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I've tried saw Palmettos in the past and I could never get one to grow, but I decided to try again and this time I decided to create artificial drainage with drainage gravel, I replaced all native soil with sand and equal parts garden soil and then topped off with pure sand. And for the first time I have a saw palmetto that's actually growing and not rotting away. I've included the drainage I've created. It's a lot deeper than it looks in the image,the idea was to make water quickly drain away down Hill.

They should trim the hedge so the Parajubaea can be seen better.

Only five hundred more years to go....

Thanks for looking

Kerriodoxa and a nice Areca vestria orange looking pretty good!

Back in the day they would have been snapped up. Here in Australia you can’t even give them away. That said if I was to go to the markets and sell my exotics, with a Joey next to a foxtail the foxy would sell not a problem. And the odds of taking the Joey home would be very high. The general public see the foxy and they think yep I want a palm and I see them around the place so the foxy it is , and the Joey comes home only to grow bigger for the next trip to the markets. If only they knew! Richard

Thanks for checking in after hurricane Lala. We had strong winds and 18.5” of rain but thankfully not too much damage. A limb on the monkey pod tree snapped and several palms had fronds torn off. A few small palms blew over but they’ve been propped back up and should be fine. Thankfully our area of the island did fairly well, it’s the southern part of the island that received a lot of flood damage.

These are at the corner of N. Delaware and 1st. Thought I would share pictures, as these are starting to clear the hedge in front. Nice old house back there too.

And that's the nub of the issue really - the huge range of A cunninghamiana. It would seem more incredible to me if the Eungella population was not at least a distinct sub species to the palms at Batemans Bay in southern NSW...nearly 1600 km to the south...a similar distance to that between San Diego and Seattle. The population at Eungella is further isolated by around 200km of Brigalow, ie seasonally dry woodland pretty hostile to palms, so there can't have been much, if any, gene flow from other populations since the formation of the Brigalow belt. It's a fascinating scenario, and would be great to get some scientific input at some point...we need a botany grad looking for a phd thesis!

I'm still very confused about about the differences between A. alexandrae, tuckeri, maxima, and myolensis - only having access to potentially mislabeled or hybridized material here in the States. A. maxima in particular is an enigma here, I think that name gets applied a lot to plants that have nothing to do with the Walsh River species. I've spent a lot of time looking at Dowe's description and any other online sources and have no confidence in being able to tell them apart, even when looking at seed. Meanwhile A. cunninghamiana displays at least as much variation across that huge range and is lumped together as one species, I agree I would love to see someone look at the genetics.

Here is an update, my Royal grew until may and died today my maximas are doing well my mango and starfruit and Barbados cherrry survived. My big coconut grew 4 new frawnds in 2 months everything is doing well. I’m just scared for this winter. Plus all my other coconuts very found around Jacksonville at random nurseries or gifts. Or found in south florida

Not exactly in Texas but I think it’s remarkable that this row of coconuts along the mainland portion of Daytona FL survived 23-24° earlier this year . Even a few Christmas palms are coming back . 😱

Dave I would place in the shade and only use organic fertiliser like fishmeal or seaweed until they re established

Iam not to sure what gives such deep red, I do know it’s anthocyanins that cause the red. But some years I get a lot of deep red colour and other years lighter red. It could be temperature, moisture, heat, cold. Whatever it is we need more of it!

Here’s an update on how this palm looks roughly two years later. It’s been a relatively fast grower for me so far and is one of the most colorful palms in my collection.

My Chrysalidocarpus Jurassic Park was showing some spear damage as it began to emerge. I posted it a while back and my friend Tom in Vista suggested possible banana moth damage. Fast forward to now and that spear is opening prematurely with clear damage. The spear is easily 4 feet shorter than prior leaves asas they began opening. Damage is also visible to the next spear that will push out. I have traded ithe growth point with hydrogen peroxide and a fungicide a few times over the last several weeks. Any other recommendations?

Here you go Matt. The palm is set back with the potted Sobralia blocking the lower portion in the full monty photo. The other angles only allow close up photos due to other plants in close proximity. My plant was acquired from Josh as a 1 gallon but I think he acquired it from Floribunda.

