The Hawaiian Palm (Brighamia insignis)
I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I first saw a cute, cabbage-like plant in the supermarket on discount. Unbeknownst to me, I have fallen into the trap of buying a rather finicky plant, i.e. the Brighamia insignis or more commonly known as the Hawaiian palm. (If you want a TL;DR version of how to care for this thing, scroll right to the end.)
Where do I begin? This palm has brought tons of joy and a lot of tears along the way, but it has also taught me the most in plant-keeping. Before delving into the mechanics of simply trying to keep it alive, it must be said that this plant is an endemic species in Hawaii and is almost extinct, thanks but no thanks to its extremely particular ways of reproduction — it lives on cliffs and needs to be pollinated by a now-extinct species of moth in Hawaii. (See also its Wikipedia article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighamia_insignis) Is this plant really made for survival? Maybe not.
Anyway, so I started off last late summer with a semi-healthy Hawaiian palm from my local supermarket. This plant came half-half, i.e. half-full of yellow leaves and half-full of green leaves. After some fairly frantic Googling on “brighamia insignis yellow leaves” and reading up about its peculiarities, I managed to get this plant to a fairly stable condition. I must say that this plant is quite a sight to behold — a fairly unique plant in itself.
I must admit that I really liked this plant… enough for me to bring it along to Vienna whenever I had to travel between Ljubljana and Vienna. Actually, it was perhaps more due to the fact that this plant needed so much care that I could not let it out of my sight. Maybe this is the telltale sign of helicopter parenting…
Then autumn came in full swing and lo and behold! Spider mites invasion! One thing that I did not realise was the propensity of this plant to attract spider mites. Armed with a torchlight and a damp kitchen roll, I spent the next few weeks faithfully exterminating spider mites by hand. Other methods also proved fairly reliable but tricky, such as dowsing the plant in lukewarm water to wash off the spider mites. Anyway these things are persistent. I grew to the idea that it was almost impossible to wipe them out, but nonetheless commenced a daily routine check to bust those mites as much as I can.
But, lucky me! Despite the supermarket conditions the poor plant had to endure, the travels, the spider mites, it did attempt to flower in November! According to Google, Hawaiian palms only flower once a year in November. This makes no sense generally but this whole plant in general has been a rather special case to begin with, so I guess this is another fun fact for the dinner table if anyone asks “why in the world did you decide to buy a Hawaiian palm?!”
Ultimately, I guess “attempt to flower” was perhaps the right phrase to use because it did not eventually flower. Why? I don’t know. The flower eventually dried out. I suspect it could have been due to the lack of humidity or lack of water, although the former was perhaps more likely — with heaters on during late autumn/winter, there is a higher likelihood of the plant drying out.
And then, winter came. Winter, oh winter. I am not sure what led to the untimely death of this beautiful plant, but it was most definitely a combination of winter, negligence and too much love from one specific human in my household (not me, and I’m not calling names!).
Hawaiian palms are — despite being called “palms” which is more of a marketing gimmick than anything else — actually succulents. This basically means that when watering, care should be taken to ensure that they are not over-watered and the soil must be dry before watering it again. Combine this with winter, where the plant becomes dormant and needs even less water. I had to unfortunately leave this baby with someone for two weeks, and well, this plant received unfortunately too much water and started exhibiting signs of… depression…
… of course, eventually, nothing can prevent the death of a plant from too much love. After saving it from multiple indoor-induced dangers, this plant eventually ceased to exist and met its fairly untimely demise.
I guess, despite the amount of emotional attachment I can have for one specific plant, there is still the possibility of a replacement? So to help me get over my loss (which I had to witness over a WhatsApp video call), someone bought me another Hawaiian palm… and oh boy, here we go again.
Let’s not forget that this winter is ongoing and that I was still not at home to take care of this new plant. So what happens when this plant is over-watered (again)? You got that right…
Anyway, by the time it got to this state, thankfully I was back to care for it. Desperate times call for desperate measures, right? When a plant is over-watered, it means that the roots are soaked with water and there is not enough oxygen going to the roots due to the wetness of the soil. Apart from letting the plant dry out which might be too late, another method would be to remove the plant from the pot and put it on top of newspapers, allowing the newspapers to soak up the soil as much as possible. I didn’t have newspapers on hand (thanks to this digital millennial lifestyle) so I took the new Hawaiian palm out of its pot, left it in a much bigger pot without adding new soil and allowing the soil to dry out as much as possible by increasing the soil’s exposed surface area. After three days of doing this, the palm finally stabilised, although not without losing almost all of its leaves…
It has been about 5–6 weeks since this stressful episode (for me and the plant) and I must say that the plant has tremendously improved as long as it is not over-watered. Spider mites have also returned to attack this plant (how do they even find their way to this plant, seriously?) and so the entire cycle repeats. But I must say, there is some satisfaction in watching this plant thrive again.
So, what are the lessons learned? Seriously, don’t over-water this thing. And try to keep it away from natural predators — spider mites, cats, and over-caring humans.
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Hawaiian Palm (Brighamia insignis)
- Sunlight: indirect bright sunlight generally works
- Water: water only when soil is dry, care must be taken during winter!
- Pests: attracts spider mites very easily. Use a damp cloth to wipe down the leaves.
- Humidity: I give it a spray 2–3 times a week, and it should not be placed directly above a heater
More information on Brighamia insignis care: https://www.ukhouseplants.com/plants/hawaiian-palm-brighamia-insignis
