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Follow up: As much as I would have enjoyed watching the development of a hybrid, sparing the time to locate and retrieve one is probably unwise, living in a half-finished house restoration project. So off I went to Murray’s Nursery in Moss Point, MS, and picked up ($125/15 gallon) this “ordinary” Butia capitata, with a pretty girthy trunk beginning to form. It replaces the windmill that couldn’t handle last summer’s heat and drought (according to a landscaper’s diagnosis). Despite their ubiquity, I like the toughness, and in particular, the drought tolerance of the species. Wilburn Goff, at Murray’s, agreed with everyone here that you can’t tell the eventual color at this stage. This little beauty also followed me home: I don’t have a spot for it, but couldn’t resist. (Chionathus virginicus).

Keep an eye out when they are ready for you, all I know is Rich trapnell introduced them to start with in Australia, and we have all heard many tales as to what got collected and named just as something to send seeds out of Madagascar!

That’s very good of you Richard. I will love a few seeds. My two have flowered here but never fruited. Have they ever found these in the wild yet. I remember Bill Beatie saying they probably come from an area in NW Madagascar which is a military zone, but back then no one could go in and make a scientific assessment of them. They of course entered cultivation incorrectly as ambositrae but I still love em even if they aren’t ambositrae.

Do you want the seeds @Tyrone there free to a good home remember!

Be careful of those tabeuia, a curse of a weed in my climate.

At this point I shall grumble going into winter and all those new varieties iam zone pushing with, well we know what happens to some of those intolerant of cold palms, compost heap!

Rolled past these beauties again over the weekend

You learn to know you’re garden, and you’re garden knows who you are!

Lucky Hawaii growers!!!

I certainly hope so!

All 3 are great species to have. May the germination gods smile down on all those seeds 😁

It has not rained significantly her since mid Feb and the last two weeks in particular have been Mediterranean like with almost continuous clear sky's and very little wind. Lucky there was plenty of rain up until it stopped. Maybe some rain at the end of this coming week. The lawn stopped growing as of two weeks ago.

A couple of nice cycas varieties worth trying to propagate. Half buried horizontally then firmly pushed down. Bottom heating 30 degrees Celsius.

A few nice flush’Cerotazamia subrosephylla encephalartos ferox cycas thourasii Cerotazamia subrosephylla

I would go so far as to replace the word "relatively " with "extremely " when describing how mild this winter was in the far west and south of the US. Deespite a few major storms delivering snow to the southern Sierra Nevada range, there have been extended periods of warmer than normal weather between them. My son lives in the Eastern Sierra town of Mammoth Lakes and advised they are expecting temps to rise to 75 in town on Monday, which is crazy warm for this time of year there. The storms that delivered rain to San Diego this winter were mostly accompanied by warmer temperatures this winter too, with heat waves between storms. I have posted about plants blooming earlier than usual since late Autumn beginning with winter blooming Laelia orchids. I am not alone in noticing this as a recent post from Phoenix about early Plumeria flowering pointed out. All through winter my wetsuit selection has been confirming the warm Pacific ocean temperatures. I only wore my thickest wetsuit a couple of days this winter because the coastal ocean temps only dropped below 60 degrees here for short periods instead of several weeks. As winter ended, several records for highest high and highest low temperature were broken for the month of March in places like Palm Springs and in some cities in San Diego & Riverside county mountains and and inland valleys. Bottom line, I think saying it was an extremely mild winter in the southwest is justified. Spring is starting with over 20 record highs broken on March 20th from Santa Ana to Big Bear and down to Palm Springs, and from Chula Vista up to Alpine and over to Borrego Springs further south. So we begin with extreme weather if record breaking conditions qualify as extreme.

Iam lucky enough to have small plumosa in flower at eye height, making for a few close ups normally done a ladder.

They are a tough palm they just need moisture in the medium they are in. Garden escape plants can fit into the landscape well, unfortunately they become a weed, in some cases benefiting the local ecosystem. But in the wrong place and wrong type of plants it can be an evironmetal disaster. Richard

Hot as .... this week? ..no issues / complaints here in the yards as 2nd place spring ( Astro Spring ) arrives. Heat putting some heat under the Hippies ..getting them to blooming a bit faster than would be typical. ..Definitely an inflo quickly developing on Slaughter Pink.. We'll see how this goes.. Eyeing the other, older specimens for signs of more.. Gooddings's Verbena, A Bluebonnet ( Lupinus texanus ) and Desert Marigold.. First of the Mex. Hats of the season to tip their caps to the heat.. Live - Forever - Zinnias? ..eyh? ..One of a few plants that germinated ...last fall.. More Bursera fageroides germination goodness.. Yes that is an emerging seed in front of the stone to the right of the already moving seedling.. How about two seedlings for the price of one seed.. So much for " Arizona grown Royal Poinciana won't produce viable seed here " " thoughts " 🤣 Big Beautiful Beast... Big ..and little... Beasties Greened up and already flowering.. All these years spent under it / staring at whatever is up in the canopy driving a 4 legged pointy eared child nuts, i somehow did not realize the flowers were fragrant ..VERY fragrant.. until yanking some weedy stuff under it today.. Nothing in the neighbor's yard across the alley ..that is fragrant.. is flowering atm so, In the " first one to flower " race between the Guiacum coulteri specimens, appears the shy flowering, potted specimen out back may win the title this year. Echinocereus russanthus / chloranthus " Cattail Falls " ..Been a few years since it last flowered. Echinocereus reichenbachi v. albispinus gettin ready.. Kopsia arborea flowering early ..again.. Singed Sunflowers? ..Yeahhh, it's a bit toasty out there right now alright..