We got hit pretty hard by hurricane Lala With many trees down. I got very lucky that the only palm loss was a Kerriodoxa elegans that had the unfortunate fate to end up under a giant fallen Guatemalan cypress and one of my peach palms came down. The Kerriodoxa still has a spear so it will make it. I chainsawed the peach palm and will eat the heart of palm, but it’s already got suckers coming up so no problem there. We’ve had a number of hurricanes come by pretty close, but nothing was ever as bad as hurricane lala. I also learned that the damage seems to be consistent with winds coming down vertically from above as opposed to sideways, which is very weird. Several places had trees down in a 360° radius. I looked this up and it seems to be a thing with hurricanes. They’re called mini downbursts. I was pleasantly surprised by the amazing tolerance of Bismarck palms. But also very disappointed in beccariophoenix which sadly are pretty much all leaning sideways. I am going to leave them that way so they make that coconut style curve at the base. But talk about a weak palm none of them have trunks yet so perhaps they will root in better once they make a trunk. I figured the Big Island would be a pretty safe place from global warming, but clearly it’s not. The super El Niño is churning out storm after storm and Hawaiian waters are now warm enough for them to actually intensify close by. on Sunday, another tropical storm is passing by this time much further to the south.I guess you can pick your poison, either fire And drought or hurricanes. I also learned what a hurricane cut means. Most of our royal Palms are now sporting that hurricane cut. They have a very effective coping mechanism of just dropping lower leaves, which is not good for anything going under them, but they look fine. .

I assume that the damage wss incrementally worse as one progresses further south. I haven't heard anything about Leilani Estates yet.

I used to work in a kentia palm nursery and one of the jobs was counting Howea fosteriana sprouts by the thousands to send to Holland. And out of those numbers we never saw one variegated Howea. But there out there, I have seen one other one, and that was on palm talk @tim_brissy_13 has a small one. But the day my one sets seeds it will be an interesting time that’s for sure. And I actually have another one so two in the garden. I purchased 40 fosteriana about 30 years ago from a friend and they where in that lot of palms, I didn’t even notice them at the time.

My archontopheonix tuckeri in Jacksonville looking bigger

They really didn’t have a choice. It’s pretty clear in the video that they are dead/dying. It’s not some overzealous city official making a harsh decision. I’m guessing that the crew used dirty equipment in the past to trim them and introduced some pathogen. At least they are testing them before just replanting.

Here is an Ai rating of Hedyscepe canterburyana

Chucking a few more seeds in, a little rps order of some healthy looking seeds. The socratea have started to germinate so that’s a positive sign. And I know the Geonoma live in my climate so I just need to germinate a few more for the collection.

Thank you.

Oh yep, they do become a tiny problem eventually

This is as Lakes Park in Fort Myers. Very distinct from Sabal palmetto seen nearby. Leaflet tips don't droop at all, unlike the big S. causiarum types I'm used to seeing. Tons of large seed on the ground - 12mm in diameter x 8mm high. Any info?

The rainfall pattern has definitely been interesting this year even in the Panhandle. July was quite dry compared to average (supposed to be the wettest month of the year). Finished out July with 4.23". August has been much better so far and things continue to look decent in the rain department after we take a couple day long break starting likely tomorrow. Current total for August is sitting at 6.83" pending anymore rain tonight and also the medium to high rain chances that start up in the middle of next week. The last several days have honestly been exceptional. It has rained everyday since the 15th, with daily amounts varying. The storms have also been intense particularly with the lightning. Heres my daily totals since the 15th: 8/15 - 0.26" 8/16 - 0.12" 8/17 - 0.47" 8/18 - 0.90" 8/19 - 1.30" 8/20 - 1.74" 8/21 (Today so far) - 0.54" I have added 1 inch to the total for 8/20. This could very well be an underestimate. The power tried to go out at the beginning of the storm, which caused the internet to go out. For whatever reason, this caused the rain gauge to stop reporting during the heaviest part of the storm. The gauge did not report for at least 25 minutes. While other nearby stations were reporting rainfall rates up to 4 inches per hour, my station was reporting no rainfall. It was quite aggravating to say the least. The same thing may have happened on 8/19, the power actually did fully go out *twice* during that storm, but i have not had the chance to review other nearby stations to try to make an estimate for a more realistic total for that date. The palms are definitely happy, except for the Trachy. I cant seem to water that thing enough.

