Leaderboard

Welcome to Palm Talk Jack. My brother immigrated to Australia many years ago and I don't think it was all that hard. He is still there (since 1988) and will probably be there until he dies. Another country in the same area you might want to consider is New Zealand. From everything I have read it is an extremely well run country (financially) with a reasonable tax structure. I know my brother loves it there and if he didn't have a business in Australia, he would consider living there. Of course, the weather is not as palm friendly as Brisbane would be.

Welcome Jack. It's great to see new palm affictionates from Europe joining palmtalk. We used to have a palm collector from Slovakia posting here often, a few years ago...and he used to work in Bratislava, I guess. I know he was growing several Sabals, Phoenix, Trachies and Washies, most of them indoors...his name is Jan Matiaska, maybe he can help you with some extra seedlings... Hopefully you'll succeed in moving to Australia when possible. Brisbane area sounds like a great place to live and plant palms...and a very comfortable climate...Keep an eye on Wal's posts and photos here...and make sure to show us your own, sometimes... Cheers

For IPS Members, there will now be a 2000 KB per post limit for attachment uploads. This means you may display many more thumbnails in each post. You will find this more convenient if you have a lot of photos to post. In addition this will further reduce the amount of scrolling necessary for those threads that utilize thumbnails. There is no way for me to place a limit on each pic's size. As a result, you may now upload one 1900 KB photo, or nineteen 100 KB photos per post. I would encourage you to still attempt to keep photos to a reasonable size. Anything over 350-400 KB does not make the photo any better for our purposes. So any photo larger than that is an unnecessary burden on our storage.

Sabal bermudiana is on the right side and B rosei is on the left 01/2006 10/2006 10/2007 08/2009 today

I arrived at my beach house this afternoon an did a quick inspection ( it was quick due to the many mosquitoes following me)and was thirilled to find a female Bismarckia setting seed.I have a grove of nine , seven are mature and have about a meter of clear trunk.One male has been flowering for the past two years.Earlier this month I noticed a new male flowering and finally a female as well. The seven largest palms I germinated from seed from Inge Hoffman eleven years ago.The seeds origin was listed as Thailand. This might be a common event for many of you where Bismarckias have been established for a longer time but here in Guatemala Bismarckias are still very uncommon. Partial view of the grove with the potential male on the left

Again, not tropical, but... These grow with such ease in the NE and mid-Atlantic region, mainly due to the acid soil.

Welcome, Jack! I understand your wish to move and leave "good old, but cold Europe" and I wish you the best for planning this step.

Yeah, it's dry here - long, hot summers, but this forum is perfect for me because the climate in Andalucia is identical to southern California. You'll notice that SoCal and Florida are the two "base camps" for palm growers here! Still, I have a polytunnel greenhouse and I'm growing around 120 species, both outdoors and under plastic. I'm an Englishman in Spain, making the most of the weather.

Welcome Jack! As mentioned, there are plenty of members here from challenging climates, including a young Swedish lady who drags her large palms indoors and outdoors every day during spring! I hope you find all the info you need here.

Thanks Kris. I enjoyed that video. Hasn't the world changed since 1932. It's amazing looking at a peaceful place like Ceylon pre WW2. Sri Lanka has had nothing but trouble since. A bit sad about the baby elephants being ripped from there mothers and then made to tear down their old jungle homes when they're older. The coconut is one of the most amazing plants on earth. Best regards Tyrone

What is the photo size limit for non-IPS members? Is it 250kb? I thought it was 300kb Bill

Earthworms in potted palm seedling trays is bad for other reasons. They break the soil down into glug, impeding drainage, which in a pot is disasterous, though not a problem in the ground. But earthworms eating live plant material isn't as bad as it sounds, as they'll eat weeds too. This test was done in a lab. Maybe the soil sample they had them in was devoid of something they needed so they started eating living tissue. Best regards Tyrone

