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It’s often hot and dry in my coastal valley location in the summer but Hedescepe do exceptionally well despite that. Not sure how AI would rate my area but, as long as the palm is in shade or partial sun and watered often it will be happy.

I've been back for a few weeks now, but I looked through my photos again while writing up newsletter articles for Hawaii Island Palm Society and IPS about the World Palm Symposium in Singapore and I want to send a shout out to all you Palm Talkers out there. My husband and I attended the Palm Propagation Workshop: From Seed to Seedling at the Pasir Panjang Nursery, part of the Centre for Urban Greenery and Ecology. Anton van der Schans, Principal Horticulturalist at Gardens by the Bay, talked about planting strategies for remote germination (when the leaf forms at the end of a long tube and the seedling establishes itself away from the seed) vs adjacent germination (when the leaf emerges from the seed). Anton was using Palm Talk posts to illustrate planting strategies for remote germinating species - there was a thread that had many photos showing seeds propped on pvc or bamboo posts, the umbilical cord leading to a pot with an emerging leaf. Anton also used a thread discussing the division of clumping palms - shown on the screen in the photo. We were just talking to Fred Stauffer from the Conservatory and Botanical Garden of the City of Geneva about his problems growing Hyphaene in a conservation nursery in Africa the previous day. He asked the group about the best way to get help from growers for these kind of field studies and conservation projects as some of these species are very difficult to grow. Several people immediately suggested the PalmTalk forum. I'd love to see more of that kind of interaction and talking about Palm Talk at this symposium and having it being used in a workshop is a big step toward promoting this kind of interaction. I was so glad I went to the symposium and got to see the impact of the IPS grant programs, Palm Talk, funding for Save the Species projects. The IPS helped fund the travel expenses for 14 attendees from developing nations which represent much of the palmy regions in the world. Thank you for making Palm Talk such an important resource for anyone trying to grow palms, create gardens, or establish conservation nurseries.

I have many in my garden and not all make the race. Happens with all palms. A group of palms all planted the same day you will have ones that out grow the others.

Did you say bio security laws, that’s a nasty word. I would post to you anyway! It’s such a shame you have such strict rules the same as a few other states do. I don’t see them stopping the bird flu as it fly’s across the border!

Chamaedorea radicalis, a nice Cham to have in the garden very tough and a lot good looks for little effort.

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

Hey all, this is a native beetle here in Southern California. As the name implies, they love figs and other fruits. But they’re pretty benign little guys, noticeable by their metallic green color and their loud buzzing as they fly. But they have really found something they like on this flowering P. hillibrandii. The bees seem to tolerate them as well. Curious to see how well they act as pollinators..

The recent purchase at the pacsoa annual plant show, has breezed through winter temperatures not a problem. Jumping the gun a bit a week early, but in my area winter looks like it’s finished, so I cant foresee any issues with the geonoma for the time being. Not too bad for a tropical grown palm for its first winter in the subtropics. Even the small seedlings lived, the 50mm tube one sat in water all winter. They are one beautiful palm that’s for sure! @tim_brissy_13 if you can get one try it, it would be interesting to see if it would live, although it would be somewhat slow, protected in the greenhouse it may stand a chance! For me it’s a zone push winner.

Alexander are the better of the two for lots of sun, bangalows tend to yellow a bit in full sun. I have seen bangalows in full sun but that is after they have broken through the canopy and that’s with all of there habitat surrounding them in the microclimate. If you’re up for Australian palms ptychosperma elegans triple planted, Normanbya Normanbyi, I won’t dare say the foxtail palm. Howea grow quite well inland away from the coast, although iam unfamiliar with your climate zone for them, but a Howea bellmooreana would look pretty neat there, again a triple planting of fosteriana would look good.

Another piece of the jigsaw puzzle goes into the big picture. No plans just of the top of the brain as I go with this project.

It’s sulking from the planting out. A lot of newly planted palms sulk after being planted in the ground. It’s a wonderful life in a container all the water nutrients a nice cosy pot to grow in most likely in a nice microclimate as well, we come along and wack it in the ground and then the palm goes what’s going here I liked my nice comfy container. It will soon realise the freedom ahead and a better life in the ground. Dont replace that is for sure. Just look after as if was any other palm and in a year or so you won’t even notice the situation it was in after planting out. Time is a palms friend!

I have seen two from the same seed before,kerriodoxa elegans, but nothing like that at either end of the seed. Keep that on marked as special!

Plant a Bismarckia there, if you insist on archontophoenix, a nice triple planting of Alexander’s would look good! A nice baroni black petiole would seal the deal for me. And give the street a wow factor.

