Grow and Care for Cabbage Palm

Grow cabbage palm in full sun and moist soil that drains, and feed it with a palm fertilizer. Cabbage palm is Sabal. It is not saw palmetto.

Give cabbage palm full sun, moist soil that drains, and a palm fertilizer

cabbage palm is Sabal palmetto, a solitary fan palm with costapalmate leaves — a midrib runs into the blade and arches — and a gray trunk that may keep old leaf bases, called boots. [1] dwarf palmetto is Sabal minor, usually trunkless, with a weaker midrib and no threads between the leaf segments. It takes full sun or part shade and moist to wet ground. [2] Cabbage palm wants full sun most of the day once it is making a trunk. A juvenile in light shade will wait to rise until it sees sky. Give it moist loam or sand that still drains. Once the roots are in, the tree takes dry spells and short floods. Salt spray on the fronds is fine; salt around the roots is not. [3] Feed three times in the growing months with a palm fertilizer that supplies potassium and magnesium, spread under the whole canopy. Yellow-orange spots and dead tips on the oldest fans are usually a potassium shortage. Leave those fans on until they are fully brown. If you are choosing a tree versus a trunkless understory palm, start on Types of Sabal. The plant-out is on Planting Cabbage Palm. A new plant from seed is How to Propagate Cabbage Palm.

Grow a young plant or dwarf palmetto in a pot with a hole

A young cabbage palm can live in a large container on a sunny patio while it is small. It is still a landscape tree, so it will outgrow a dim indoor corner. Dwarf palmetto stays short enough for a patio pot if the pot has a hole and the mix stays moist.

1. Choose a heavy pot with a hole, only a size or two wider than the nursery pot, so the mix can dry a little between waterings.
2. Fill it with a palm mix that drains. Do not use a cachepot with no hole as the only pot.
3. Set the root ball so the stem sits at the same depth it sat in the nursery pot.
4. Water once to settle the mix, wait about half an hour, then empty the saucer.
5. Keep cabbage palm in the brightest sun you have. Dwarf palmetto also takes light shade on a porch.
6. Move a cabbage palm into the ground before the crown is cramped. A mature tree is not a houseplant.

Protect a young dwarf palmetto through the first winters

Dwarf palmetto is one of the hardier palms in this genus, but a first-year plant still needs a simple wrap through the coldest, wettest weeks. An established clump usually does not. [4]

1. Site the plant where winter wind is broken by a wall or a larger evergreen, in sun or light shade.
2. Mulch the root zone heavily, and keep the mulch off the crown so wet thatch does not rot the bud.
3. On a hard freeze, cover a small plant with frost cloth or a dry layer of pine straw, then take the cover off when the freeze has passed.
4. Do not fertilize after early July at a cold edge, so new fans can harden before winter.
5. Leave freeze-burned fans until spring, then cut only what is fully brown. Brown-only cuts on a landscape tree stay on How to Prune Cabbage Palm.

Not saw palmetto — and not a Cordyline cabbage tree

Saw palmetto is Serenoa, a low palm with saw-toothed petioles. Sabal petioles are smooth. If the tag says saw palmetto, it is not this genus. Mexican fan palm is Washingtonia, a tall palm with palmate fans and a different trunk. Windmill palm is Trachycarpus, with a hairy fiber trunk. Needle palm is Rhapidophyllum, with long spines at the crown. Cordyline cabbage-tree swords are not palms; see How to Grow Cordyline. A shop tag that says cabbage palm on an açaí palm is Euterpe; see How to Grow Açaí Palm.

Keep cabbage palm in full sun, water until the roots are in, and feed with a palm fertilizer. Confirm the tag is not saw palmetto.