Question

Areca Plant   QUESTION: Hi, thanks for volunteering here.

I bought a couple of areca plants (picture attached), but the idea was to plant them in my backyard (I already did) to grow tall (6+ feet) to provide shade.

The questions are:
1) are all areca plants the same?
2) does this kind in picture grow this tall?
3) if not, then which kind (name) I should look for

thanks.


ANSWER: Generally, the Areca or Butterfly Palm (Chrysalidocarpus lutescens) is popular in Florida climate, and can get as tall as 30 feet given the right conditions - Usually only to about 15 feet tall, normally.  Here is a website for general care:

http://floridagardener.com/pom/arecapalm.htm

Where I live, we can only grow them as in-door plants.  Although, I had one in my office that got to be about 12 feet tall!   Are they the same?  -If you bought them at same time, then yes.  If you are trying to "match" some existing ones, it is hard to say.

Over time, the botanical name has changed, too - It is also called the "Dypsis lutescens", or Golden Cane Palm.  Native to Madagascar, it is an endangered & rare plant, there.

If you are trying to "match" an existing Areca palm, I'd grab a green branch off of the older plant, and take it to the garden center so you can hold them up to each other to make sure of a better match.

Plants are a lot like people; Some are shorter, fatter, or longer-lived than others.  There are other palms with fronds that look similar to the Areca (like the Syagrus romanzoffiana/Queen Palm), which will grow differently when mature, so be cautious.  

Huge and very thick books have been written about the hundreds of palms in the world.  Here are some more palm tree photos (about 75).  This website uses the Latin name "Dypsis", and they show picutres of 16 types of Dypsis varieties available:

http://www.junglemusic.net/palms/

Hope it helped - I'm afraid I maybe I over-loaded you with TOO MUCH information! ~Marc

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Marc, thanks for your answer.

"the same" meaning if this type of areca palm I bought will grow as tall, because someone told me there are some kinds of areca palms that do not grow as tall; since I want it for providing shade, I just want to make sure this one will work for that.

Answer
In a word, YES, they should grow to the same height, IF the nursery tag says "Dypsis lutescens".  These palms are commonly sold in nurseries, but I'm told larger specimens are hard to find.

There are 18+ OTHER Dypsis species (their common names are all sorts of things: Teddy Bear Palm, Redneck Palm, Candycane Palm, Manambe Palm, Triangle Palm, Cabada Palm, etc.) These OTHER palms vary in height from just a foot to 30 feet tall.

~Marc