Basically, you can propagate a hemp palm yourself. For this you need seeds, which you can harvest yourself if you're lucky or buy them from a gardening store. However, it takes a lot of time for a real hemp palm to grow from a seed.
How to propagate a hemp palm?
To propagate a hemp palm, you need germinable seeds that can either be harvested yourself or purchased from specialist retailers. Sowing is ideally carried out between February and April, after pre-soaking and roughening of the seeds. The germination period can take up to a year.
Harvest or buy seeds
It is rare for your hemp palm to produce germinable seeds. Only adult plants bloom. Since hemp palms are dioecious, you need one male and one female plant to fertilize the flowers. Once the flower is fertilized, an edible fruit is formed in which the seeds ripen. After the flowering period, the flowers remain on the palm tree until they dry out.
Hemp palms that are only grown indoors rarely bloom. You'll have a little better luck if you keep your fan palm outdoors all year round.
If you want to be sure that you get germinable seeds for growing new hemp palms, you should buy them from specialist retailers (€2.00 on Amazon).
How to prepare the seed for sowing
The hemp palm seed is very hard-shelled. Before sowing it, let it soak in lukewarm water for at least 24 hours. Many gardening experts also swear by roughening the seeds with sandpaper before sowing.
By pre-treating you can shorten the already very long germination time.
Sowing hemp palm
The best time for sowing is from February to April.
- Prepare cultivation pots
- Sowing seeds
- cover thinly with soil
- set up bright and warm
- keep moist but not wet
After sowing, all you have to do is be patient. It can take up to a year for a hemp palm seed to germinate. It will then take another two to three years until you receive offshoots.
As soon as the young plants have reached a height of around ten centimeters, plant them in individual pots and continue to care for them normally. Hemp palms only become winter hardy after a few years. They are only allowed outside permanently when they are at least three to four years old and have grown sufficiently large.
Tip
You usually have to pollinate a female hemp palm flower yourself. To do this, first stroke the male flower and then the female flower with a brush.