinensis suffered 60% leaf burn. As Febuary and March went by, weather began to moderate. By mid-April, I removed the wire cage, and to my surprise, even though the fronds suffered from 90% leaf burn, the bases of the fronds and growth bud were still green! I checked the roots and they were also alive. During the warming of April, with highs in the upper 70's and low 80's, it began producing new fronds. I sadly had to remove it later, because I had planted it in a location where I didn't want it permanently. I label this sub-tropical palm as "BULLETPROOF" for a sub-tropical, more tender palm. Its very hardy, even considering I provided protection for it.

I grew one of these palms for about nine years in the shade of a large laurel oak tree in my front yard in St. Petersburg, Florida, zone 9b. It was a very slow grower, but eventually became an outstanding specimen. It never grew taller, just wider. It provided some evergreen privacy for the twenty-six feet of glass that made up my living and dining room windows in my 1950's Florida "modern" house.

The bright green fronds make this an exceptionally fetching palm. Also, the fact that it is quite slow growing has made it a staple of foundation plantings in south Florida--probably a mistake, but an attractive one in the near term.

Another commonly grown avenue palm in Southern California, and throughout the subtropical and tropical world. This palm, like many Livistona, has fan leaves with very droopy leaf tips that make an attractive looking palm. It is a very common and easy to grow palm, so often is used in large numbers for landscaping. Though usually seen as a low growing, shrubby tree, it can grow quite tall. In shady conditions the leaves are stretched and the palm looks completely different. Native of Taiwan