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Many flowers over the years. First time I’ve seen seeds. Will see if they turn out viable. 20’ish years old from a 20 gallon. Dana Point, CA

I’ve been observing this palm for probably 50 years now. It was planted at Two Harbors Catalina island around 1920-28. Its looking better now than a few years ago due to the drought ending. It gets only rain, no irrigation.

I have had received some interest in this elegant Malagasy species that I have been growing, and I'll take a little time to present some pictures and comments. Seeds from RPS were sown in July 2008. Good germination, four plants were planted out in April 2014. Here is a pic of the quartet taken a few days ago: I took another pic (in rare full sun) from a different angle with a lawn chair for scale: The pinnate portions of dead leaves tend to break off, leaving numerous very thick leaf bases that exceed in toughness any other genus I can think of at the moment. Here is the largest one. Smaller palms next to the left are Dypsis (still Dypsis) rivularis. For a while, plants of the two species were of identical height. Two larger palms in the distance are Clinostigma exorrhizums. Inflors are two or more feet long, very straight and vertical, emerging from those tough leaf bases. Three of mine have produced them - I'm not sure which sex they are. Here are two that fell off after dying. This species is among my favorites. They do trunk after sufficient time, as I have seen in published photos. But I am in no hurry for that.

So when we do that, the flowers open within about 48 hours and then begin getting some pollination for seeds. Crazy, this is the only species that this is a problem with. Weird. First picture is today’s surgery. The second & third has some surgery that we did about six weeks ago.

An update at the end of July, 2026.

The bismarck palm is a very fast grower and a good trouble free choice for beginners. This one has 6 new spears at the ready, and will replace the entire existing crown over the next 2 months. aztropic Mesa, Arizona

Been awhile since I’ve posted photos of the Dictyocaryum in the garden. Over the years it’s evident that they are a bit out of their element in my garden, but are still beautiful nonetheless. Out of the original four, two faded away, the remaining two are powering on, although one took a hit from the months long drought last year. It seems to be rebounding as of late.The difference is apparent in the photos. Finicky at this lower elevation tropical climate. Always keeps me guessing. Tim

Hey all, here’s something I can’t quite figure out. My neighbor and I have a couple of this species and they throw out flower spathes regularly. But they simply never open on their own. So… We’ve taken to performing surgery to free up the flowers.. The thickness of the spathe is just crazy thick. We have found that if we simply allow them to sit, eventually the contents of the spathe will just get moldy-and yet never open. We are generally perplexed at why this is happening, but it is what it is. It actually requires a combination of a sawzall, a vibrating saw, and some clippers deftly used to remove the woody section without damaging the flowers excessively. The walls are thicker than my thumb is wide.

A nice little 18 year old dypsis louvelli goes in the garden at the end of winter. I have been waiting a long time to plant this special one, one rare palm!

Another one

Formerly Peckerwood Garden and Yuccado Nursery. Located in Pine Island, Texas. Brahea dulcis Sabal uresana Brahea berlandieri, Sabal uresana,Nolina nelsonii Serenoa repens Dioon edule, Nolina nelsonii Sabal causiarum Agave ‘Miquihuana Silver’ Brahea berlandieri Brahea berlandieri Brahea moorei Brahea dulcis Agave victoriae-reginae Yucca linearifolia Sabal uresana Nannorhops ritchiana

If you want a palm that’s easy to grow and fit into any reasonable small space, the feather palm, wedding palm or the lytocarum weddlianum is the one. Easy to grow and germinate, single plants will set viable seeds. Quite cool and dry tolerant. Perfect understory or bright light palm. An absolute beauty of a great palm that’s gives a lot of effect for little work!

I was looking at some rainforest in north qld the other day and spotted these palms. Lots of purple on these ones.

I originally bought this copernicia alba from Ken Johnson. It had 3'+ of trunk in mid august 2011, with a tiny crown due to sitting in 90 gal pot for years. Ken said nobody wanted it and he recommended it to me. It was delivered with a few other specimen palms(C oliviformis). Over the years I notice that each year a bunch of spears(~10 or more) at the same height rose up and pushed the previous years leaves down towards the horizontal. The new leaves open pretty quickly when the palm is ready. They can be seen separated against the sky fromt he old ones in a cluster. It reminds me of a new flush of flowers. SO I use the term "flush" when a good number of leaves open is quick succession( a couple weeks). A couple days ago against a story sky but some sun peeking through at my back I took a pic to show the "flush". The only other palm I have that does this is P, rupicola. The rest take a week or more between the opening of spears. This palm was hit by Hurricane Milton and lost some was as leaflets were bent. It was one of the better performers of the well exposed palms in my yard. Here it is with the dead leaves from Milton still hanging on. You can see this years flush is separated from last years by angle to the horizontal. As you can see its in sandy soil and has a little clay underneath at 2'. Its not in a wet spot irrigation or soil wise, and it did suffer in this drought but looks ready to go after the recent rains. The leaves are now self shedding to a smooth trunk the latest 3' of trunk(out of view here). Does anyone else out there have an alba story or a newly planted alba?

A species that probably doesn’t get much attention on here - Gaussia maya. It’s been bulletproof for me on a north facing brick wall which probably helps with additional heat retention. Love the chunky base, will look great when the leaf bases start to fall off.

Thanks for looking

Macrozamia johnsonii I grew from seed is now coning. 1996-2026. These are large plants with 10ft+ leaves.

This is a big boy. Thick, heavy trunk 25 feet from the soil line to the top of the tallest branches. Dead knock off for a cocos, if it wasn’t so thick at the trunk!