Hey Marcus! Yes I have absolutely no issue passing right by the Queen Palms when I see them at HD! 😂 I used to entertain the idea but I can save money, time, and heartache just watching other ones around town die. Of the three that were planted late last year in my neighborhood only 1 survived, the one right next to the wall of the house. In spite of all the rain earlier and all the heat this month it has only grown one stunted, floppy frond. By the time this coming winter’s cold snap arrives it’ll be toast. Especially if we get the usual ice or freezing rain. I recognize those sandals, they conveniently have a bottle opener on the bottom! Perfect sandals in my opinion! Ben, I look forward to seeing your stunning uresana grow, those an incredible! My three have been going very well and one of them has grown much faster than the other two. Now I’ll have to keep my eye out for the Ox Beetles. Disappointing to see them killing palms, especially Chester’s Lisa Palmetto. Anhwho, here are some photos from a walk last Thursday at the Oblate School of Theology. They have several more Sabal ursanas than I thought. I just love their blue coloration. Also seen again is the mystery Sabal…. yapa maybe?? What are these two palms? I thought Brahea, but they have spineless petioles: Mule, really not a fan: Some gorgeous Brahea armatas, looking as good as I've seen them here, especially with some flower stalks: The next grouping I really think are all Sabal uresana, some everyone is aware of, but I don’t remember seeing the smaller ones before: Mystery Sabal… I’ll call it Yapa! Surprising that there are only a few Washingtonia remaining, this is one.

Another corpus coconut for the thread to enjoy:)

That reminds me I gotta send you some chamaedorea adscendens seeds☝️a beautiful quad of chamaedoreas..

I remember someone at some point found this stand near me on Google maps. This is the Dying town of Hornsby Tennessee located in Hardeman County on the Border of McNairy County. It's very mysterious with mature sabal minor everywhere along the swampy part of the town. I'm willing to bet if there's this many Naturalized sabal minor in the town they most likely have spread down stream into the Hatchie River flood plain. I have no idea if these are the result of someone planting sabal minor a long time ago or if they have always been present in this location. There's a few scattered around that look ancient. Most of the houses in this town where these palms are growing look like they were built before utilities were an option, and they're so old that nature is finally just swallowing them.

Hoping ours someday looks like this, grown by you know who in our 8.8 suitability climate.

I was also excited to get myself a birthday present recently. I found a couple of silver Sabal uresana from Teddy's Nursery on eBay. They arrived healthy, and they already have great color: That little leaflet on the left is a dactylifera for color comparison.

I had the chance to visit Discovery Point at SeaWorld San Antonio today, and I snapped a few pics while there. Nice use of Sabals: Chamaerops: There are a few Phoenix dactylifera in the area. This one was a pup growing up from a stump: While this one appeared to be planted as a single (not a pup) There were even some really over-trimmed needles in the area: And some Butia: My 8 year old for scale: Sagos and counties: Lastly, it has been so hot and dry for the last month that even the squirrels at SeaWorld are feeling the heat. This one was laying flat on shady concrete under a fan:

Here is an Ai rating of Hedyscepe canterburyana

I can relate, I killed my first big container palm, $600, by handling it by the trunk. It was too heavy for me to plant gently without a bobcat and it had sensitive roots. We live and learn, and I do understand that palms in california are a lot more expensive than here, I lived there for 7 years. 54" rain a year will make them cheaper to grow here to a good box size. Most of us on palmtalk started out wanting that immediate impact. It is very rarely worth it for the faster growing species. With your heat you should be able to grow things quickly given enough water and some fertilizer. Remember that those Alexandre will need a lot more water out in the open like that compared with a bismarckia or alfredii. Wind dries things out much faster and if the roots can't take up enough water, you get brown leaves generally oldest first. When you plant a palm from a container it has small roots that have a limit for how much water they can take up. I would wait to plant those alexandre till it doesnt hit 85F any more. Over the winter it has a chance to grow roots before the hot weather tests those roots for how much water they can supply. At some point, watering more doesn't solve the problem of a small root system. For Alexandre, make the soil pretty rich in organics and perlite with y our clay. The perlite hold water and will prevent soil compaction which is often a cause of poor drainage. Deeper drainage gives deeper roots and they may give a much healthier tree in the inland heat.

I could be wrong but I don't think the ptychosperma survive in my climate. Thats much more of a Florida palm. I'm in a dry Mediterranean climate, we have diurnal shifts in humidity and temparture. We can be at 38 degrees Celsius and 30% humidity and by early am be at 20 degrees celsius at 65% humidity. Howea Forsteriana for me are one of the most beautiful palms in the world. I can grow them but they need to be in full shade. The sun is simply too strong and will burn the fronds. You have to live no more than 15 miles from the coast to plant them in full sun. I am not sure about the bellmoreana you would know better than me, but it would definitely be more of a specialty palm. Most nurseries don't carry it here.

