Leaderboard

Flowering Oraniopsis appendiculata at the Royal botanic gardens in Sydney

Trachycarpus princeps

One of my Royals is almost ready to get her first ring

I would think probably because they are so slow not that I think that is a bad thing!!! The first picture is the first palms that I planted in my new house and gave me the palm big the second picture is of some Washingtonian palms I planted about 5 years later all planted from basically 5 gal!! In a residential area who would want a telephone pole looks nice for the neighbors or a good way to find your house!!!

These Dioon's are becoming more interesting to me:

Bactris gassiapaes, Chambeyronia watermelon and a rather well dressed moth.

People generally don't grow, what they don't know. With some promotion, more availability, and a few adventurous gardeners that don't want to grow the same 10 palm species as everyone else, sabals could easily become more common 'out west'. Foxtails and bismarcks are 2 palm examples, although admittedly faster growers, that have moved from obscure to common in just a 20 year period. (1995-2015) aztropic Mesa, Arizona

A couple pix of bliss!

Exactly, robustas are good skyline palms. If you’re a land developer and you plant rows of robustas, in 20 years you’ll have a beautiful skyline with 40-50 ft palms. But that does very little for the personal garden. Its more of a macro aesthetic for the overall area.

Ceratozamia zaragozae x hildae

This Lepidozamia peroffskyana male is coning again. Last year it skipped flushing and pushed 2 cones too. It is ironic that when cycads are small, welcome forward to that first cone on a plant. At this point I would prefer a flush over another pair of cones on this particular plant. I have a Ceratozamia that pushed back to back cones and she is just showing a flush. Perhaps it read my mind that coning without flushing could lead to liquidation?

Good question... Both genus are comprised of very tough palms that are drought tolerant, light freeze resistant, and are happy to grow in western USA's alkaline soils. Biggest issue I see is their generally slow rate of growth under dry air and desert conditions. That being said, I've grown out several species of Coccothrinax and other Caribbean native palms from seed, but it generally takes me 7-10 years just to produce a 'west coast' 5 gallon plant for sale. Here's a few examples in order left to right. Coccothrinax argentata,Coccothrinax miraguama, Coccothrinax borhidiana, and a Pseudophoenix sargentii thrown in for good measure. 😄 aztropic Mesa, Arizona

Beautifully lustrous!!

Hi Tim, I will take a picture in the morning, I will also compare it with a remota. It has seeded at a height much shorter than hildebrandii i have seen before

Not that slow, but I haven’t grown hardy MAPU before only dasyanthas. And they are quite fast growing varieties.

When you get to the Canary Islands plant as many as you can you won’t regret it, go to town and plant joeys like I have so far a dozen good well established seedlings. And I have more than enough joeys and Kerriodoxas to see me out planting them!

If I were doing it on one of mine, maybe no more than half a handful. Asmall amount is unlikely to cause any burn problems. If you want to be extra safe, Osmocote or fish emulsion are more burn-proof. I have a big bag of Magnesium Sulfate granular. I add that to Phoenix, B. Alfredii, and Copernicia at least once a year. Adding some in about a month may help with yellowing. Adding some now could be a burn risk.

Thank you, Zeeth!

That's an awfully thin leaf for a Butiagrus cross. Is the other one next to it one of mine?

That one to the right of the driveway is typical 10 years after a five-gallon pot. Those larger ones would be closer to 20 years. Palmetto is drought tolerant, but it won't grow much. It's a swamp Palm.

Yes. Central San Diego.

Updated shots after initial overcast:

Yep...just pulled spear on six three gallon potted mules and two more schizzophylla. These will be treated of course and I'll hope for the best. Still no sign of life from my three Beccarriophoenix alfredii...

Lanonia dasyantha

I can see how this Cycas Siamensis “Silver form” got its name. I wish the leaves would stay silver like this but they usually start turning green in a few days after this stage.

Two eventually did and are growing fine. Two started producing new growth but spear pulled a second time. I took a more aggressive approach and crown cut them, to which both again started pushing new growth and I thought they'd be good. Then one took a turn for the worst and died. The other one continued but yet again pulled spear last year. This is how it looks today and appears to be pushing new growth. And this is how it should look, as this one was transplanted at the same time from the same grower to my yard. It had pulled spear once and has recovered nicely. Both were fruiting at the time and it's why I selected these, as the intent is for them to be future mule producers.

The offset on the main caudices is flushing. It is like a wort on the otherwise perfectly symmetrical main plant. Perhaps I should see it ss a beauty mark instead? A chunky monkey Encephalartos longifolius male.