Well here’s the thing. If Dowes description is 100% correct, Archontophoenix cunninghamiana has ramenta on the midrib. His description doesn’t say - sometimes absent. So maybe we are looking at an undescribed species due to that one thing, or, it is Archontophoenix cunninghamiana without ramenta. Either way is purely an academic discussion. Probably worth further investigation. It’s pretty cool though.

That’s sad , I hate to see palms removed . I couldn’t read the article , subscription required. Harry

Epic lightning and thunder last night at 2-3AM, woke me up. I looked at the radar and it raining north of here between here and tampa. As it approached my place, the radar image of precipitation just vanished. Then 15-20 minutes later, the thunder roared and rumbled to the south. I am hoping rain fell in substantial amounts somewhere nearby to help relieve the drought. At my place the accumulated rainfall was so little, it didnt wet the bottom of my straight walled rain gage bucket. I'll call it getting spit on, 0.0x whatever. Still I am hoping it fell and accumulated somewhere so we can get back to normal irrigation schedules.

They certainly like cooler climates . I’m afraid I’m a little too far inland , like my friend Dave. It would probably grow but struggle . Harry These are growing very well , about 5 miles from the coast in Ventura California. Towering over the second story of apartment building where they were planted by the Sullivans. They are on the north side of the building so they got plenty of shade when they were young. When I was first introduced to these palms , they were still well below the building .

My macrocarpa is doing great in this spot and microclimate. It just opened up a new frond. Thought I would share in case anyone in the area is considering buying one. I would add Im in central Valencia, climate may differ slightly from places further north in foothills where it gets colder, like Saugus, Canyon Country. The teddy bear palm has been doing exceptionally well, it’s almost in full sun most of the day.

Thats a beauty im always down for seeds, i'll throw em around see what takes.

I will let you know. Always into sharing palms with folks! I just built a greenhouse for my seedlings , not a large scale operation by any stretch. I have many Chamaedorea Radicalis Tree form around the house ….and many seeds. I give those seeds away to folks who want them . You could just push them in the ground in the garden and they will pop up in a couple of months or so. They germinate easily and are pretty tolerant of sun and cool weather. Harry This one is about 3-4 years old , getting ready to trunk. Soon it will be over head! This was a volunteer.

It’s been a relatively mild summer compared to other years. I haven’t actually been out to Ventura in over a month. Usually I hit up Ventura for the natural ac that is the Pacific Ocean. But haven’t needed to this year. If you ever have any pup palms you wanna sell let me know I can meet you up!

It’s probably climate. But wow what a striking beauty. I have another spear forming, so hopefully it opens up to a deeper red.

No , I have regular business there . We are out there two to three times a week. Right now I have a lot of work for a vendor out that way . Yesterday was the hottest I’ve seen in a while , usually it is in the 90,s. I can watch the temp climb as I drive the 126 through Filmore and Piru . Harry

Mine is in full sun now and the red is not near as prominent . For 15 years or more it was much more pronounced and it would last well over a week. I planted it as a seedling in the shade of other palms. It flowers regularly , right now it has two spathes , but no fruit yet. I have found that deep watering helps it fight the burning leaf problem . They can handle lots of water , in fact it is necessary in warmer or hot climates. Harry

Nice Harry did you go to six flags?

Wow thats such a deep red, mine is more of a variegated red.

Looks terrific , thanks for sharing . I was just out in Valencia (Old Road) today and it was 101f ! You must be doing something right. Harry

Beautiful little palm, with a nice white backdrop should highlight for all to see from the street and make em go wow! It doesn’t matter where they are, you get a big impact statement for not a lot of trouble of growing.

I gotta say that i really enjoyed this thread. I don't know anyone else into the gardening game, so it was a good reminder to me that the hard freeze was an actual event and not just god spiting me personally.

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.

Possible transplant shock and cool ground temperatures. You may want to back off on watering if you've been doing it religiously. At least until the cool fronts stop in another week or so.

Here’s a “before and after photo” of this planter area that was the first planter area worked on. This is about 2.5 years of growth! Pretty amazing 2022: 2024: