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When I first moved to Florida, I planted a Bismarckia in mid2010 and a sabal uresana in summer 2011. Uresanas are often mentioned as alternatives to bismarckia in 9a. These palms have stood next to each other over the years making for an easy growth comparison. Bismarckias are generally regarded as fast growers and uresanas are said to be slow. First, Bismarckia several months after planting a 5 gallon bought at a big box store. Everything but the spear had heavy mold spots so I kind of treated it as a rescue. It seems to have that purplish hue after winter that is often associalted with a whiter leaf. It adapted fast to sun after being tortured inside the box store with palms stacked in a pile around it. It put 5-6 new leaves out the first year. late july 2010 bismarckia then about a year later I planted a sabal uresana "icy blue" I bought from tejas tropicals in texas. It was a strap leafer and I put it in a pot. About 6 months later it was ready to go into the ground as the pot was root bound. A little over 2 years later in sept 2013 both had grown well. IN this pic the uresana looks a bit bigger than it was (relatively) since it was closer to the observer. It had turned darker with less "icy blue" color but was clearly not just a green sabal. The uresana was about 6' overall and the Bismarckia was closer to 10' in this pic At this point the bismarckia was trunking and growth was accelerating and here is the pic from june 2015. The uresana not trunking was putting more leaves for a bigger crown About 4 years later the uresana had lengthened it leaves and had gone into trunking mode. It went skyward chasing the bismarckia but still 6-7 feet over all behind the biz in height Last week I took another pic and noticed about a 10' gap even though the uresana had sped up and grown to about 25' tall. compared with 35' for the bismarckia I thought it was interesting that the growth burst of each happened at trunking, as we are often told by the literature. Yes even sabal uresana grows well after trunking. I also though it is interesting to note that Sabal Uresana has a wider crown, that was a surprise. I had always thought Bismarckia would be wider as it throws more shade but its a couple fee less in width of the crown. The Uresana crown is more open though, and it took a lot less damage than the Bismarckia in hurricane Milton(oct2024). Part of the lesser damage suffered by uresana could be due to less wind damage as there are higher wind velocities at height, but also part might be the Uresana having an open crown with smaller leaves that have less wind drag. I do think Uresanas will have more blue than mine in a drier hot climate. Bismarckias are very versatile, they don't need much fertilizer and mostly they are self shedding. Just keep them happy and the weevils wont come to dinner(I had a sick one attacked by weevils and killed). I treated the Uresana same as Bismarckia, limited fertilizer compared with my other palms The Uresana has persistent leaf bases which are still strongly attached near the ground. Since I do the trimming, I am happy that Uresana is a slower grower, as the Bismarckia is now too tall for me to trim from the ground. And the Bismarckia(female) is a mess, dropping 150-200 lbs of seed a year. I just got done raking up half a trash can full of Bismarckia fruits, and there is at least that much still hanging on the tree. Uresana has not fruited yet at 15 yrs. Sabals are notorious for liking heat to grow fast and they both had plenty of Florida heat. For those thinking about Sabal Uresana, its not Bismarckia fast but its more of a medium grower for me after trunking.

Here it was when I first planted it! I really had no hopes it was surviving up here 😂 Crazy how much it filled out this corner in only 4 years with suckers lol

After trimming some tall fan palms day before yesterday I was greeted with a boom late last night as the rain came down. Its more like w whumpff! One of my mature royals decided to release a leaf with a wet crownshaft. The leaf stem and leaflets were completely dry, but the massive crownshaft was quite wet and heavy. Seeing it there on the ground I was grateful I didn't have to trim that sucker from below! So I went out to see it in the morning and took a pic with Adirondack chair for scale The palm is a fattie for a royal and is approaching full recovery from hurricane Milton in oct 2024. The older these royals get the more I appreciate the self shedding, saves me being on a ladder underneath. These royals cost me $160 each with delivery and 90 for planting (each) with a bobcat. They had 3-4' trunk in late 2011 as delivered. We are aware when a leaf dries out or even looks half dried out and avoid being under them at that time. Credit florida weather and a popup automatic irrigation system for its appearance, I don't really put too much care into them! Its nice to have something bullet proof and low maintenance. Most of the time they dont drop with a heavy wet crownshaft but when they do its like what I imagine a big dinosaur sound like with the heavy footfall. I have two large royals, this is the smaller of the two and they are enough for me. Warning! You should be able to see why you should not have these in a place where you walk (or sit) regularly like a front yard path to the front door. And if you park a car under one like this, expect a big body shop repair bill as it is about 50-60 lbs falling frm 25+ feet.

A slowly growing R. sambiranensis.. And a sp. “giant”— still no name as far as I know. Plugging away, about 13 years old, but otherwise reasonably happy.

