Leaderboard

Yeah. Never go back to your old property I reckon. It’s torture. On a brighter note by Beccariophoenix alfredii are doing well. They’re a great species for down here. I’ve got plans to plant more. I’ve got some bursting out of 45L pots waiting for me to get the soil levels right in new areas. I hope I can get my Roystonea regia to take. Maybe I’ll put rocks around the base to soak up the summer heat and radiate back at night to try and keep soil temps high.

Think I planted 3 in 2005 not realizing they were clumping. One clump died some years ago. Growing NICELY here and even some seedlings popping up. Pictures are from 2009 and 2022

Only had 2 out of 3 planted Washingtonias survive over the winter. Here is the growth difference from a year and two months ago. Palms are thriving even after almost complete defoliation. The last picture shows the one that died in the front with the other two that lived behind it, picture taken after winter ended. I was very impressed with the resiliance and growth speed of these palms. They grew back almost full frond heads after a few months of freezing weather going away.

Pembanas get big. These were planted about 15 years ago from 1 or 2 gallon pots.

This one is a native Floridian orchid growing on one of my Christmas palms. It always sends out a huge display mid May through June. Mixed in is a bromeliad compacta which self attached to the tree from the ground. It's all at eye level so maybe 5 feet from the soil. I always look forward to the display. Gets bigger every year.

I saw one but stayed away, I tried but it started pouring rain and thundering so much I couldn’t see more then 15 feet so we turned back. I will be back and am not giving up. lol it was nice to see the palms around atleast and found a wild patch of thrachys and some other cool plants. Sorry about that.

The Roystonia Oleracae is a better alternative to the Regia , in areas that can grow them . The fronds are no more deadly than a large Archontophoenix. True , not quite the statement as a Regia , but very nice looking palm with a more slender trunk . They are , as our friend @DoomsDave says , “swamp things” . Meaning they love tons of water . Harry

Can you identify the gender of those flowers? Petals seem still closed but I am not sure if I will be nearby during actual anthesis.

Paging @happypalms ! He , as well as others , can tell you instantly . Harry

Off topic …but now that you bring it up , it is cool to have “the world at our fingertips tips” but it comes with responsibility . I like having a camera with me at all times with no film to mess with . I also see the dark side to it all. My daughter can’t imagine how we survived without technology!! Having things like Palm Talk to communicate with people like you is worth the negative side of tech. Frond friends , Harry

The local government councils put large cable ties on the ones in public parks and gardens, too avoid any law suits and for public safety.

With the electric companies doing vegetation removal around the powerlines, it was time for a talk to the contractors on getting a bit of mulch from them. With winter almost upon the southern hemisphere it’s time for a winter blanket. This should help keep the roots warm and retain some moisture and give the new palms a bit of a feed. A handful of chicken pellets and a good top dressing of mulch this should help the new plantings get set up for summer.

Tip of the iceberg…

If the wife is onboard that’s the hardest d part done with🤣 Iam sure a weekend of potting up and a good dose of Harry’s love will soon see them being planted in the ground. The new updates are great, palmmod iam sure has enough bombshells of this is not working we’re is this and this is too slow. There doing a great job, iam no computer boffin and what is copy and paste! I know I can grow palms and that’s all need to know for now, the computer world has been forced onto us by governments so they can save money. I appreciate saving a tree from the paper pulp mill, but not everyone has the skills for computers, yes you can learn and everything I do learn about a computer I forget if iam not doing it to remember. We never had computers at school like a lot of us. Richard

I germinated some at room temperature, never stratified. They took a long time and germination was sporadic. The seedlings grew incredibly slowly and eventually I ended up with no plants but only started with a very few seeds - less than 10 of which maybe 4 germinated.

I got one too. This one is 2 years from germination. I planted it last fall. I collected the seed in Phoenix, AZ in Jan 2024.