I agree the alexanders are a lot better in florida sun than bangalows and they are ok with continually wet roots. The OP has a spot there that would not work for a bismarckia anyway, it doesn't drain and the Alfredii -which has the same soil drainage requirements as bismarckia- rotted the roots. Ive never seen an Alfredii die that fast, very few have died in 9b+. Alexanders are a lot less cold hardy(5-6 deegrees F?) than either bismarckia or BA, but they don't mind wet roots as they grow surface roots not the deep roots of the others. The alexanders may get burned when small, but he could always put a net over them for a year while they develop roots. Here is my alfredii triple 6-7 years ago back when I could still get a pic of the whole triple. These were 8+ years in the ground from a 1 gallon. They will; grow a bit faster and will get a bigger root system and canopy if you space them out little like this triple. For scale, the fence is 7'.

I sympathize with your plight. Milton damage here made me not want to be in my garden for a year. I kind of lost my hobby for that time. But the healing will happen in time. In a a couple years new growth will uplift your place.

Alex will take that fine. Where I am we get up to 43c / 109f for a few days at a time, keep the water up and mulch over the roots then you wouldn't have issues. Agreed, I've found atleast till the bangalows are trunking they just get burnt. I have two Ptychosperma elegans planted both do okay in the sun, cold winter winds here make them a bit straggly. Normanbya I only had very young ones and they got fried even in dappled shade. Kentia bit like the alex and bangalows, keep water up and they can take it but definitely do better once they trunk and emerge from shade also.

Cycas panzhihuaensis x Cycas taitungensis

Nice flush on C panz x C multifrondis pushing through a pollinated cone.

Nice work. I’ve got to say though I’ll never subject one of these beauties to what would be the torture of my climate. I’m actually not sure there’s a time of year here that they’d enjoy. Perhaps briefly from late March to early May. Even our summers would be a struggle I think. I’ll leave this one for the subtropics. Geonoma stricta (pycnostachys) didn’t even survive past early June. I suspect this one would be similar in requirements.

I’m actually completely with you and have had the same discussions at work and with members of my family. The main thing being lost is practicing how to get information ourselves. It’s through the act of research that knowledge sticks in your brain. AI promotes us to quickly get information and then just as quickly forget it. I was initially resistant to using Apple/Google Maps for the same reason; I learnt my way around by using the old book style maps (Melways for us Melbournians). Admittedly I’ve now caved mainly due to no alternative being available, but I’d say my sense of direction and knowledge of our streets is a bit better than your average 20 year old who has grown up using digital maps and just following where they’ve been told to go. All that being said, I use AI both at work and for personal use, even palm related stuff. The key is just realising its strengths and weaknesses and not just taking the output as gospel. Photo of Hedyscepe at the Melb Botanic Gardens in our 7.8 rated climate to keep us on track 🤣

This is AI at its finest, to list a palm for sale now they make you use ai on this website. $7.09 cents for a itaya amoricorum. Artificial intelligence at its finest, who is feeding this machine this crap. It cost me that and more for just one seed. Go to living blazes ai.

Cant see why not, let them have there fun!

I'd choose A. alexandrae over cunninghamiana if Californian heat and UV is anything like where I am. Alexandrae handles it much better especially when young.

I wish you all the best over on the islands. Harry

Odd one this. My oreophilus flowered for the first time 2 years ago and turned out to be male. It produced 7 large flower spathes this year, followed by a much smaller one pretty much after the others has finished. This last spathe had pollen as I used it to pollinate a late flowering T.nanus, then a few weeks later it looked as if the male flowers were just a little slow to drop and stayed green, it wasn’t long before I realised this was the start of seed development. Three months later the seeds are still hanging on in there and haven’t aborted. So fingers crossed they will mature. I’ll add that all other male flowers in the garden had long been removed prior to the so the opening, so they should be self pollinated. I understand this is unusual but that it can happens with a couple of the species in the genus namely T.takil and T.nanus. For anyone interested the trunk is over 3 meters now and has grown rapidly in the last 4-5 years. It was planted as a small trunkless palm in 2017. Location Kent, UK.

Yeah, I can hear your frustration...I've been battling hydrophobic sand in a cold desert for 20 years, lol. My honest advice though is that you pool your resources and use them efficiently. If you plant in close groups, you can water with a single $5 lawn sprinkler, also the plants will protect each other as they grow up, the strong support the weak, etc. I've found that in my climate the best bang for getting more tender plants established is under some sort of canopy. I use all sorts of fast growing, cheap trees, Acacias, Alders, whatever works in your climate and is available locally. Plant them at the same time as the palms, or bananas or whatever and put a shadecloth shelter around the palms till the canopy trees give them a bit of shelter. In five years time you'll have a cool, self mulching forest full of bananas 🍌

Here in my neck of the woods, we would chop it in half and let the corm establish itself! The new suckers will be a lot stronger.

