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Sorry to see this!

They were planted before the 2022 Christmas Freeze .

At least 7.5, but irrigation water is even more alkaline 8.2, so it should be a constant struggle to keep soil pH low.

New seeds have arrived

I've accumulated so many pots that I hardly know what to do with them since I normally try and get anything I have get in the ground as soon as possible but then again you never know when you will need a specific pot 😂

Yikes. While most of us have been focusing on the cold/freeze event in much of Europe recently, a powerful cyclonic system crept up on us from the Atlantic. This proved to be the strongest storm in 35-40 years for some places in southwest England. Cornwall and the Scilly Isles may have avoided the recent freeze event, but they have certainly paid the price with this Atlantic cyclone. I for one would have rather had the mediocre freeze event that I had recently (over this disgusting cyclone with 100mph+ winds) which have flattened multiple subtropical gardens and millions of trees. The Met Office weather station at St Mary's airport in the Isles of Scilly recorded 99mph winds, but this station is on the eastern side of the eastern most island, thus about as sheltered as possible in terms of locations in the Isles of Scilly. You can safely assume that most places saw well over 100mph winds. A National Coastline Institute station at Padstow in Cornwall recorded 123mph winds... There isn't any PWS's on Tresco, but I am seeing winds of 219kmh / 136mph on St Martins which is just to the east of Tresco. So if anything, Tresco would have had worse. And the damage shows... These are the latest images coming out of the Abbey Gardens on Tresco. I'm sure more photos of damage will be seen in the coming days.... Entire forests have been felled in Cornwall... Trebah Gardens early assessment... 80% of trees flattened at St Michael's Mount in Cornwall... ⚠️ Power going out for well over 100,000 homes in Cornwall... A video from Hayle in Cornwall. There is maybe 85-90mph gusts in this video, but nowhere near as bad as what was experienced in the Isles of Scilly or other parts of Cornwall... Roofs have been ripped off houses, trees have crashed through houses and cars have been crushed like pancakes under trees, beach defences dismantled like pieces of lego... Northern France hit pretty badly too... So yeah, not your average storm by any means. Maybe a 1 in 50 year event for some parts of southwest England. In general it is a 1 in 30 year event for most of southwest England...

They are a little rare Metallica seeds, available in certain places but somewhat rare. Next season i will see how I go if I can get some for you!🌱

If your wife can talk as much as my wife gysuppe, I could only imagine that she would look like an air traffic controller. Waving hand’s around constantly, my wife can talk underwater with a mouthful of marbles!

