Lady Palm
Rhapis excelsa
Through the year 🗓️
☀️ Summer now
Keep the soil consistently lightly moist and shield it from any hot direct sun.
🍂 Fall
Ease off watering and give the fronds a good rinse before the dry heating season.
❄️ Winter
Let the top few inches dry between waterings, skip feeding, and keep it out of cold drafts.
🌱 Spring
Divide crowded clumps or pot up a size, and restart gentle feeding.
The details
Light & placement
- Light
- Bright indirect to moderate light; one of the best palms for lower-light rooms; no direct sun
- Ideal PPFD
- 100–250 µmol·m⁻²·s⁻¹
- Grow-light distance
- 18–24 in below LED
Water & feed
- Watering method
- Water thoroughly when the top 1–2 in dry; keep lightly moist in summer, drier in winter. Use filtered water if your tap is hard, since it tip-burns from salts and fluoride.
- Fertilizer
- Balanced feed at ¼–½ strength, monthly in spring–summer; it burns easily, so under-feed.
Home & habit
- Soil
- Rich, well-draining mix (loam + perlite/bark); pH 5.5–7.0
- Humidity
- Average (40–60%); tolerates normal room air better than most palms
- Temperature
- 60–80 °F (tolerates brief dips to ~50 °F)
- Mature size
- 4–6 ft indoors, clumping wider with age
- Repotting
- Every 2–3 yrs in spring; likes being slightly snug
- Propagation
- Division of the clumping canes at repotting time; also spreads by underground rhizomes.
When something looks wrong
- Overwatering signs
- Yellowing lower fronds, black spots, mushy cane bases
- Underwatering signs
- Brown frond tips and edges, dull drooping leaflets
- Common pests
- Spider mites, scale, mealybugs
Common problems 🩺
The usual suspects when Lady Palm looks unhappy. Most houseplant trouble is watering or light, not disease — see all plant problems if you are not sure which plant is the culprit.
Brown tips on the fan segments
Likely cause
Tap-water minerals — lady palms are notably sensitive.
What to do
Use filtered or rainwater and flush the soil now and then.
Yellowing fronds
Likely cause
Too much sun, or overwatering.
What to do
Keep it in bright indirect to moderate light and let the top inch dry between waterings.
Scale bumps along the stems
Likely cause
Scale insects, which settle on the woody canes.
What to do
Scrape them off and treat with horticultural oil, repeating every week or two.
More like this 🌿
Have a lady palm?
Track it in DueDrop, with watering every 10 days, feeding every 35 days, prefilled for you.
Start tracking free