Portrait of a Nikau Palm

Not much of a cat post but I hope you will enjoy how Dash’s tree has transformed from a small palm to a something quite amazing.

Dash may be gone but he lives in our hearts, in this blog’s name and identity and also through a native New Zealand palm tree.

September 2013, for those with a long memory, was the month we lost Dash Kitten in a dog attack. A native tree was planted in his memory, a Nikau Palm. This photograph shows the palm tree just after it was planted by a specialist gardener for us. If you scroll down to the bottom of this report you can see the planting in progress.

The gardener specifically instructed us never to water the tree with tap water. Tap water is chlorinated and would kill the delicate roots he said. So, we have always left the tree alone and let Mother Nature do the watering.

Fast forward to 2025/6 and you can see what has happened to Dash’s Tree.

This is Dash’s tree in December 2025 The tree is now well over 6 metres high (about 18 feet-ish) and even more astonishingly, it is flowering. Apparently, they don’t flower for over a decade so we should not have been surprised but…

You can see the spray of white stems and pink flowers at the bottom. There is also another identical flower at the back of the trunk as you can see in the slideshow.

• The slideshow is new and may take a moment to load. I hope it works for you.

What The Berries Look Like

Here are two snapshots of the Nikau Palm outside the Wellington University campus at Pipitea. It is ahead of ours as it has berries that you can see clearly. The berries will attract Kereru birds in our garden we hope.

---

In case you are hoping for a final cat photo. Here it is, Toulouse is trying to water the palm but I think it’s winning.