Migrating to Australia is not as hard as migrating to US, that's for sure. It is definitely easier if you have postgraduate education. What field are you teaching in University? Engineering or science is much preferable too... as we are having skill shortage (again!!) at the moment. A lot of engineers (from UK, South Africa, etc) come in with 457 visa to fill in the gaps. What do you want to know about Brisbane? I used to live there for 3 years before moving to the Northern Territory. Although, the QLD members might be able to help you better. Regards, Ari

Eucalyptus has very hard shelled pods we call "Gum Nuts". After flowering they get larger and harden, finally going brown. Usually while still up in the tree they open one end and the seed begins to fall out. So it's best to pick the gum nuts when they start to go brown and keep them in a paper bag. They'll still open on their own and you can shake out the seed, which does have a lot of "chaff" with it. A lot of our parrots feed on gum nuts and they accidentally drop lots of them. So it's not difficult to find gum nuts on the ground with seed still in them.

Jack! Welcome to the mob, and you will be at home. Australia, from what I hear, is a hard place to immigrate to, but, well worth it. (I've thought about it myself a time or two.) So, what plants do you now have? As you'll see or have seen, being in Europe doesn't stop a lot of people here, including Verena (Germany) and all the people from Holland, France, etc.

You have to keep piling on mulch as we all do when growing palms, don't we, don't we ?

I am not convinced......so there.

I live approx. 35 miles from Palm Desert, and if i did live there, I'd try a coconut. Oh wait, I'm trying one now, where I live! I agree with Jim from los Altos, that having an ideal climate for that plant's specific habitat is great. However, with a little care, attention, and reverence for the palm, certain species that the encyclopedia would say "not a chance" actually can grow, and do very well. Of course, it is a lot more work, misting systems and shade cloth for some palms in the summer, along with cotton insulated burlap sacks and christmas lights to the winter, it is at times often challenging, however in my mind, more rewarding! As far as the Salton Sea goes, i've never seen the cocos there. I've been out there a bunch on the way to glamis for big winter weekends to ride motorcycles and such. However, I do not doubt for a second that they were there, and looked good. The Salton Sea is in fact, a microclimate in itself. It's below sea level....! Doesn't that blow your mind? A stretch of land hundreds of miles away from the ocean, and yet, it is below it! Kind of cool I think. With some clever watering tactics, I fully believe a coconut is totally doable out there. In response to everyone that says no palm people are in Palm Desert, and its surrounding areas, allow me to enlighten you. I think if you were to go around in my town and ask people if they liked palms, the majority would say "yes." But people are only going to know what they see at their local nurseries and home depot, and all they carry are washies, robies, queens, butias, and canarys. Every once in a while you'll see a breahea edulis, and that's a treat. The fact is, most "non'-palmers" don't know that there's much else out there. Hell I didn't. Until a friend told me about Phil Bergman and Jungle Music. After one visit, I've bought every palm book i can get my hands on, ordered every t-shirt from dypsis dean i can get, joined palm talk, gone to PSSC tours and meetings, and basically, got the disease overall. So if we want to see more varities and more members from palm talk in the desert areas, its up to us to educate, advertise, and hype the Palm-igion! FINS!

This thread only just now attracted my attention. It should not have been allowed to remain here, since the very first post by Rafael mentions an international plant shipment without a phytosanitary certificate. The IPS, needless to say, does not condone illegal plant shipments and any mention of this type of activity will result in the thread being deleted. I'm leaving this thread here for the simple reason that I want this to be known. Future threads WILL be deleted.

Wal, I am not sure of what you speak, other than a request for assistance from every member to help with the reporting of inappropriate or misplaced posts here and there. We have two Spanish speakers, Carlo Morici and ViveroLaVida, helping with the moderation of the Spanish Forum, and PiousPalms is helping with the Palm Exchange. Kathryn and PiousPalms helped a lot recently sorting out the validity of any IPS Member designations. And Bo helps with IPS policies and some thread and post management. But that's about it.