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Low of 25F tonight. Let's see what happens.

Cerotazamia sp Toman st Charlie new leaf on a young plant!

A well grown Becarriophoenix alfredi is a magnificent sight in its own right. But, in that setting it would be awesome... The only downside is that it will take a number of years to get there...

One plant I have not figured out how to pollinate is cycas species. I will learn it in time!

Couple of nice ones there, you need to find a few vietchii they are do tough and easy!

Here they are as babies, nearly 4 years ago.

Our nurseries here have far less variety than the abundance of US nurseries. So seeds is often the only way. But Kentia seeds? Hell no, I ain't got that patience!

My Chambeyronia’s first inflorescence! It has gotten spathes before but they usually just fall off. Harry

Hey PalmTalkers! Im looking to source Coccothrinax argentata ssp garberi which is a shorter growing form native to peninsular Florida, whereas the taller argentatas grow in the Keys. I would love to source some seeds but some info online says that they are in nature preserves around Homestead and I dont know the legality of entering such areas. Does anybody have any ideas? Thanks guys!!

I think the best way is to buy them is at about 3 -5 gallon size. For me , that is about the time they start picking up speed. The problem is finding the species you want at that size! It takes about 5 years to get most of the N. C. Palms to that size. For example , this Howea Foresteriana I grew from seed is going on 3 years old and my climate is ideal for these. Harry This is a volunteer from my garden after one of my mature specimens dropped a bunch of seeds. It took about 25 years to grow these from almost dead , just starting to trunk , palms from a shopping mall that was torn down . They are the parent palms to the seedling. There are other palms you can grow that are faster , like Syagrus R. That will give that tropical look while adding protection for the others . Harry

Here is a closer look at one from seed from Bill Austin. To Rick's point, the older ones don't have petioles. The seedlings have petioles with wings and the leaves expand as they age. I'm being this trend in vivo with the central leaf progressively expanding in size.

I planted a Cocothrinax fragrans today; it's not looking good, so I thought I would pop it in the ground and see if it improves. The tag said June 13, and I was wondering why I didn't put the year. Well, duh, I started that plant from seed in June 2013, so it's over 12 years old. I have two other fragrans that I planted a few years ago, from the same batch of seeds, and they have a few feet of trunk, look good, and are seeding regularly. I also did a C. borhidiana x fragrans cross and got lots of seeds, and some have already germinated. For whatever reason, my borhidiana has not self-set seed. One of my goals in doing the cross is to see if the cross has hybrid vigor and grows faster than pure fragrans and pure miraguama, both of which I started from seed recently. I got a few nice palms at the Palm Beach Palm Society holiday party giveaway: Calyptrocalyx holrungii, Calyptrocalyx polyphylus, and Actinokentia divaricata. I'll probably kill them, but for free.99 I'm willing to give them a try.

👍 That's what i thought regarding leaf shape / size / texture between the two. If I remember correctly, Creamsicle is supposed to be a cross between arborescens and ferox.

A couple Phalaenopsis orchids are also starting to grow their bud stalks as they do every time, this time of year. aztropic Mesa, Arizona

I got some more seeds during my visit to the botanical garden today. They were about the height of a basketball hoop. The gardener said I should do a jump like Michael Jordan and land well. He was too lazy to get a ladder 🤔☹️ It came in handy that I used to play basketball... Well, the landing was good... Even got applause 😁

After a night spent counting shooting stars under mainly clear skies, headed for a sunny to partly cloudy Sunday in December in the low 80s ..80 ..or 82 ( or 3 ) anything above 78 will break the daily record. May break another tomorrow too ( 80 or 81 predicted currently ) Shave off a deg. or 3 for next week but staying warm regardless ...if the current local forecast from time and date is correct, might see another 80 or two right around Xmas. As for any rain? Gfs tries to bring some sort of wet stuff into the southwest by maybe new years. On the other hand, most current extended forecasts keep things warm w/ slimmer " wet signal" opportunities here. Nor. / Cen. CA might see actual rain return sometime over the next couple weeks. Checking on the P.V.? Here's yesterday's sub seasonal from the ECMWF.. If it is correct, holds. ..or whatever, new year could kick off quite warm ( because of a stronger than avrg. PV keeping any real cold away ) .. we'll see.. Looking further out, being in between laptops I couldn't post an in depth on my thoughts for this winter here.. Regardless, atm, things are going as I thought they might this year. Looking forward? Probably still some flavor of the same. Checking all the models used by Copernicus, the one thing that sicks out is that all of the SST graphics keep the n pac.,vCA margin, and waters off Mex. quite warm / above normal over the coming months. Possibly strengthening ( the warm leaning anomalies ) come spring. Could make for an interesting warm season ahead across the region ..if these forecast thoughts pan out. For now, BBQ for Xmas is sounding good..

Any update on how it's doing? I have relatives in Tarpon Springs and it seems like it could make it there. I wouldn't mind getting them one of these from RPS.

Aloe marlothii is more armed on its leaves than Aloe ferox and seems to have fatter and wider leaves. Here in Southern California, the Aloe ferox are in bloom but the Aloe marlothii are a few months away from blooming again. The variation of Aloe ferox I am growing has darker orange inflorsence than the specimen shown in the photo from Stanford, and mine aren't opening flowers yet (which are more yellow, like the ones at the base of the inflorescense of the Stanford specimen). I can't say if the one Bayandroid posted is in the normal realm of color variation for an Aloe ferox or if the slight differences point to a possible hybrid of Aloe ferox. My first instinct in seeing the specimen was to think of Aloe ferox though. I don't know what the theoretical parentage is for Aloe "creamsicle" or the flower color. Below are some specimens Aloe marlothii and Aloe ferox for comparison. The blooming specimens are the Aloe ferox. One of the A ferox is not upright because it has stretched away from the wall to gain more sunlight after being shaeded by the adjacent Cycas thouarsii.

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Thank you. It’s just living free, and has been doing so for 3-4 years, now. Unfortunately, the rental agency trims them, I believe (hard to get a straight answer from them, on a lot of things). I spoke with them the other day, and gave them a contact of a friend, to trim my palms.

December banana Bee 🐝 in action

Here’s how things look, today: Fallaensis Macroglossa I also planted two Copernicia Rigida, in the spring, that were shipped to me last spring (shipper no longer ships to CA), which have done well. They’re slow. Lastly, here’s that 15 gallon Fallaensis and a 7 gallon Berteroana.

Those are fruits already! Underrated species.

These palm's fronds suggest these were recently planted, they got those "nursery fronds". Hopefully this winter is mild in the RGV so these can take off. The pre 2010 Adonidias in my city all are protected by walls except 2 of them in a microclimate in San Nicolás de los Garza.

I couldn’t find a photo of my Fallaensis from when I planted it, but here’s the Macroglossa. Looks pretty bad now, but the new leaf had slowly pushed over the last few months. It definitely stalled, and think it will pull through. A lot of the shock happened when I initially planted it. Also, I added a few pics of what it looked like when it was shipped. It arrived in a plastic bag wrapped around the pinky sized roots, with some loose dirt tossed in.