Coconut Palm
Cocos nucifera
No tolerance of cold whatever — it needs the brightest spot available and warmth the whole year round.
- Type
- Tree · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green · Gold and chartreuse
- Sunlight
- As much bright light as can be found; a south-facing spot is ideal.
- Watering
- Water regularly, and mist to keep the air around it humid.
- Feeding
- A liquid feed monthly, with magnesium added.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- January
- Overwintering
- Above 20°C the year round; it has no tolerance of cold at all.
- Jan–Jan Flowering
- Jan–Jul Fruit Set
- Jul–Dec Harvest
- Jan–Jan Harvest
- Plant spacing
- 27 ft 11 in
- In-row spacing
- 27 ft 11 in
- Between rows
- 29 ft 6 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Fibrous and non-woody, all from the base of the trunk
- Working depth
- 12 in–3 ft
- Can reach
- 5 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 16–33 ft across, about 1–2× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 14 in of soil
A palm’s roots are issued from the trunk base and stay the same pencil thickness for life, so they lift paving far less than a broadleaf tree of the same height. The trade is that a root cut off is not replaced; it is simply gone.
The habit is Coconut Palm’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Mealybugs Mealybugs at the frond bases and in the leaf axils
- Scale insects Scale insects along the frond stems
- Spider mites Red spider mite under the fronds when the air is dry
- Leaf spot Leaf spot where humid air sits without moving
- Root & crown rot Root rot, either from overwatering or from poor drainage
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Ladybird (lady beetle) Coccinellidae
The gardener’s favorite ally: adults and their alligator-shaped larvae each eat thousands of aphids, plus scale, mealybugs, and other soft-bodied sap-suckers. Grow flat, open flowers for the adults and never spray a colony that ladybird larvae are already working.
- Green lacewing Chrysoperla carnea
Its bristly larvae — "aphid lions" — impale aphids, mealybugs, thrips, and mite colonies, eating hundreds a week. Adults feed on nectar and pollen from small open flowers and overwinter in hollow stems left standing.
- Hoverfly Syrphidae
Bee-mimicking flies whose legless larvae graze aphid colonies clean while the adults pollinate. A ribbon of shallow, nectar-rich flowers kept in bloom all season recruits wave after wave of them.
- Big-eyed bug Geocoris spp.Hunts Spider mites
A stubby 3 mm bug with enormous wrap-around eyes, working the soil surface and the low foliage for aphids, mites, thrips and insect eggs. It is the main natural check on chinch bugs in a lawn and it is killed outright by insecticide.
- Minute pirate bug Orius spp.Hunts Spider mites
A pinhead-sized true bug that is the best natural check on thrips, and happily spears aphids, mites, and insect eggs too. It needs pollen when prey is scarce, so keep something flowering nearby.
- Predatory mites Phytoseiulus & AmblyseiusHunts Spider mites
Fast orange mites that hunt spider mites egg-by-egg, and cousins that clear thrips and fungus-gnat larvae. Sold as a biological control for greenhouses; outdoors they follow humidity — mist and mulch, don’t dust with sulfur.
- Rove beetle StaphylinidaeHunts Spider mites
Slim, quick beetles with short wing cases that hunt in soil and litter, taking root-fly eggs and larvae, fungus-gnat larvae, and mites. Mulch and undisturbed ground keep them resident year-round.
Green-leaved trees, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com