With all the rain we’ve had and the long summer days, this palm dropped another leaf and is now showing another ring of trunk.

Extraterrestrial? Please come home ET. Any ETS landing in your garden. This is from planet Encyclia of the cochleata species.

The cascade palm, an old favourite that has been around for some time now. A fantastic ornamental palm, perfect for a small hedge or a nice fill in for a corner or anywhere in the understory. Makes a great patio container palm, has somewhat of a cool tolerance. A landscapers dream Paolo that’s as tough as nails. A great all round chamaedorea that’s ver forgiving to a growers blunder or two!

There’s a few good glauca in my garden.

Here’s my glauca post blooming.

This week has been a real trial for my little Ceroxylon amazonicum! Today at 3 PM the temperature... in the shade... was 106 °Fahrenheit (41.11 °Celsius). It's putting out its second leaf since it arrived at my place from Ecuador (via Florida). I'm keeping it in shade and in a deep saucer of water. Hopefully it'll put out a pinnate leaf before year's end?

Or towering teddy bears (Chysalidocarpus leptocheilos) - at left - aflame in the setting sun.

No one has suggested a foxtail... Wodyetia bifurcata... I'm fairly close to OCKev in La Mirada and these things grow like weeds for me... They are self cleaning but they do drop egg sized seeds that are easy to pick up and discard... Really no mess... Butch

Thought I’d bump this thread and post an updated photo. So far so good, still going strong. Tim

Interesting palm, getting scary big as well. Every year I look at it and go hmmmmm…… Acquired it in a 1 gallon pot in 2019, still no trunk and extremely long fronds. Interesting pinnae arrangement in pairs, thin and long. Dioecious, I doubt I’ll be getting a mate. Too bad, I was looking forward to making my own buttons from the seeds. There is an orange handled full size shovel in one of the photos for scale. Tim

So here’s a R. lakatra 10 years from a seedling; as mentioned earlier, it doesn’t appear to be one of the giants. And looking up into a fast growing sp “new”, possibly madagascariensis?

Great to see this post revived . I knew nothing about these until I saw one in Ventura at Terry and Sevin Sullivan’s place . It towers over the garden with a dominance like royalty . I didn’t know it was heat sensitive but it seems to like the coastal Ventura climate. Harry

Local Sabal uresana. Some or all of mine came from these trees.

Did you ever pull the trigger and grow one? They get big over time. I am in a different climate zone but do have experience growing a couple of Caryota species including gigas now lumped in as obtusa. I would not underestimate the project it will be to remove it someday. The one I acquired as gigas is well over 20 years old. The trunk is massive in diameter but it hasn't gained the height of some around town in Encinitas and adjacent communities.

Cyphophoenix elegans doing its best flamethrower impersonation.

@OCKev and @sonoranfans my Archontophoenix tuckeri in the westering light of late afternoon….

I’d say that’s a pembana, @Cape Garrett ! They kinda sit awhile then EXPLODE in height. Here’s some of mine after about 10-15 years in the ground.

Wodyetia bifurcata, a new genus for my collection. I was able to germinate one seed. My friend and I germinated the rest. It's a subtribe of Ptychospermatinae. These palms have caryota-like leaves. I like them a lot, as their leaves are more feathery than those of Syagrus romanzoffiana, which is also a beautiful palm. And luckily, it's in my collection. 🌴🌴🌴🦜🦜

My fastest is C. alpinum. This one being approximately fifteen years old from seed. Still no trunk though.

SE Houston the past few days (Pasadena/Deer Park) These pygmies have survived the last few cold years, planted 2021/2022. The buds are quite hardy relative to the foliage. There's a reason they managed to stick around for 20+ years prior to the 2021 freeze. New royals to usher in the warm epoch

A few of the palms this June. Sabal uresana, Sabal palmetto "Lisa" and Butia odorata to the right. Neighbors's CIDPs behind. Washingtonia robusta CIDP Butia yatay x Jubaea chilensis Phoenix sylvestris Bismarckia nobilis Trachycarpus latisectus

First new leaf since planting out our Lepidorrachis mooreana, obtained from @Darold Petty last autumn.

Same palms different angle.

Consider Chambeyronia! Oliviformis macrocarpa….

Seems that I've collected quite a few interesting Syagrus (and butia) in the past couple of years. Here's a lineup of most of them this morning. Back row L to R: syagrus vagans, butia diamantina, syagrus guaratingensis, syagrus microphylla Middle row L to R : either picrophylla or oleracea from @DoomsDave , syagrus picrophylla, syagrus santosii, Bottom row L to R Butia archeri and a variegated butia odorata. A chance seedling.

