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Iam lucky enough to have small plumosa in flower at eye height, making for a few close ups normally done a ladder.

Out in the scrub again running around. Getting in a swim before winter gets here, and as usual bangalows in the wet areas and creek beds. Such a tough palm, but they do like moisture. Even there native habitat some of the leaves can look a bit tatty. So if your plants need is not perfect fear not even in habitat they can appear a bit tatty.

Finally seeing some early signs of spring blooms on my Handroanthus (aka Tabebuia), both the dark pink heptaphyllus and the lighter pink impetiginosus.) Even my previously shy blooming Bauhinia x blakeana now has clusters of buds on many of its branch tips. Despite what the winter was like on East Coast of the U.S., here in the West we experienced "relatively" mild temps. It's so dry I've had to start handwatering again! Palms in the top image are Parajubaea (l) and Jubaea (R).

Pensacola would like a word... Image from google maps streetview as of late 2025.

Keep an eye out when they are ready for you, all I know is Rich trapnell introduced them to start with in Australia, and we have all heard many tales as to what got collected and named just as something to send seeds out of Madagascar!

A few nice flush’Cerotazamia subrosephylla encephalartos ferox cycas thourasii Cerotazamia subrosephylla

Just admiring my Buddha statue and for all the peace and harmony related to Buddhism, the world needs a bit of piece and quite in the garden now and then!

Small mammal must have dropped a seed here

Very rocky gravel base they are growing in, but moisture underneath is all they need. They withstand great flood events, getting pushed over. Richard

I wouldn’t rule out cold damage based on how long it has shown it. To me, the lower frond damage looks like it could be from previous winters; if it were all from this winter the damage pattern would look different with surfaces currently exposed to the sky being worst hit. My limited understanding is that Borassodendron is uber tropical, so it may just get a bit damaged most winters in climates that aren’t tropical all year round.

They are quite prolific with all that available water. Harry

Great photos! Thanks for posting.

A quick and mostly positive update. Hope those who have had their spirits dashed will find some ideas from the short post below for potential paths forward that doesn't involve only planting a dozen species of plants. The pineapples didn't seem to notice we had a freeze since they were near a concrete block wall. They're getting ready to produce fruit this year. : If you're looking for safer options, but don't want to crimp your planting selections too much, branching and clustering palms like Hyphaene coriacea, Ptychosperma macarthurii, and Allagoptera arenaria are good options that give you more than one shot at coming back. There should be Hyphaene seeds available at the 2026 CFPACS Spring Meeting this weekend: Chrysalidocarpus lutescens comes back even when young. This one is coming back and is not long from seed. Coconuts are on the comeback trail, but aren't out of the woods yet as @pj_orlando_z9b mentioned. Even in the better microclimates in our respective cities, they took a major hit. The stores are running out of Copper fungicide here, so probably good to go get a few bottles of it before gas catches up to it in price. You can see some white fungal growth on the dead tissue. Now that the (hopefully) last cool-off is in the rearview mirror, it's probably best for me to just to remove anything damaged so it doesn't provide a breeding ground for fungus and attract white flies and other bugs. There is another frond behind the one partially visible in the photo that has green on it as well. The Maypan is in similar condition.

That’s very good of you Richard. I will love a few seeds. My two have flowered here but never fruited. Have they ever found these in the wild yet. I remember Bill Beatie saying they probably come from an area in NW Madagascar which is a military zone, but back then no one could go in and make a scientific assessment of them. They of course entered cultivation incorrectly as ambositrae but I still love em even if they aren’t ambositrae.

Do you want the seeds @Tyrone there free to a good home remember!

You learn to know you’re garden, and you’re garden knows who you are!

A couple of nice cycas varieties worth trying to propagate. Half buried horizontally then firmly pushed down. Bottom heating 30 degrees Celsius.

I would go so far as to replace the word "relatively " with "extremely " when describing how mild this winter was in the far west and south of the US. Deespite a few major storms delivering snow to the southern Sierra Nevada range, there have been extended periods of warmer than normal weather between them. My son lives in the Eastern Sierra town of Mammoth Lakes and advised they are expecting temps to rise to 75 in town on Monday, which is crazy warm for this time of year there. The storms that delivered rain to San Diego this winter were mostly accompanied by warmer temperatures this winter too, with heat waves between storms. I have posted about plants blooming earlier than usual since late Autumn beginning with winter blooming Laelia orchids. I am not alone in noticing this as a recent post from Phoenix about early Plumeria flowering pointed out. All through winter my wetsuit selection has been confirming the warm Pacific ocean temperatures. I only wore my thickest wetsuit a couple of days this winter because the coastal ocean temps only dropped below 60 degrees here for short periods instead of several weeks. As winter ended, several records for highest high and highest low temperature were broken for the month of March in places like Palm Springs and in some cities in San Diego & Riverside county mountains and and inland valleys. Bottom line, I think saying it was an extremely mild winter in the southwest is justified. Spring is starting with over 20 record highs broken on March 20th from Santa Ana to Big Bear and down to Palm Springs, and from Chula Vista up to Alpine and over to Borrego Springs further south. So we begin with extreme weather if record breaking conditions qualify as extreme.

