It seems that every box store, supermarket along with other retail outlets are featuring palms. Or at least, one kind: The areca, golden cane or butterfly palm, Dypsis lutescens. Under northern home conditions, few survive for long, often succumbing to spider mite attack to which this species seems particularly prone. Of course, it is cheap enough . . .
Not so cheap, harder to find but much hardier is the classic Kentia Palm Howeia fosteriana, also attractively known as Paradise Palm. It originates from a tiny speck of land, Lord Howe Island in the Tasmania Sea east of northern Australia. There it is less attractively designated the Thatch Palm because, well, that is exactly what it traditionally could be used for.
