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Gardening

Sabal palmetto is elegant, practical

By JANE WEBER
Published March 19, 2007

Palms are one of the most attractive features of the real Florida. The sabal palm, Sabal palmetto, our state tree, is often used by governments in highway plantings. The most common palm in Florida has to be the saw palmetto, Serenoa repens.

Saw palmetto is a naturally dwarf or slow-growing native. It's evergreen, xeric or drought-tolerant, frost-hardy and long-lived.

It has white flowers to draw pollinating insects that birds eat, followed by pulpy fruit with large nutritious seeds for wildlife and human medicinal uses. It is also a butterfly nectar plant, as well as a host plant for the caterpillars of the palmetto and monk skipper butterflies.

It provides cover from predators for chrysalis and bobwhite quail and is a most attractive garden plant. What's not to love?

The old wives' tale that snakes live under it is not exactly true. The foot fall of the paranoid human predator will cause shy beneficial snakes to seek cover under any plant. Most people will never see them. Dense leaf litter and thick pine bark mulch provide excellent homes for insects, including palmetto bugs.

These, in turn, are food for birds and snakes. The eastern screech owl, which giggles during the night, preys mainly on palmetto bugs. No palmettos equals no insects equals no screech owls or beneficial black racers and little ring-necked snakes. Saw palmetto is very important to our natural ecosystems.

In the garden, saw palmetto is an elegant accent plant. Each hand or palm-shaped leaf can last three years.

As the palmate frond gets old and fails to produce food for the plant it turns brown and eventually is shed. For a tidy garden, prune off only those leaves the palm no longer needs.

Used in a row, saw palmetto makes a low-growing privacy screen. The leaf-stems are armed with sawteeth. Wildlife may wander through but large dogs and people will stay out.

In a few centuries saw palmetto trunks usually recline along the ground. A few become arborescent naturally: Human pruning encourages upright growth.

Since this dwarf palm sprouts growth points along the branching trunk it can become a dense thicket. By contrast, the sabal palm has only one point from which it grows upward, forming a single trunk, and its leaf fronds are costapalmate with a short midrib. Both can be used as fences and privacy screens, for erosion control, to beautify parking lots and driveways and in restoration of natural habitats.

Showy clusters of small white flowers are borne on long branched stalks or inflorescences from May to June in Central Florida. Fruit develops over the summer and fall, becoming an oval, inch-long drupe that matures from hard and green to fleshy and black. Assorted wildlife, including bears, raccoons, foxes, birds and insects, depend on this food.

Plant saw palmetto in full sun to part shade in poorly or well-drained soil that is acidic to slightly alkaline. It isn't a fussy palm. Irrigation is not necessary except during establishment. Palmettos are very salt-tolerant.

A coastal form with silvery-bluish leaf color is particularly coveted by gardeners. Companion plants include oaks, pines and plum trees; coonties; the dwarf sabals - scrub and bluestem palmettos; needle palm and a host of wildflowers.

Saw palmettos have become a popular feature in natural Florida gardens. Many nurseries now carry them at reasonable prices. A 10-inch diameter pot retails for about $16. Native palms and plants are the way to go for a low-maintenance, drought-tolerant, xeric garden. Enjoy them for their elegant beauty and practical benefits.

Jane Weber is a professional gardener, grower, consultant, designer and environmentalist. Visit her Certified Florida Yard and Backyard Wildlife Habitat, 5019 W Stargazer Lane, Dunnellon. Call (352) 465-0649.

[Last modified March 19, 2007, 06:50:40]