@Harry’s Palms there are a few surviving Foxtails in the area. I've been watching a bunch in nearby neighborhoods. Some were chopped down in March and April, but a few others appear to be growing new spears. It sure looks like the cold death threshold is somewhere around 25 or so. Speaking of that, my mutant Whole Leaf/Idolatrica Elaeis Guineensis has pushed two stubs and two new fronds! These are small and a little damaged, but a good start on what (hopefully) will be a recovery in the summer. I hadn't trunk cut my front yard Beccariophoenix Fenestralis, but over the past 2 weeks the remaining green in the inner crown turned brown. So today I trunk cut the top to expose some white tissue. Here's before: And afterwards: There's white bits of what looks like 3 spears, but surrounded by the rotten remains of three other dead stubs. I did a couple of BIG pours of hydrogen peroxide with the expected bubbling up into a foamy mess. It doesn't smell rotten like a McDonalds dumpster, so I'm hoping it has a chance too. I'm going to keep up the H2O2 and Daconil and see if anything moves.

Interesting reading about everyone's experiences in different locales, and also the differences between the species. Here in San Diego, I have a couple of borinquenas that are glorious. Although they're big palms, the base's don't seem to get those massive proportions that I've seen on regia. On the other hand my neighbor & I got a couple of princeps from Floribunda years ago because we'd heard that they have more slender proportions. Ah, no; at least assuming that they are the real deal. They're much thicker palms from top to bottom.

8 Zamia inermis seedlings- hand pollinated, completely unarmed, my large plants survived 27F here with no damage. $60 for all 8 plus Shipping, Box, & Spaghum moss.Beachpalms@cfl.rr.com

So get things moving heres a tray of Adonidia dransfeildia! in pots

Purchased this as pembana years ago as a one gallon. Probably in ground for 10 years. Trunk height about 7 to 8 feet to bottom of tallest crownshaft. OA maybe 12 feet. Almost a teal color trunk. Flared base. Size 11 shoe for scale. Tristichous growth pattern to leaves. Small red fruits when ripe. Which is it? Cabadae or pembana? I heard that pembana is larger in all aspects and faster growing with less trunks. Just want to be sure. I don't have a cabadae to compare it to. Just doesn't seem as overly large to me being pembana as I would assume. Thanks for any help. Garrett

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.

I am so happy for you ! It is rewarding to bring palms back from distress. I hope that white tissue turns to new growth . I have learned a lot from reading your posts , in particular , about nutrients . You have helped several of us through our growing maladies. Thank you . Harry

Not the tuerckheimii in your list???

Looks like a nasty case of boron deficiency to me. I have no idea how you would treat it, but maybe @Merlynwould know. Good luck, and welcome to Palmtalk!

After living here and growing these for 15 years you understand that normally the oldest green stems snap off and leave the crownshafts on the tree in gale force wind which has been is a every year event. Those crownshafts dont come down wet as there is no leverage from the stem to pry them off. If a crownshaft is in place the leaf above wont come off without big wind. If I had small children, I probably wouldnt plant these at least not inside the fenced in part of the yard where they are planted. I think other palms are more dangerous to be under while trimming them. I have also planted other palms around my royals to :catch" a falling leaf. This one has satakentia and livistona saribus on either side. It is open towards the camera so that direction would be an angular risk area to be avoided if the stems of the oldest leaves were over it. My other royal has a large B alfredii we walk under. That BA will catch a falling royal leaf and will not break. In bradenton we have tons of publicly planted royals. I think the city is proactive in leaf removal as I have not seen a dead royal leaf on the street in 15 years. I don't even see the leaflets turning half brown on the public ones. I cant speak for other areas in SW FL and how they maintain their landscaping. When I lived in CA everyone talked about earthquakes and what to do in the event of one. California also had scary fires. We lived in the bay area during the santa rosa fires in 2018(?). The fires were the most scary danger to me. IN Florida, its hurricanes and gators. I see gators often, a few times a week when I daily walk my dog. But I never get closer than 30-40 feet away as I know they wont chase at that distance. My yard is fenced(aluminum) in a design that makes it extra tough to climb, nothing to grab onto for the buggers, so I don't have to worry about gators cruising through it at night when they tend to travel over land. they did try to dig under the fence 2x and I just buried pavers there to stop them. You learn to mitigate risk wherever you live. Part of that is learning what not to do. I see my royals every day so I am watching them dry out. I expected that leaf to come down, just didnt think the crownshaft would be so wet. I would really miss mine if I had to move as they stand tall and regal creating my top canopy for understory. Much like tall ceilings in a room make a room feel bigger, tall canopy makes a yard space feel more expansive. Then there is the much appreciated shade these palms bring, makes the outdoors tolerable for an extra month or two a year. Tyrone how are your B. Alfrediis doing? I remember you had several in a grove? Those should create a great ambience. Yeah my last place in arizona got dug up and "sterilized". Lots of palm removals and the brahea armatas sabal bermudana, and livistona are "hurricane cut" to 5 to 6 stunted leaves. The word "idiot" comes to mind. The palms and shrubs have been given the banzai treatment and look terrible. Pencil pointiung from overtrimming of a livistona rigida and its only 3-4' tall(doubled in height) after 15 years. No palm that still exists has grown notably in a vertical direction after 15 years. They "pineapple palmed" the bismarckias too, which look stunted. Cutting lots of viable leaves on every palm, maybe 3/4 of the crowns are gone. Everything looks like its a few years from death in that difficult climate. The queens were robust, 25' tall carrying 8-10 leaves each now carry 3-4 leaves that look dried out, and they have abnormally thin trunks, ughhh! I hadnt looked in at least 5 years. I am done looking back, it feels terrible to know that the majority of what I grew is either ripped out or living a tortured existence underwatered.