A few listings I have for some of my palms. The price reflects what it actually cost for rare and exotic palms now. It’s not cheap growing exotic palms nowadays with customs fees, germination rates, shipping, phytosanitary certificates, soil pots, water, electricity for pumps. Plus many other hidden fees. So what should a rare palm be priced at when you consider what it takes, after the real mathematician has had at go at some numbers. Is it how rare the seeds are, how hard to obtain and so on. If you import the seeds it’s a whole new number again that gets added to the cost of everything. So just one plant germinates from a hundred seeds that cost ex amount of dollars to buy and import. You’re not going to take a lose on that business venture. If you germinate a hundred out of a hundred then the cost of a palm can be a lot cheaper from the grower. Seed availability is another factor, hard to obtain seeds of endangered species changes the mathematical equation a lot. This puts a higher price on such palms. So it’s not the growers fault for the prices it’s the cost of the whole thing of growing rare and exotic palms. Some palms will take years in Australia before there is a local source of rare palms, and then they may not set seeds. And even then a not to open public supply, with seeds being so rare they would most certainly go to others in the palm community. That’s the cost of rare palms nowadays. It’s supply and demand like any business it cost to produce. The only real solution is to have a garden full of exotic palms to collect seeds. Mind you though they all look beautiful in my garden, so I know the look that can be created with rare and exotic palms. I would happily pay this amount for such beautiful palms to have in my garden if I wanted a tropical garden that’s for sure worth every penny!

Great thanks for the info Merlyn. The palms I have bought were already planted in pots. The next one, hopefully the last one I buy, lol I will check it over and maybe repot it if needed. Thanks for the links I will have a read. Appreciate the info.

What size are they? I am not close to you but I found some large ones lately that smelled very much like citrus but they are very large in size and very round in shape

It's a shame we're so far away, otherwise I would have bought the chamaedoreas, obviously you would have given me a little discount, jokes aside, people don't know what's behind a plant, finding good seeds and how much it costs everything else

Nice one hope they all germinate! This ones for you @tim_brissy_13 we need seeds!

No dont repot if the weather is getting colder. It will be fine root bound in the container, and once you repot in the warmer months it will start growing well the. One great way to grow palms is by having them rootbound. Then you reopt them. Dont fertilise in winter either. In cold temperatures when you repot them they get a wet soggy mess of sour soil due to low temperatures and no oxygen in the soil, as soil temperatures drop the palm stops metabolising and stops growing in the cold. With no root activity you get that messy soil and especially in a what was it zone 6b, you are one great grower of palms and a gardening master in my eyes to grow anything tropical looking in that cold climate. Well done I give you two green thumbs 👍 👍 award! Here’s a picture of two in my garden, they are 30 years old!

We have had the first rain in 10 weeks here in recent days. Nowhere near enough at 1mm / 0.04 inches, but it is something. It still looks barren as anything however with young trees/plants outright killed... The rain will probably properly come in September, but there are parts of southern England that are on 10mm / 0.4 inches since June 1st, which is 11 weeks now... Summer 2025 (another warm, dry summer) vs this current summer of 2026... If I am not mistaken, around 45 houses have been destroyed this summer in 4 separate wildfires. At least 30 in England, 10 in wales and 5 in Scotland...

This Kaapsehoop Cycad caught my attention in the setting light this evening. It is still a juvenile.

Thank you for the responses and suggestions, really appreciate it and look forward to a great palm! Appreciate the buy pointers as well and I will try to make it to the next Central Florida Palm Society meeting, thanks! Given the differences of light/humidity in coming from a nursery - indoors with not as bright as it may be used to plus the humidity changes, I am leaning towards not repotting and letting it adjust before I repot in Spring/Summer. From what I have been reading, they do not like root disturbance much so that compounded my idea but correct me if wrong. I'm sure it will be in a decent soil it has been growing in and hopefully can continue as-is while I learn how to best do that and routine care. I aim to keep humidity a little higher indoors using a spray or a humidifier as some suggested. I've had my other houseplants vacation outdoors at times for a bit of shower or repotting, flushing the salts out. After one brought in an unwanted hitchhiker and multiplied quickly indoors, the quarantine and treatment process was not pleasant for me and the other plants as well. I tend not to do that much anymore or with care in my neck of the woods and with gardens around carrying lots of insect/plant diversity - good and bad.

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 .

These are my 2 favorite Cycads today.

Thanks for looking

2+ years since my previous update. 🌴