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This week has been a real trial for my little Ceroxylon amazonicum! Today at 3 PM the temperature... in the shade... was 106 °Fahrenheit (41.11 °Celsius). It's putting out its second leaf since it arrived at my place from Ecuador (via Florida). I'm keeping it in shade and in a deep saucer of water. Hopefully it'll put out a pinnate leaf before year's end?

New frond on A. vestiaria a few days ago. It needs more sun i think to get better color.

A couple more pembana floating around the garden!

My two Sabal miamiensis have been flowering and producing seeds for a few years now. They had no adverse reaction to this year's cold.

Bit of an unusual trait for a flower to have fasciation. Somewhat of a different flower trait, not uncommon, but a bit rare. Definitely makes for an interesting bit of a conversation piece.

They are very pretty trees. Recently saw some at a local nursery in Arizona. aztropic Mesa, Arizona

A nice bit of colour on the archontophoenix new leaf

Side by side, one of my Encephalartos ituriensis which is not hardening it's flush while the Encephalartos whitelockii x sclavoi is still pushing it's soft flush. The wall is 6' high from the base.

Full sun is really too much sun for a lot of plants in the southern climes. Most plants at the massive Florida producers are grown under shade cloth. As for the hot pot issue, you have to physically block the sun from directly striking the sides of the pots. In nurseries, this is accomplished as each pot in a group protects the one behind it. The very front exposed pots can be painted white, can have other empty pots or boards put in front of them, or can be dropped into 1 size larger empty pots to insulate the valuable plants roots from overheating. Direct sun on a black pot without any protection can most definitely cook the roots and kill the plant. aztropic Mesa, Arizona

Extraterrestrial? Please come home ET. Any ETS landing in your garden. This is from planet Encyclia of the cochleata species.

With summer settling in, a check on some SoCal. SST readings.. From the " Shore Stations " site via Scripps: Surface.. Bottom: While running near or just above normal, readings for stations north of Point Conception are mainly in the 50s(F) atm. SOTO SST Anom. check: Gulf of CA off to a warmer than avg. start. Emerging El Nino / ENSO Positive " fingerprint " clearly evident on the wide view shot..

The birds and the bees, both are required with chamaedorea!

When I first moved to Florida, I planted a Bismarckia in mid2010 and a sabal uresana in summer 2011. Uresanas are often mentioned as alternatives to bismarckia in 9a. These palms have stood next to each other over the years making for an easy growth comparison. Bismarckias are generally regarded as fast growers and uresanas are said to be slow. First, Bismarckia several months after planting a 5 gallon bought at a big box store. Everything but the spear had heavy mold spots so I kind of treated it as a rescue. It seems to have that purplish hue after winter that is often associalted with a whiter leaf. It adapted fast to sun after being tortured inside the box store with palms stacked in a pile around it. It put 5-6 new leaves out the first year. late july 2010 bismarckia then about a year later I planted a sabal uresana "icy blue" I bought from tejas tropicals in texas. It was a strap leafer and I put it in a pot. About 6 months later it was ready to go into the ground as the pot was root bound. A little over 2 years later in sept 2013 both had grown well. IN this pic the uresana looks a bit bigger than it was (relatively) since it was closer to the observer. It had turned darker with less "icy blue" color but was clearly not just a green sabal. The uresana was about 6' overall and the Bismarckia was closer to 10' in this pic At this point the bismarckia was trunking and growth was accelerating and here is the pic from june 2015. The uresana not trunking was putting more leaves for a bigger crown About 4 years later the uresana had lengthened it leaves and had gone into trunking mode. It went skyward chasing the bismarckia but still 6-7 feet over all behind the biz in height Last week I took another pic and noticed about a 10' gap even though the uresana had sped up and grown to about 25' tall. compared with 35' for the bismarckia I thought it was interesting that the growth burst of each happened at trunking, as we are often told by the literature. Yes even sabal uresana grows well after trunking. I also though it is interesting to note that Sabal Uresana has a wider crown, that was a surprise. I had always thought Bismarckia would be wider as it throws more shade but its a couple fee less in width of the crown. The Uresana crown is more open though, and it took a lot less damage than the Bismarckia in hurricane Milton(oct2024). Part of the lesser damage suffered by uresana could be due to less wind damage as there are higher wind velocities at height, but also part might be the Uresana having an open crown with smaller leaves that have less wind drag. I do think Uresanas will have more blue than mine in a drier hot climate. Bismarckias are very versatile, they don't need much fertilizer and mostly they are self shedding. Just keep them happy and the weevils wont come to dinner(I had a sick one attacked by weevils and killed). I treated the Uresana same as Bismarckia, limited fertilizer compared with my other palms The Uresana has persistent leaf bases which are still strongly attached near the ground. Since I do the trimming, I am happy that Uresana is a slower grower, as the Bismarckia is now too tall for me to trim from the ground. And the Bismarckia(female) is a mess, dropping 150-200 lbs of seed a year. I just got done raking up half a trash can full of Bismarckia fruits, and there is at least that much still hanging on the tree. Uresana has not fruited yet at 15 yrs. Sabals are notorious for liking heat to grow fast and they both had plenty of Florida heat. For those thinking about Sabal Uresana, its not Bismarckia fast but its more of a medium grower for me after trunking.