That is a very nice looking palm . Just a bit of experience with my Chambeyronia, the first few years of flowering usually don’t produce seed. Mine has been flowering for a few years and has beautiful flowers but that’s it. The first two years the spathe never even opened , it just fell off. Mine has over 6’ of smooth trunk below the crown shaft. My friend a couple blocks away whose palm is much older just got his first batch of seeds. Harry This Chambey infrutescens is about 10’ up in the palm.

My mature male (I think) Ravenea glauca tried to aid in reproduction and is now kinda spent, till next time around. Those inflorescences are kinda cool looking.

I’ve lived in Northern Virginia for almost 40 years. This last winter was the worst, long duration a.m. p.m. cold I’ve experienced. I truly thought my 12-year in-ground Trachy was going to die. Don’t have the stats but it was at least 2-weeks of continuous sub freezing F. temps. Along with about 8” of snow and ice that lasted that whole time as well. Maybe the only saving grace was sunny days after the precip. fell? I removed about 6 of the most damaged lower fronds mid spring. Haven’t fertilized yet but it is pumping out nice new firm fronds, maybe 6 or 7 as of today. I’ll clean it up again this fall, after it’s had a chance to fully recover and replace the canopy. Even though it’s messy, it still looks great! It’s about 13’ of trunk so winter protection consisted of 200 Christmas lights in two loose balls laid up at the crown covered loosely in a layer of burlap…very unprofessional but it’s too tall now. I also wrapped a 3’ tall band of black landscaping cloth around the base of the trunk. This catches a fair amount of the sun’s radiated heat several hours each winter day. Of course, it flowered like crazy in early spring. I’ll cut those remnants off as well this fall. Anyway, I’ll send out status reports soon. I was shocked at how poorly my sunny Needle did.

I have half a dozen amazonicum grown from seed. I think I got 100% germination and never lost a plant. They seem hard to kill but will sit looking happy and healthy but do almost nothing if their requirements are not met. I think maybe deep soil is a must and might be the missing ingredient in some Hawaiian gardens that seem to grow out of rock! My largest is about 5 metres but the smallest under 1 metre. Nowhere near trunking yet after about 15 years from seed.

I planted 4 "sp. giants". After getting my camera battery charged, I went out this evening this evening to take the following 3 pictures. They are much bigger now, having grown well. I use the lawn chair for scale. The first shows two female trees. They have been flowering and producing seeds that ripen red, unfortunately non-viable because I don't have male pollen to fertilize them. The second shows another one that has grown well, has a crown even larger than the first two, but has a much shorter stem at this stage. It has never flowered. The third pic is one that has never been as healthy and easy growing as the first 3, included just to show that there are some that lag behind. Raveneas have done well for me here. I guess they like the climate without strong highs and lows, and the heavy rainfall. Besides sp. giant, I have dransfieldii, glauca, krociana, lakatra, madagascariensis, sambiranensis, and xerophylla. I have never grown rivularis, which looks fine to me, but I saw so many when I lived in Florida that I decided to focus on other varieties. I especially like lakatra because it is an exceptionally beautiful palm. I have 4 of them in my front yard reaching heights of maybe 12 feet. I lost my one julietae, and two other krocianas (the remaining one is fine and has got quite large). Seeds of sp. giant were from Ortanique and sown in summer 2006. One was planted in summer of 2009 (I don't remember which one). The other 3 were planted in February and March 2011.

C vogelianum also my fastest mate. I suspect it’s genetics - its growth habit seems to be more ‘reach for the sky’ than ‘fronds erupting from ground level for decades’ like the really big species. My larger of 2 C vogelianum specimens in the garden is now as tall or taller than all of my other Ceroxylon. It’s from seed from 2018, compared to similar sized C alpinum from 2007 seed. Kind of hard to get a good photo but the C vogelianum is around 2m/7’ tall and it’s starting to look nice and plumose. Was from C ‘parvifrons’ seed from RPS - the initial disappointment of not having parvifrons has worn off seeing this develop, especially now having hopefully true C parvifrons seedlings.

Here’s mine a year later. Some growth but pretty slow still. I hope it speeds up a bit with time.