Wallichia densifolia new leaf, and the Chambeyronia off in the distance. And a nice bit of colour with the Chambeyronia, dypsis cabadae and archontophoenix purperea!

@Tyrone i hope you have success , they are lovely palms . The R. Regia has proven to be quite resilient here in Southern California . I just didn’t have room at the time . It had to be tough to have your prior collection removed by the new owners. My old house still has a lot of the palms I planted 30 years ago. Every time I pass by on my way home , I get a smile . I was only there 7 years so a lot of my collection was still potted and got planted here . I don’t know if the greenhouse is still in the backyard , I really miss that feature. Harry

El Nino hasn't even set in yet.. June = escaping the Spring Unpredictability Barrier. We won't have a solid idea of what lies ahead until Mid July ..at the earliest.. Even then? Winter is still months away. What could happen at that time? = won't come into focus until late September / Early October.. While there are assumed ideas regarding what kinds of patterns a warm ENSO cycle ( = El Nino ) might bring to various parts of the U.S. come winter, First thing anyone who actually wants to understand ENSO needs to understand, right from the start, is: Just because we may experience an El Nino this winter, that DOESN"T always = a wet winter ..be it in CA / the Southwestern U.S. ..OR in FL. / The southeastern U.S. ..Or in both regions during the same cycle.. Many other Wx Pattern factors can change how things are " supposed " to go. Highly suggest looking at 2015 -16 as a perfect example of what doesn't always happen, in CA at least. Better yet, look here... 👇 👇 👇 See / learn how to read the various graphs over the coming months, laid out, here: *** If the link below doesn't work? Go to: The Pacific Forecast section over on Storm Surf, then open the " ENSO Powertool " link, located at the bottom left hand side of that page, below the " SST Anomaly Projections " parahgraph on the PAC. Forecast page. *** https://www.stormsurf.com/page2/links/ensocurr.html Creator of Storm Surf, Mark Sponslor, also does a weekly bi-weekly You tube update on how things are looking. And ..Esp. for those of us in this part of the world, Link below, and the link above, are the only sources to get your info from regarding how things may ..or may not.... develop over the coming months. https://weatherwest.com/ Additionally: https://www.palmtalk.org/forum/topic/76715-enso-la-nina-el-nino-history-forecast/

I have some pictures that I took a few days ago. I'm growing 3 Filiferas. The two in the backyard seem to finally grow faster after being in the ground for three years. The one in front, I grew from seed, grows way faster and has been in the ground only for two years.

My Roystonia Oleracae drops its fronds on occasion . I try to cut the fronds from the base prior to it happening to reduce the risk of any damage to my other palms. The Oleracae isn’t nearly as heavy as Regia ( also a bit more tender to grow) . I chose it because it is not as massive as the Regia . The tree is getting to the point of being too tall to reach though. Harry This was a couple of winters ago after a trimming of the Syagrus on the left . I was told that it would not survive in my area so I planted it under the Queen Palm for a bit of protection.