Good job there , Richard. Did you grow that from seed? Harry

Our water bill is pretty high here , but we are municipal ( city owned ) . It’s just part of growing palms in an arid climate . It’s just my wife and I so not bad . We learned how to take military showers from over 12 years on our sail boat and traveling in our motor home. Our boat didn’t have a water heater so we would fill a 3 gallon solar bag full of water and place it on our deck while we were anchored at the islands . As soon as the sun warmed the water we should hang it from the boom and stand under it to shower . The 3 gallons was enough for both of us. Of course we were young and it was an adventure. Our palms are responsible for most of our water bill. Harry

It can be done, but you will want to start with a large container or be prepared to transplant to a larger container before the roots become bound. Here are a couple that I started from seed.

Any chances?

You are not wrong 😁

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

Brad, it looks like “Coontie” or Zamia integrifolia to me. Could be wrong tho. -dale

A big pair on this one. The boys get some additional extension when they unscrew like this.

Mine puts on a bit of a show too.

June 10 2026 update Not seeing a ton of change, maybe a new frond but I can’t really see up there. It seems to be more like summer weather now. The jackfruits are jumping to action I wonder how tall theyll get this year.

Latania

Just so everyone can play along Richard: This is now Arenga oblongifolia. Previously Wallichia oblongifolia. Before that Wallichia densiflora. I think you e mashed up the previous name a bit with the name before that 🙂 Great palm by the way. I love anything weirdly unique.

Cyphophoenix elegans doing its best flamethrower impersonation.

Is that Dypsis pembana two years old? Is it 5 or 6 feet tall? I’m curious because my friend gave a tiny seedling last July and it’s more than quadrupled in less than a year. I’ve actually never seen a palm grow so fast and I’ve been in the Palm Society since August of 1984, and have been growing palms these many years. It’s literally constantly pushing out fronds.

I started a batch of pembana from seed a few years back, here , in Arizona. Some are just beginning to clump. Not a full sun palm in my area, but makes a great unusual patio palm or even an in ground planting on an eastern exposure. aztropic Mesa, Arizona

I had 1/3 pembanas die in 2010 28F, the other two pulled their spears but I was able to revive them 28F burn Dec15 2020 I dug it up and put it in a pot after trimming all the dead. A spear emerged a month later. It was a sad looking palm. I replanted it and here it is prior to Milton in 2023 This one in part day shade had a nicer blue tint than the other one(a solitary) that saw a few hours more direct sun. My experience is that I like these because of the trunk color but also because they are not too prolific in suckering. I have a few 2nd generation in pots I'm planning on putting in the ground. I wont put another one near my house. THe Cabadae I saw looked a lot like these pembana. I went with pembana because its supposed to be a couple degrees more cold hardy.

I would agree with ‘the other Tim,’ in that C. pembana has flatter, wider pinnae than C. cabade. I used to have a C. pembana which was removed. it was a more robust palm and a prolific clumper. The C. cabade, I used to have two, both bifurcated only once and grew rapidly with thinner trunks and ‘V’ shaped leaves. The remaining C. cabade, with two trunks, have grown into tall skinny specimens. Tim

They are indeed a beautiful palm!

The first three are Pembana including the creased leaf stems and then the last three are Cabadae.

You can see why they call the cabadae the blue cane palm, very distinctive colour.

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.

Tip of the iceberg…

Mine has grown really well throughout our summer despite multiple days of extreme heat. Mine gets filtered light for most of the day; it’s on the south edge of a south facing garden (southern hemisphere) so larger palms in the garden give it a degree of protection but definitely does see at least brief periods of direct sun throughout the day.

This little Ceroxylon amazonicum endured a lot of stress to get to California eventually! I ordered it in 2025 directly from an Ecuadorian nursery. It ended up in Florida quarantine for weeks, then arrived in California bare-root, half-dead and bone-dry! I tented it in plastic and kept it in standing water for weeks. It's now putting out its second leaf. I've not had much success with this species in the past, but I'm trying again. This palm hates heat waves, so I'll probably keep it indoors in a pot for the future. Eventually it may end up at a Bay Area botanical garden like the C. sasaimae seedlings I grew in the past.

https://www.jibrilenterprise.com/product-page/african-fan-palm-borassus-aethiopum-3-seeds-20-shipping-10-phyto-cert-12 if anyone is interested in buying some seeds. They provide a phyto. And the money goes to local enterprise in Ghana. They also sell many local food and seeds.

Pinanga coronata “Kuhlii” Kerriodoxa elegans. I use these to block the view of our power transformer. Some type of Rhapis but I don’t remember which one. Another unknown. Ptychosperma Something? Here’a a Pinanga dicksonii. I got knocked over in a summer storm but seems to be recovering well. Here is another one that hard to capture in photos. Hydriastele microcarpa

I don't know how I've never come across this spreadsheet before, this is my new favorite thing! Thank you.