They are a tough palm they just need moisture in the medium they are in. Garden escape plants can fit into the landscape well, unfortunately they become a weed, in some cases benefiting the local ecosystem. But in the wrong place and wrong type of plants it can be an evironmetal disaster. Richard

Good to see some of your Coconuts are showing some green & signs of life. I'm still looking at my 3, and while I see a little green in the spear area, I'm remaining cautiously optimistic. In the meantime I am giving them some liquid feedings through my hose end Miracle-Gro feeder with a 28-8-16 analysis. They all received dry fertilizer a few weeks ago....8-10-10 from Lesco. I also plan to do another Banrot soil drench. I've already shot liquid copper fungicide up into the crown and spear areas two times and don't want to overdo it with the Copper. I was going through a folder of older pics and ran across this one from 4 years ago. All plants in full glory...Pandanus, Mammy Crotons, Coconut, and 'Pinot Noir' Aechmea.......those were the good old days before hurricanes and then this year's freeze came in and wrecked havoc!

That’s pretty telling of the resilience of these palms . There’s a reason palms have been on this planet for so long. Here , in this area , there are Washingtonia and Phoenix Canariensis that have naturalized . Although not native like your Archontophoenix , they have become very hardy and grow in fields with no irrigation. Harry

That’s the go taking your daughter around the garden, they learn a lot as children and the earlier the better, drop in next time you’re down under. Together we can all save one species at a time.

I've watched this coconut and posted about it over the years. About a half mile from me by way the crow flies. One of best microclimates on the S side of the lake and sort of protected by large oaks. Snapped this pic today and was surprised the petioles are still green and it's holding some coconuts. Mine all dropped. They never have protected. I think this will make a full recovery.

Here’s a Phoenix.

Due to our unusually warm Arizona winter, my plumeria trees are already blooming. 🤯 Unfortunately, it seems to have had the opposite effect on our stone fruits which all appear to be giving up flowering entirely for this year...🤷‍♂️ aztropic Mesa, Arizona

Iam on my way to sunny Melbourne @tim_brissy_13 to dig that rosea out, it needs a nice subtropical climate, in a nice loving garden with lots of happypalms attention. Not that iam saying you dont give your palms any love, I just can’t bear to see that that poor rosea live in refrigerator, any longer! 🤣

Some orchids are blooming! Even with an extended , unseasonal heat wave they are doing good so far . They have been outdoors , next to the house for a couple of years now . They only get a couple of hours of early morning sun. Harry

I know you like your bangalows Jim, when you see acres upon acres of them in habitat there quite impressive!

Some 🔥 in the garden recently. Dypsis rosea Chambeyronia divaricata

I don’t really know what you mean. Would you propose they cut it out? To me it looks like it’s either been cold damaged or possibly too dry rather than any disease which may spread, but I wouldn’t be killing a Borrasodendron for any reason anyway. It’s worthy of helping to fight for recovery.

I’ll just add that Sweet Bay Nursery here in Parrish has a lot of these native species if you’re serious about trying them. I’d post a link to their website but I’m not sure that is allowed here. I have no financial ties to them, just nice folks with a lot of native Florida species.

🤭🤭🌴🌴💪💪🦜🦜🦜

Hi everyone, Quick update for the skeptics of the "war of attrition": Today, March 20th, my balcony fortress in Arbon/Stachen (443m) has officially transformed into a tropical greenhouse! After a minimum of +5.4°C (41.7°F) on the balcony last night (while it was -1.1°C / 30°F at ground level), we just hit a phenomenal 21.0°C (70°F) in the shade with 60% humidity this afternoon! 📈💎 The result is undeniable: our Howea forsteriana (Kentia) is not just surviving; she is actively exploding. As you can see in the photo, the new spear is already opening up! 🦜🌿 This is the power of thermal mass and understanding your microclimate. While some might call it a "trashing," I call it a "Pura Perfezione" spring awakening. ☀️🇮🇹❄️ Fortune favors the bold! Kind regards from the Lake Constance Fortress, Mazat

Here's a Texas version:

Myself personally bottom heating set at 30 degrees, coco coir perlite mix just slightly damp, using etoliation to help things along. If the seed is 5mm in size you bury it 5mm if 10mm you bury 10mm and so on. Oh and patience.

Good stuff Tim, I think that's worthy of a bit of self indulgence! Would not have suspected this would survive in Melbourne, but that probably applies to most of your garden. Well done!