Just plant it in the asap, what’s the best way to grow a palm, plant it in the ground! The loose plant in the container is possibly from over potting over the cultivation process. Mishandling perhaps, it may have pulled out of the container at one stage during been moved around, many factors in play on that one. But dont panic plant your palm and happy gardening!

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. 🌴🌴🌴🦜🦜

Just keep your eyes open for water moccasins.

My Cycas thouarsii has several caudices flushing. Actually that isn't quite accurate, it is more like a couple of dozen. I started with five plants and each has a plethora of pups. The aall is visible again but not for long. These flushes need head room to grow without being tangled.

Bizzy Update - 5/22/26 It's trying. It has pushed out everything from the spear pull, but thats about all so far. Its not moving very quickly, but it is moving. Just gonna let it do its own thing. Ill continue water and probably fish emulsions for now until it gets something other than a stub pushed out.

You’re definitely warmer than my area! Great recovery!

While definitely not something that would get as large as say Bauhinia purpurata or variegata can, " More tree -like " vs " more large shrub -like " appearance is often influenced by factors like water availability and humidity < What i've noticed in all the specimens i've seen here anyway > ..and how it is trained of course < Held down by regular trimming, vs. encouraged to grow taller.. > Pink flowered specimen i see regularly enough seems to be naturally denser / shorter than the standard white form. " Patio -tree " -sized now though. ..If anything, the taller, tree -esque specimens would resemble something like a Western or AZ Redbud ( Yes, we have our own Cercis sp also ) .. ....Generally airy and not too dense of a canopy ..and generally topping out somewhere between 8 to 15ft, under ideal conditions / handling. Spectacular when in flower though obviously, just like Cercis. Ideal humidity and plentiful warm season rainfall = Imagine it would attain the taller end of the size spectrum in FL, much like TX. Olive can.

This is Bauhinia monandra which is native to Guatemala. My plant is just beginning to leaf out again after winter so the pics are from past years. It blooms from April to December and only grows to about 8'.

Such a nice palm. Seems underrated in cultivation and has a lot of desirable traits; not too large, neat habit and striking silver abaxial surfaces. I suspect slow growth put off many.

Dypsis cabadae planted 27 years ago in a 1 gallon container. 25 + ft looking down on the 🥭 mango tree 🌳

Mine was a pretty big group before my Silky Saw got involved. I bought it knowing I wanted to cut it up so I had no intention on saving anything besides a couple of the biggest “trunks”. I left a pretty big rootball and just cut the offspring off at the base and left the roots. This likely ensured the ones left had ample roots. If it was just planted, it’ll be able to dig pretty easy. I’ve moved things that were in the ground for nearly 6 months with no ill effect. If you don’t separate, it will continue to clump heavily. That’s not the look I wanted for that location. -dale

@EmarohlI think the leaves are too wide to be Lutescens. It looks like my young Pembana, but could also be Lanceolata. I really don't know how to tell them apart at this size.

I just purchased this dypsis pembana recently and I’m wondering whether that’s what this really is. The petioles on some of them look green like d. pembana but some of them look yellow like d. lutescens. Is it maybe a combination of the two in the same pot?

Dypsis pembana seedling goes outside...

Of the clumping Dypsis species I'm growing, Dypsis pembana has been both the fastest and largest in terms of trunk diameters and in overall height. I have one D onilahensis which has been faster in gaining height, but don't think it will ultimately get as large as tall as the pembanas and definitely has a narrower gauge trunk than any of the pembanas. The only thing that has been slow about the Dypsis pembanas I have grown is their size and age to flower. I have had stunted inflorescence but this year one of my solitary is actually producing flowers after a decade in the ground from a 7 gallon size.

Two pembana babies. One red one green. Same batch of seed from same mother. Ponder that.

They grow fast here in Florida, here is one of mine (far left). This is a years growth, it would have been even faster but I moved all my palms, including this one from Cape Coral to St Pete last summer so they had some transplant shock.

Yes. Pembana clusters less, gets larger and is much more robust and cold hardier than either cabadae or lanceolata.

Here on O`ahu's dry side planted back in 2005 from one gallon pots. I think I put two potted plants in the ground.