Some new additions hit the ground this weekend. Rhapis excelsa 'Super Dwarf' and Rhapis excelsa 'Koban'. The tropicals are Bouvardia ternifolia (left) and Hamelia patens var. patens 'Lowrey Fuzzy Leaf' (right) which both survived our winter freeze just fine with mulch. Chuniophoenix nana. The roots were pretty stunted on these and it looked like they had been in the seedling tubes for a long time. This was the best looking one. Group of seven C. nana. Rhapis laosensis, planted a few weeks ago. I was surprised how fragile and brittle the roots were on this plant and was worried the offset that was just starting to develop would abort, but it has pushed up through the soil fine. I believe this clone is female and would love to track down a confirmed male if anyone has one. Licuala spinosa. Definitely a zone push in Houston and I was trying to balance how much sun they get versus how much canopy. Group of L. spinosa planted among an unknown Hamelia patens cultivar (maybe Lowrey). Mystery Rhapis seedlings at the back and Lobelia laxiflora at the end. Arenga spp. in next raised bed. Mystery Rhapis. Supposedly R. multifida. Not a new plant, but one of my Arenga spp. produced its first offset. Note, the two larger ones were seedlings I didn't bother to separate. This was the first year I didn't cover these (only mulch) and they lost pretty much all of their leaves and one didn't make it.

I was given around two dozen howeas about 30 years ago from a friend. They were all in 250mm containers and quite strong looking palms. At the time I received them nothing special stood out in the gift as being unique. How wrong I was in that gift was two variegated fosteriana. Over the years I watched them get more variegation and stay true to form. It’s a beautiful palm. The only thing wrong is it’s planted out of the way where it hardly gets noticed. And iam not going to clear the garden in any time soon just get a daily look at it!

A few seeds are setting on the lytocarum in garden. A fantastic palm that’s easy to grow. Super tough and very forgiving. I would say a bit slow growing to reach maturity in a subtropical climate. But once they get there they don’t look back. Very predictable and a great learning palm to grow, just put them in the shade as seedlings and away they grow.

This Encephalartos Longifolious x Horridus was buried behind other 15 gals. so I dug it out and trimmed the older leaves off to make room for the new flush. The new leaves are very fuzzy due to the Longifolious influence.

The “sap” you have is the dust and debris that collects on the fronds . When moist air cleanses the fronds that dripping mess ends up on you car . It washes off easily (unlike sap from conifers) but can still be annoying. All my large palms do this. I would recommend the Archontophoenix palms ( King or Alexandrae) . The thing with Cuban Royals ( Roystonia Regia ) is that fronds fall on their own , which is great but when the palm gets bigger can be harmful to cars and humans. Queen Palms ( Syagrus Romanzoffiana) are messy and require trimming unless you enjoy sweeping up after it flowers, and that happens a lot. There are others as well , depending if you want slow or fast growth . My first choice for ease of growth would be Archontophoenix Cunninghamiana ( King Palm) , a pair of them would look very nice in that spot. They just want lots of water . They will burn a bit when first planted and may look a bit tattered at first but will settle in and look great within a year . They can be root sensitive so care must be taken when planting them . Also , they too will flower and eventually drop pea sized fruit , but not near like the Queen palms . The fronds are self cleaning , like other crown shaft palms , but don’t weigh 40+ lbs like a Royal. Welcome to the forum . That’s my two cents opinion and worth about what you paid for it! 😂Harry

Some exciting news I’m moving to Florida this Fall - Port Orange to be exact it’s Z10A so I have the chance to grow some cool palms much easier than Texas weather permits 😅😅😅. I’ve been busy selling some palms and digging up a few I want to bring along. Seed grown Alexandre dwarf and tall form Radicalis Purpurea

I started a batch of pembana from seed a few years back, here , in Arizona. Some are just beginning to clump. Not a full sun palm in my area, but makes a great unusual patio palm or even an in ground planting on an eastern exposure. aztropic Mesa, Arizona

Burretikentia hapala peeking in...

Hanging leaf base leftover from a hurricane snapped frond. Also growing out of a little frost/freeze damage from this winter. Probably one of my favorite palms for sure. Photo taken this evening.

Here’s a little update on the smallest of the two I have. After flowering it split growth points and continued without slowing down. May be a bad way to treat these but as mentioned countless times, my yard does not support my ignorant quest for more plants so I must adapt. These leaves easily get 3ft+ so I like to trim them up so the crown is more vertical. I cut the leaves off and leave a few inches at the trunk. Within a week or so the piece falls off by itself. I do like the look and it produces cool leaf scars as well. About 9ft to the tips now. -dale

But most of all love of plants and time!

I finally have this species again, one of my favorites, so far 8 have been born

Encephalartos latifrons x altensteinii natural hybrid. This came from Loran Whitlock in around 1980. Loran got a group of 5 plants in Durban at a nursery. I've been able to acquire 2 of them over the decades. This specimen hasn't grown for 4 years, but had tremendous cataphyll spread at the apex. There are rarely, but occasionally, man-made hybrids available; but they always lack the lustrous beauty of these plants from the natural population. 21 leaves this time. This was originally an 8-inch tuber. Now it's 2 feet of stem!