I suppose you could, although 50°F is by itself not really growing weather for Butia. Natural sunlight is certainly beneficial and if it's calm, can warm things well beyond 50° in a sheltered spot. Your call.

X2^ Great nursery / impressive inventory and ..very enjoyable company to chat with about stuff.

Unfortunately not, I removed the affected plants and the surrounding soil and sprayed the soil with very dilute hydrogen peroxide. The mold came back a week later and is now visible on other plants. One thing I noticed was that the mold didn’t seem to spread when I left it there and only seemed to spread once I removed it??! So far it’s not spreading since I first seen it a few weeks ago, so I’ll leave it there for now.

After topping the scales at 106F this afternoon, < ..in Downtown Chandler.. A " few" degs. warmer closer to the house. > ..a surprisingly pleasant 80F at 9:06PM.. Some impressively hot stuff across a wide swath of the country today.. I'll glance over the likely ..long.. list of records set today / those set yesterday in this part of the world today later but, ..Some of the impressive #'s seen at neighborhood level high lights ..pun intended.. in various areas.. Oddly, the Bay Area was a notch hotter today than yesterday, while areas closer to the coast around S. Cal seemed to stay out of the " extreme " heat today.. Inland Empire locations / S.F. and S.C Valleys all were hot, but not really any hotter than they have been over the last couple days. Back up in the South Bay, Impressive to see ANY 100F readings ..anywhere.. in the old neighborhood back in San Jose ...in MARCH. Cen. Valley: Bay Area: Mid to UPPER 90s .. anywhere in S.F.? That is some sizzle.. Palm Springs and Yuma = Nuke Fest day #2.. Vegas and St. George... darn near 100 ..or just over 100 up there, on the 1st day ..of Spring.. Wilder? mid /upper 90s ..few 100F readings up there ..and in / around the South Bay ..on the same day ..well outside the summer months.. Closer to home, while 110 / 110+ readings ticked up a hair in various neighborhoods, i was ..Dare i say.. a touch disappointed.. not to find any 109 / 109+ readings down in Tucson ..despite the fact that there were a few 100 / 100+ readings seen in far flung, borderlands locations like Patagonia, Sierra Vista and Whetstone. Peak of this round of heat has been reached in most spots in Nor. Cal. though, as Daniel Swain mentioned in his live stream earlier, ..that doesn't mean temps will be headed for normal / below normal values in ..at least.. the near term. We'll peak out tomorrow before settling back to ..the low 100s ..and perhaps a day or two under 100, ..depending on any clouds that might wander into the area Sunday or beyond.. Further out? ..Still a roll of the dice right now.. Yes, some of the model runs atm want to cool things down / maybe push a few ..mainly dry.. storms through the region but, ..latest 3 - 4 week outlook ..taken w/ that side of salt ofcourse... and today's 500hPa mean anomalies / 2m and surface temp anomalies thoughts from the ECMWF all = looking pretty stable as we head into the next few weeks.. Today's 3 - 4 weeker: ..Salt Please.. Could that change? ..since we can't teleport ..anywhere.. today's thoughts will likely change by this time next week ..but probably not in a direction that would = trough -y and much cooler kind of weather ..but, we'll see. There could be something else that tries to sneak into the local forecast as we get into April but again, ..you know what i'm going to say.. One thing sems pretty certain atm... Polar Vortex? ..is DeD ..Nighty night, See you next fall.. For now.. stay cool out there..

Good to see some of your Coconuts are showing some green & signs of life. I'm still looking at my 3, and while I see a little green in the spear area, I'm remaining cautiously optimistic. In the meantime I am giving them some liquid feedings through my hose end Miracle-Gro feeder with a 28-8-16 analysis. They all received dry fertilizer a few weeks ago....8-10-10 from Lesco. I also plan to do another Banrot soil drench. I've already shot liquid copper fungicide up into the crown and spear areas two times and don't want to overdo it with the Copper. I was going through a folder of older pics and ran across this one from 4 years ago. All plants in full glory...Pandanus, Mammy Crotons, Coconut, and 'Pinot Noir' Aechmea.......those were the good old days before hurricanes and then this year's freeze came in and wrecked havoc!

Yeah there's still a palmetto and an Etonia and a couple succulents, but the aroids have taken over. I got the white Monstera for $4.88. I really need to go and label what all is in there, there's a couple Billitae I need to split, a Moonlight and Plowmanii philo, a bunch of alocasias, a baby Jurassic Jellyfish Colocasia, I need to add my last light and space things out.

Just admiring my Buddha statue and for all the peace and harmony related to Buddhism, the world needs a bit of piece and quite in the garden now and then!