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Help identifying tropical looking plant
Its growing outside my window and it’s getting massive now - so 2 questions -
What plant is it ?
Is it worth any money or should I just put some loppers to it and dig it out ?
Thanks for your help its much appreciated ! Apologies as to why the picture has been made landscape it’s from my mobile 
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It’s a cordeline ( Torbay palm )
it looks to be growing really close to your window, if it was mine I would be digging it out but we are all different and you might like to keep it.
it can be tidied up by removing the brown strapy leaves at the bottom, down the main stem. if they are ready to come off a gentle tug downwards is all it should take.
this should be done every year as this creats the stem.
It is a bit adjacent....
However, if you do as Chrissy says - removing the dead growth, most of the crown will be between the two windows, so you'll be ok for daylight....for now
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
The question, surely, is do you like it enough to care for it and keep it looking good? Those brown leaves need removing every year which means, one day, you'll have a very tall stick with a green hat well above window height.
Personally, I think it's unattractive and out of place with no other planting to make it look like it belongs so you either need to get rid or change the adjacent planting to make it look as if it's in the right place.
I'm with Obelixx, ugly things, totally out of place in UK gardens
In the sticks near Peterborough
Cheers guys, made my decision a bit easier - i'll get rid
Last edited: 28 September 2017 14:04:58
Good move Jim
In the sticks near Peterborough
Good luck with that, Jim. I had two of them which came with the house. I think they look daft in northern latitudes so I had them cut down. Three years later the stumps are still alive and keep producing Tufts of leaves which I break off at ground level. The smaller one is ok, I've covered it with ivy which I keep trimmed and I can live with that as it's in a woody area. The other is in a patch I want to use as a flower border, it had multiple trunks which now take up about three square feet of ground. I tried to dig it out. LOL. It has no side roots you can cut through, it just goes down and down like a giant carrot. I thought of sawing through it below ground level, covering it with soil and planting over it. But then I thought, what if it still grows leaves and I can't break them off without digging? So I've let it be. I'm going to try putting a bin over it to exclude light. Though I suspect that root stores five years' worth of nourishment. I'd like to know how you get on.
We have had 2 sick ash trees cut down but chappy doesn't have a root grinder. He advises salt on th wounds to kill the root. I suspect something like Brushwood killer would work too. Ask at a good DIY or garden store.
Even if I find a way to kill it, it's still there taking up space I want to use! Though I suppose once it's dead I can safely saw through it below ground level. I don't know that a stump grinder would be any good as I don't know how far down the roots go.
Last edited: 28 September 2017 16:23:30
If it's dead it will rot and be easier to dig out surely.