That's all good. Everyone has their own threshold for privacy...I figure that if my details haven't been stolen, sold and abused 100 times already then I'm well ahead of the game! Hope your Bentinkias pull their socks up and get on with life.

Our kings burned when planted and that was in typical west side SF weather, no heat waves as I recall. They are slowly growing out of it. This is their second year in the ground so I hope they pick up speed.

Do not ferilize. If its getting enough water it will shoot out nice new spears soon due to the heat. The transition from shade grown nursery palms to sun is rough at first om many palms but notoriously the Kings.. The old leaves will go ragged. Unfortunately March is breaking all time record high temps and low humidity across Southern California, in what would normally be an ideal time to plant a King palm. Once temps get over 90, the palm's capacity to pull in water fast enough through the roots is diminished. Plus the roots are not yet in the. native soil. It may look rough for awhile but it will eventually take off if you soak it daily when highs are above 85. At least its March with less UV and daylight hours, so it will help transition better

I've done 5 or 6 orders from Floribunda. Typical overnight UPS charges have been $50-75 to Florida. There's also a flat packing charge, the last order it was $30. For example, the last order I did 5 gallon sized, a bunch of seedlings and 4x 4" pots. The shipping was $54 in a moderate sized box, maybe 3' x 1.5' x 1'. Jeff's palms are all HUGE for the size of pot. If you distribute the S&H charges over the number of palms it's fairly low. Springtime is a good time for a "bulk order"!!!

@junglejim I'm not sure if the "Queen" version is much different than the common Crepe Myrtles. My grandparents planted some in Austin, TX before I was born. They outlived my grandparents and will probably outlive me. They routinely see teens in the Hill Country. They've been burnt to the ground a few times, but always came back. That bottle tree looks amazing! For some reason I thought it was a marginal zone 10 plant. Looks like I can use that to fill a spot with one of my (probably many) d-e-d palms. I've been keeping an eye on a row of palms along my normal bike route. There's 5 or 6 houses in a row with Christmas, Foxtail, and Royals, all 100% defoliated. The Foxtails and Christmas have a bunch of bent petioles/rachis at random spots. So far the owners haven't touched them. Lake Mary did cut down the big Royal on Primera Blvd just W of Rinehart. I drove past it last Friday and it looked burnt but might recover. Chainsawitis got it first. I'm slowly working through my yard, with no other clear fatalities yet. I did see that the new spear on a small Attalea Brejinhoensis (Neil at a CFPACS sale) has a rough looking spear that is actually opening up. If that continues it'll be one of three of his Brejinhoensis that survived...the other two are still iffy.

Will be interested to see what percentage of foxtails die or survive in the Orlando area. Regarding how surprisingly some of the coconuts and foxtails are recovering: my theory has been that since these palms have had 15 years of warm winters (sans Jan 2018 which wasn't technically a hard freeze even), they are more resilient/have better recovery than if there had been more periodic cold events leading up. I don't think this will be the case with your palms @pj_orlando_z9b since you're in one of the warmest microclimates in Orlando: but as I'm sure many know,, damaged palms that push out green growth can still succumb later. Latent damage can show up, and while the bud may recover, areas of trunk damage can occur (I've seen this with queens in Northwest FL) and the small area of damage will grow over time/erode until the trunk is compromised. I would see this happen with queens with freezes below around 22 degrees. Since foxtails are already more tender, I wonder at what temps trunk damage occurs with them. Even if most foxtails/coconuts recover in the warmer parts of Orlando, it'll be interesting to see how the same species do in the colder parts or north towards Sanford like what @Merlyn 's experienced.

The back to back days of big wind storms did a number on my coconut burned fronds. Almost all snapped! Revealed lots of promise as new green showing. You can see the newest spear on the left side is mostly green. I can see some brown mixed in which hopefully will work itself out. Still hard to look at.

Sounds similar to what I'm seeing around Orlando. Foxtails are doing very well. Quite a few have opened fully green fronds already. Mine is half opened.

Welcome to PalmTalk. It has the trademark symptoms of Lethal Bronzing. If the arborist injects the affected palm with antibiotics and it the symptoms go into remission, it would all but confirm the test results were incorrect.

Update: some mature gametophytes.

Please do nothing. They'll become palm hybridizers. These Jubaea are breathtakingly majestic. And you haven't even seen their full splendor yet.

I acquired this little palm as D. soanieranae about 18 months ago and after checking out POM, wasn’t convinced of the ID. I’m assuming it’s a Dypsis, but really have no idea what it is. Pencil thin stems and sparsely clumping. Any suggestions? Tim

Here’s one I just ordered from Floribunda that looks different but very beautiful. Anyone else?

That's a cool looking palm. Your post will probably result in more people ordering them from Jeff!