I've not shared anything with you folks before, simply because I haven't had anything to offer. I was not born with a passion for palms. We (my wife and I) fell into this peculiar and fascinating world quite by chance. Like anything, the more you learn, the more interesting things become. That said, all we have to offer you is our experience managing a legacy garden. Irene & I bought Casa de Las Palmas on Hawaii Island in 2017. The garden was the tropical fantasy world of the late San Diego nurseryman Jerry Hunter. Mr. Hunter was successful. He’d started his company in the 1950's, and was the 33rd licensed Landscape Architect in California. He'd been involved with the design of San Diego Zoo, Wild Animal Park, and Balboa Botanical Gardens, among many others. He had the first tissue culture lab in Southern California. His parents had been the go-to people on the west coast for begonias. He was essentially American plant royalty. He figured out that if he grew his tropicals in Hawaii and shipped them to California, he'd be ahead of the competition. He built a nursery in Hilo and bought the land for Casa de Las Palmas. It would serve as his home away from home, and as a showroom for his wealthy clients. Construction of the garden began in 1981 on almost seven acres of upland pasture. The volcanic clay soil was not suitable for planting juvenile plants, so untold tons of cinder and rock were brought in, and the landscape shaped and molded into what we see today. Most of the planting was done into cinder mounds. For the design of Casa de Las Palmas he worked with the local landscape architect Brian Lievens, whom he would task with sourcing some of the rare plants from east Hawaii's growers. Brian was gracious enough to provide us with the original planting plans of the garden which are now laminated and framed on the lanai. These exquisite plans (like a cross between a complex wiring diagram and an artwork) were how we learned about the palms in the garden. We spent endless evenings cross referencing the botanic names with The Encyclopedia of Cultivated Palms. Being a nurseryman from San Diego, Mr. Hunter had a crew of extremely hard working and talented Mexican men build the garden for him. A swimming hole was hand-hewn under one of the waterfalls. A delicate stone foot bridge was created over the stream. We were told that the lava rock paths took three years to complete. And the scale of plantings were nothing short of colossal. The kind only a successful nurseryman like Mr. Hunter could even contemplate. We were lucky enough to apprentice under one of the original employees, Cristobal. Without his dedication and care we would never have got off the starting line, our ignorance would have been absolute, the garden would have fallen into chaos. I recall how early on we planted a dwarf papaya on a cinder mound next to a Metroxylon amicarum and Dypsis carlsmithii (now Chrysalidocarpus carlsmithii), much to Cristobal's unspoken, but obvious, distress. Shortly afterwards a large palm leaf fell and destroyed the papaya. We took this as a sign that the garden requires a certain amount of respect. Since then, staying true to the intentions of the garden has been something we work hard on. When we plant, we consider the design. Perhaps we plant a Alocasia zebrina underneath the Caryota zebrina to mimic its petioles. Perhaps the Pinanga distitcha should be planted near the Licuala mattanensis “Mapu” to mirror their mottled leaf forms. Constant working in the garden reveals new insights every day. Sometimes it's like garden archeology, discovering a long-overgrown path or a rare plant languishing under piles of fallen leaves. Sometimes it's a lesson in design - realizing that most of the plants in an area share undulating leaf forms or that the color scheme is quite deliberately rigid. Casa de Las Palmas has evolved from a carefully orchestrated young garden into a mature ecosystem. Plants have produced progeny and plants have died. The blueprint has gotten a little more fuzzy. Many of the palms are too big to groom now. Everything fights for light, air and nutrients. It has become naturalized. Pretty soon we realized that the nutrients the garden demands couldn't be met by chemical fertilizer. It was just too expensive. So, we looked into goats. We now have six gelded males rescued from the butcher's block and fenced on a neighboring paddock we own. They provide plenty of manure for the garden. Their poop doesn't smell much, is hard and breaks down slowly and can be flung from a shovel in showers through the dense plantings. The plants love it, but we do supplement weak or needy palms with a special palm fertilizer as needed. Legacy gardens are by their nature equal parts demanding and rewarding. They offer those of us new to gardening an incredible learning experience. We certainly don't have the kind of money, manpower or knowledge required to create something so remarkable from scratch. But like buying a beautiful, world-weary house, after a lot of work, you can enjoy something unique, grand and magical. Really for us it is the magical spell that Casa de las Palmas puts you under, one that removes us from the world and enchants us, that makes this legacy garden so very special. Lastly, I'll leave you with three things of note that we have learned: Map your garden. Don't make it too big. And don't go planting Clinostigma samoense down the driveway...or any heavy crownshaft palms for that matter! com.google.android.apps.docs.editors.kix.editors.clipboard?uuid=ecbeebc8-9124-4c8d-9ebd-e5cbdce7e26b

i wrapped it up, its fine now.

15° still nuked the hell out of the Houston metro area. 99% of the queens died and a lot of robsutas are no longer around it definitely is noticeable nowadays . Galveston and Tiki island got slightly spared of some loss . Plenty of bismakria and the odd queen still around there .

Yes, let them put those to the cold test this winter. They look fairly new

Btw we are having hail again right now.. second time today! Frost, strong wind, non-stop rains, now hail... and waiting for another frost in 2 days.

The rain inspired me to take some video in the rain the same day. I’m still tidying up, please forgive the dead fronds hanging here and there. The sound of the rain is so soothing. IMG_4531.mov IMG_4524.mov

Looks like cold dislike

Bulbophyllum 'Wilbur Chang' is STILL blooming. It started in late summer and has had over 20 serial blooms

I had the same thing happen to a C. psammophilus seedling. Pretty sure it died. I posted a video of it on YouTube. JD

Wow. What was your original pH?

I had tried a lot to lower the pH. I had used as fill in compost from coir (about 6.5 pH), leca (acidic) and pine bark, plus I had spread two times a handful of sulfur pellets, plus I had drenched several times with humic acids. A strenuous process.

A little chilly as the sun rose, w/a touch of frosted leaves in the coolest / shadiest spot in the back yard yesterday, but.. looks like what breeziness is still around atm helped keep temps a touch higher overnight than had been suggested for many areas ..though some of the typically coolest spots within outskirts neighborhoods / areas around Tucson did flirt with 32 / briefly dropped below the freezing mark both yesterday and this morning. Nothing crazy, anywhere across the area, regardless If 37 and 39F are the coolest readings i see for what remains of this winter, ..that's pretty good.. Depending on whatever breeziness is around later, could flirt with 39F tonight, ..or stay in the lower, mid - 40s. Same " veering from north to easterly breeziness today and tomorrow " might make it feel cool -ish ( today esp. ) but, 70s return tomorrow under crystal clear skies.. Upward, as we move onward into next week.. Time and date teasing an 80F reading in it's current extended again. Oddly a touch cooler than WX U's forecast for the week ahead atm too. We'll see...

That's pretty much what I'm predicting.

Houston really lucked out in 2021. Austin's palms took quite a beating. Your area was quite mild during that arctic blast compared to other areas of Texas. You didn't have the extended cold to the extent of other areas.