Slower growing cultivars ?

As an avid collector of palms, I have many "understory" palms growing under canopy. Because of the "crowding" of these understory palms, I would like to add slow growing cultivars of crotons. The croton colors help to delinate and define the individual palms making them more apparent to the eye. It does not make sense to plant a fast growing cultivar that will require pruning as it competes for the filtered light with the palm. Adding slower growing cultivars would be the appropriate solution for these plants to becoming sybiotic.

Please, everyone chime in here and list which cultivars you have experienced being slower growing.

Best regards to all,

Ron.

 

Ron - Before I list my choices, I should warn you about planting Crotons, or any plant for that matter, underneath a palm or a tree. Several things to consider:

1. You have to trim your palms or at least consider the large fronds that will fall from a self-cleaning palm. Any plant in the way of a falling frond is subject to damage.
2. When the palms bloom (or the trees flower) you will get sap and perhaps sooty mold, if there is scale (nah, never in Florida.) Your Crotons will be sprinkled with the stuff and will lose color.
3. In terms of pure design, most palms (or trees) will tend to guide the viewer's focus upward and thus the Crotons may actually be missed.
4. The fibrous root system of most palms becomes very aggressive when in a drought situation; the Crotons may suffer from lack of available water.

All of this having been said, I have dozens of Crotons planted below palms and trees and just end up dealing with the above in stride.

Slow growers:

Ram's Horn
Golden Glow
King of Siam
Stoplight (never seen this one over 5' tall)
Dreadlocks (but watch the cold!)

 

Some of my slow growers are Candy Cane, Sybil Griffin, Jenseni, Brilliantissima and Sweet Marie.

 

Ricky - I have been growing palms in excess of 15 years. When my Royals drop their leaves it is mass destruction. The area that I am going to add crotons is under the Canary Island Date, Red Latania, Bismarckia Noblis and Gebang palms. These guys do not shed their leaves readily. They usually hang brown until I get out the ladder out and prune them. This usually happens when the filtered shade starts becoming too deep. I have tender, rare and usually quite expensive palms growing in this understory. The crotons will be fine. Just want slow shade loving cultivars there. Actually I anticipate that some crotons may be perfect for this area. Thank you for your words of wisdom.

Judy - what slow growing cultivars do you recommend? Your opinion is encouraged!

Ron.

 

Ricky, I'm going to bring you some fertilizer for Golden Glow. It's not slow.

 

Could someone post a photo of golden glow? Please

Ron.

 

These are probably Golden Glow:

 

Add Ben Alexander to the slooooow list.

 

Wow Ricky! That is one sweet looking croton!
Thank you for posting!

Ray - do you know a source for Ben Alexander? Jeff has not updated his list yet, but I do not see it right now. Are they encountered at the Society's auctions?

Ron. :

 

Ron, I never see BA at sales maybe because it grows so slowly. Mine came from a yard in St. Pete and the plant has since been leveled

 

Add Stain Glass to the slow list!

 

My Ben was also leveled...by 26F last January 11th.

 

Catherine Gephardt is not only slow, they get near my yard and start doing into terminal decline. Stoplight is a fast grower here; I've got two over 6 ft in height. Golden Glow is fairly fast but few of the Coppinger varieties have much cold tolerance before defoliating.

 

Add to the painfully slow list:

Polychrome
Mona Lisa
Bimbo - real slow
Wilma - extremely very slow
Black Beauty - real slow