There’s some cones, there is some flushes but people often ask how do i propagate suckers/offsets or how do i pollinate a cone, how do i know when it’s ready etc….. today i removed a couple nice offsets from one of my female E. Dyerianus plants. A fairly easy process depending on plant location and soil. These happen to be in easy digging soil. I removed the excess dirt around the area of the offset. Today my tools consisted of a hammer and crowbar. Simply placed the crowbar between the offset and main stem and a couple love taps later we have a beautifully removed female dyerianus sucker. I treat these in a fungicide and add a rooting powder to the exposed areas on the offset. Place in perlite or pumice and give it a good water in. Sit back and wait for your roots to grow….

A nice dypsis plumosa in the sandstone countryside and a Areca vestria not wanting to miss out on any attention!

Geckos in a majority of genus, yes, majority of their diet consists of insects. Day Geckoes ( Genus Phelsuma ) are different. While they too consume insects, a sizable portion of their diet consists of nectar, pollen and various soft fruit, ..like Bananas or Papaya. They'll even sneak a lick or two of a sweet Mai Tai if they're able to.

C. mossiae s/a `San Andres' An original division from Waldor last summer; first time blooming for me.

We got lucky with a few decent and one big slug of rain. Its still a little dry but not brown yet. Its been 12 days without rain so green probably won’t last much longer. I’m expecting it to get crunchy in the next couple months as it normally does bur hope that its not even worse than usual🤞🤞🤞

eehhh, lol .. i don't know about " good ".. Good enough / ok? ..that sounds more fitting.. Have ..several.. in the street island outside the living room window and ..if a storm, or the city deciding it's time to yank em' happens? i'll celebrate. Shorter, fatter filifera across another street and in some other yards in our neighborhood over the backyard wall are a much nicer look than the Mex fans.. All that said, You know monsoon season is close when they all get their annual, pre- monsoon season haircuts.

So sorry to hear this. I loved his constant updates he gave and will miss them. He was lucky to have a friend like you.

The sable and Pindo's are replacements. The originals were twice the size. The original sable was twice as big, and the pindos were a little bigger too. In 2021 the big arctic freeze hit texas. It was like -14F to -20F for a week. I didn't wrap that year and the sable took a big hit. It was alive but never the same. Just dwendled down to dead last year. One pindo died and the other just suffered as well and got a big bug infestation. So I uprooted that one and let installer have it. Last years freeze didn't help it any. So now that "Zone 8b" here it Texas gets major arctic freezes. Without a big wrap on these cold hardy palms. They will simply die and they are big envestments.

Maybe a hedge of Calamus australis...they sound like pretty obnoxious neighbours!

Coconuts on the beach on windy day:

Some others with a clearer day:

You're overthinking it... The palm looks perfectly fine and has no disease. In the real world, you are going to see occasional brown spots,dried leaf tips, bug chews, wind damage, oldest fronds yellow, etc. Absolutely perfect specimens are rare, are usually greenhouse grown, and will incur the minor imperfections you note if placed outside. Rainstorms can never over water it. 🤷‍♂️ aztropic Mesa, Arizona

Outside of the Malone United Methodist Church there is another DeFuniak or Brazoria looking palmetto. Malone is about 60 miles from DeFuniak springs. It definitely isn’t a palmetto. Most likely a sabal minor and palmetto hybrid. It could be the same as the DeFuniak palm or a brazoriensis or some other hybrid brought in and planted there.

I’m more concerned why Coccothrinax and Copernicia aren’t grown more here than “Sablah”. 🤣

It sure looks stretched out to me, maybe being stuck between other palms at the nursery was just enough shade. I don't know anything about planting in clay other than sometimes a new planting hole can act like a "big bucket" and fill up with water and not drain. A common recommendation here is to leave a hose soaking on a trickle for 30 minutes every other day. I'm not sure if that applies to CA clay. It's been hot and dry recently, so some fast burn on old fronds seems "normal" for a stretched out new planting. The new spear growth looks encouraging! Hopefully you didn't put fertilizer in the hole when you planted it. That is a common way to burn new roots.

They are survivors of littoral forest which used to grow down to the waters edge in protected areas Old drawings from the ealier 1800's exist showing it. Landcare has planted out 300 from Wollongong to the shoalhaven in the last 5 months with at least another 200 to go. Their plan is to plant them close to the ones that are in paddocks that were cleared in the 1800's. As they are aging out due to many being around 400 years old The reason they did not get chopped down back then was because they blunted the saws so much had to sharpen them every time they brought one down vs up to 40 trees without need of sharpening. When landcare plant them they fence around the young ones to stop animals eating them

Maybe was greenhouse grown and not sun acclimated?

Created this little island oasis in the middle of the bush on a tree stump. I just chuckled em in there nothing special just time was all that was needed, left untouched!

Probably not that exciting for most palmtalkers, but a healthy Chrysalidocarpus lutescens in my neighbourhood is not common at all. Probably the largest one I know of in all of Melbourne. North facing wall, less than 1km from the beach. The popular opinion is that they don’t grow here but can do ok if conditions suit.

It's hard to get a good picture but here's mine now.