Lovely crownshaft of young Chrysalidiocarpus sp. mayotte. Almost looks like it should be in a pastry shop…

Arenga micrantha and Engleri, two species that grow very well here and are also resistant to light frost

Hey there everyone. Its been a while. Had a rough NYC winter this year. Lots of snow and cold wet weather. Windmill Palm took a little beating!! But still thriving! 16ft to top of crown, 12ft to top of trunk. Just gave her a prunning. Unfertlized seeds avaliable.. not sure if you can pollinate them? Good luck to all this winter!! Bobby

Time to weed the lava and misc AM light…

I have two satakentias from ken johnsons farm, planted out in early 2019 with 2-3' trunk. I also have a smaller one I grew from a 4" seedling in 2021 that was planted in early 2025 is now 6-7' overall. They are great palms and the trunks are pretty thick. I will quote ken " ythey are emergent palms so they like shade when young but with size they take the sun well. The trunk at the crownshaft is about 8-9" caliper, definitely more than my archies and all my other crownshafted palms except for the royals. They hate frost with a couple upper leaves burning a couple years ago. They do look a lot more colorful in sunlight after shedding a leaf. Here is one of mine, they trunks/crownshafts glow in the distance in sun. No sign of inflorescences yet. closeup of the same palm to see the crownshaft color a week or so after a new leaf was dropped Easily my prettiest crownshafted palm. I checked the trunk measurements, 8 1/2' clear trunk as of today.

M amicarum seems to be building some momentum…

After over a year of waiting, some Butia lallemantii is showing activity!

A few R. Sapida in SF

I just happened upon this article published this past April, documenting the rediscovery of a species of Ravenea not definitively documented since its original description in 1927. The species is Ravenea latisecta, and there have been a few possible sightings in the ensuing 99 years, although apparently virtually all of these were misidentified, most turning out to be R. robustior or R. madagascariensis,. According to the article, there are no documented specimens in cultivation. So this is apparently quite a find and gives some hope for other species that have been "hiding" while presumed extinct. You can download the article from ResearchGate here.

Mid summer is the time for Becarriophoenix to rock!

Best contribution I can make to this thread. Got a few sprouts growing nicely but I’m aware this is the easy part. Time will tell whether I can keep them happy long term here but I’ve been inspired by some success in cool climates. Not sure whether to fear my frosts or occasional extreme heat for this species. Probably both!

Dypsis mirabilis with strings of pop beads. Tim

Veitchia

Kerriodoxa elegans, Johannesteijsmannia altifrons, Geonoma atrovirens, iguanura wallichiana var major, Areca vestria red form, sabinara magnifica, reinhardtia gracilis, chamaedoreas are must have, variegated rhapis. Then there are Zamias, Cerotazamias they all compliment palms and there are many of them to collect. Good luck once the palm bug bites you it’s a whole new world of plants!

Pinanga sp.’Thai mottled dwarf’, or at least sold as such.

And here are some random updated photos of the garden. Too many to list names but just ask if you have any questions about IDs.

Life has been busy and I haven’t had much time to be on PalmTalk or work on new plantings in the garden. It’s just mowing and weed wacking like crazy over here. But I did just find some time and inspiration to get a few new plantings in the ground so I wanted to document them here. I’ll post some updated pictures of the garden as well, after the new plantings. First up is Chrysalidocarpus Mijoroana: Next up is somewhat of a mystery. My old garden had a Chrysalidocarpus Pembanus hybrid (most likely crossed with Madagascariensis). I tried many times to get seed to sprout and only ever got 2 to germinate. So this is an F2 Chrysalidocarpus Pembanus hybrid, most likely crossed again with something in my old garden: And then I was able to plant some smaller Dypsis in the jungle area. Dypsis Beentjei: Dypsis Maranoseta:

Lehmannii and whitelockii

Here’s Jayne Mansfield my big Roystonea oleracea. Makes my heart sing to look at that lovely thing. And my big regia in the background.

Iam lucky enough to live near the habitat of linospadix monostachya. They make a fantastic garden palm, predictable size and growing patterns. They flourish with good water, cool tolerant wet deep shade understory is there perfect habitat. Somewhat similar growth habit to lytocarum weddlianum and similar growing conditions being a little dry tolerant once established. They look amazing in habitat by the hundreds covering the forest floor under the canopy.

Spring is only another 5weeks away, now is the danger time for any of the new plantings, so far so good with only one palm taking a bit of burn.

Some blueberries on the dreadlocks. Also my breakfast raspberry substitute fresh off the guava tree. Yellow.

Hydriastele splendida living up to its name. Tim

Chambeyronia macrocarpa var flavopicta on a rare sunny Melbourne winter day - this show never gets old. It produces exactly 2 new fronds per year for the last few years. Every late July it will open a frond which stays red longer in the cooler weather than the one that opens in summer.

Yea spelling wrong. To hard to look up on phone. Any way growing nice under shower tree

This genus is terribly difficult for me to differentiate between them. Even more than young Pritchardia, and that’s saying something. Nonetheless, here are two that were purchased either as argentea or maybe argentata..they’re similar in speed of growth and having silver backed leaves. Here you go!

Ceratozamia sancheziae

Here are a few cycas currently flushing around the garden. Cycas maconochiei Cycas siamensis. I grew this from seed I got about 20 years ago. A Cycas siamensis “dwarf” in the foreground that was flushing and got smashed by a Bismarkia palm frond from a storm that passed through a few night ago. In the background is another Cycas siamensis flushing. Cycas revoluta was pretty common around here until a few years ago. Scale has killed off most of them but I’ve been able to keep this one in check. It seems to like my soil prep area.

Ever so subtle.

Freshly drizzled Pinanga & K elegans.