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Even though planted in way too much shade, my jaboticaba tree manages to produce a small crop every year for a tropical treat in the desert. aztropic Mesa, Arizona

Thought I'd share a few pics from my yard after a rather chilly winter - the Central Valley of California had a record-breaking fog event from late November through about the end of 2025. Temps stayed in the 40s for 360+ consecutive hours - no freezing, no frosts, just consistently cold and wet with next to no sunshine for nearly a month. Most palms grew right through it, but a few of the more tropical species really hated this - I rehomed a few to warmer (drier/sunnier) climates down south. Here are a few shots from today - everything in growth mode as we're getting 80s and 90s consistently - racing toward the 100s too! In just a matter of weeks winter will be a far memory as we bake in the 100s until we cool again in October. Archontophoenix tuckeri - grown from seed from @DoomsDave. I'm pretty sure you threw a handful of seeds at me during one of my visits to your place. Trunking archontophoenix cunninghamia in the back. Seed-grown howea forsteriana & allagoptera peeking in behind tuckeri. Syagrus rommanzoffiana - nothing special, but I recently did clean up the trunk, which makes it look 10x nicer. A shot of my front yard - the pink Handroanthus is just about done blooming. Below it I have Brahea Super Silver, Brahea Pimo, and closest to the bottom is a Jubaeopsis affra, recoving from an irrigation mishap in summer of 2024. The irrigation timer went offline mid June while we were out of the country traveling, and this whole area went without water for 2 weeks. Jubaeopsis took that personally. It's been slowly recovering from that 'drought' event. Handroanthus umbellatus was in bloom just a few weeks ago. This is Livistona speciosa. I grew this from seed, and gave the rest to folks in Southern California. Does anyone have any still growing? I think some of them may have gone at palm society auctions. Chamaedorea hooperiana - The ficus roxburghii looks so pretttyyyyy in the back with all that new growth Sabal uresana - looking stretched. This thing is slowwwwwwww This is the view out our back door. Arcontophoenix tuckeri on the left. The red amaryllis is an heirloom passed down from a neighbor before she passed. Phoenix rupicola. You can spot the Brahea Super Silver in the background. The silver-ish palm below it is Chamaerops humilis var. argentea. There's a Cycas deboaensis on the bottom right that will need to find a permanent spot. I have a habit of putting plants in temporary spots, then moving them when I decide on a permanent spot. I feel like plants develop much better in the ground than in pots. They also benefit from regular irrigation being in the ground, and I don't have to worry about forgetting to water them in pots. This little corner area is filling in so nicely, and will become very thick with vegetation as plants keep growing. Beccariophoenix alfredii is in the far back. Ravenea glauca is center toward the left. Sabal mauritiformis is off to the right. Cycas revoluta x deboaensis is front and center. Lastly, a shot of a Clytostoma callistegioides flower, and a Dendrobium chrysotoxum which I have in bloom. The Dendrobium is grown inside a greenhouse. The last photo is of my plumerias waking up after a chilly nap. I had lots of rot to deal with this winter. BONUS - see if you can spot the Chrysalidocarps prestonianus... It went into the ground directly as a 4-inch plant from Floribunda some 5 or 6 years ago. Almost forgot the Chrysalidocarpus decaryi as well. Decaryi doesn't like the prolonged cold/wet conditions, but it grows out of damage fairly quickly - and we don't always get those particularly cold/wet winters. Some years we are dry and sunny like the rest of Southern CA.

Always love to see your garden. That rupicola is really one of the focal points there. I like that you have a good mix of palms, flowers, and other tropicals.

Lots of activity going on in the gardens.

I hate that I live somewhere that the climate changes from hell to Siberia.

Livistona drudei right at home in the Australian bush!

Love these neat fruits from Brazil!

That shot of the Plumeria against that stately Royal Palm is exquisite! You guys had a warm winter and we had a cold one! Here is one that caught my eye today:

I live in East Tennessee. I have 2 windmill palms and every year when the weather starts turning colder, I winterize them inside a structure wrapped with plastic sheeting and a couple of heat lamps that kick on when the temperature drops below 35. It's always worked out well, but I just started taking the structure down today and noticed this was growing out of one of the palms. From what I can tell, everything looks ok so far, but I'm not sure what this is?? Forgive my ignorance, please. Is this bad? Is it due to something I have done wrong? Can I just cut it off and be OK? The tree is probably 8 years old and I've never seen anything like this. Thanks!

Regarding Elais guineensis: this palm is not cold hardy. Temps below 32F may be lethal especially for juvenile palms. Also, this species has trouble with major hurricanes (cat 3+). I lost two normal palms to Hurricane Ian (cat 4/5) which tore them out of the ground. I won't plant one again and ripped out whatever seedlings survived that storm. My only surviving oil was a whole leaf mutant planted just above our canal. It barely survived Ian and is smaller than normal oils so not as risky. If you do plant one, don't forget they are armed, get huge and should never be planted next to a house or other outbuildings. When they fall they take out any/everything below them (Chrysalodocarpus decaryi anyone?)I really like the "Jurassic Park" look of them but no longer for me.

Here is a vendor list Chip Jones Jones Landscaping Nursery Robin Crawford Sunfish Gardens Jeff Searle Rainforest Collection by Jeff Searle Robert Miller Art of Palms Chris & Greg Spencer Jupiter Farms Road Nursery Keith Buttry Neglected Plants Rick Kern (independent seller - no nursery name) Steve Garland (independent seller - no nursery name)

Update from Oviedo. All 400 clumps of areca’s are gone. Undergrowth is coming in strong but 10-15ft stalks breaking off dead. 😢. Bismarck burned but ok. 12or so fronds dead. 3 3 headed clusters of Christmas likely dead. A couple heads pushing green but don’t work without the others so no good. Bottle got burned inside garage. One coconut gone. 3 royals, 2 pushing green for now but one not moving. Most underlying gone. Aboricolas are coming back slowly even cut to dang near ground level. Crotons, ginger, ti, gone. Worst part of it all, knowing this would happen eventually, is I moved my nursery back out last weekend. Bottles, Bismarcks, kings, mangos, and the dang squirrels tore out and ate all the kings, ate the spear on the bottles, and generally ruined my appetite to continue on with this.

Nice collection you have there. I think that the types that are super happy vary from climate to climate. You see consistent variations on the local collectors pages from region to region. Luckily there are so many different types to fit most conditions. I have a good feel for what does well in my yard at this point.

An updated damage report spreadsheet is attached. 20260328_TentativeGardenDamageReport.xlsx

*sigh* Again. I've got some colocasia bulbs on tour. Things usually go to Memphis then Jackson then here. These bulbs went to Memphis then to like 3 different cities in Georgia then Atlanta and now they're touring the eastern seaboard. They should have been here Monday. And I've got a box of live alocasia that made it to Jackson and went back to Memphis for some reason. Shoulda been here yesterday. Those were shipped Priority Express, not the mystery "let's just throw a dart at a map and send your package there" shipping.

I wish I could say this in a little classier more eloquent way, but they've really gone to shit the last few years. It just... It is what it is. UPS via Pirateship is cheaper and faster and more reliable. Pirateship does USPS too and it's more expensive than UPS 99% of the time unless you use the absolute cheapest we're gonna send your package all over the country option. Priority Express seems to work fine, fwiw. But I think that has a 3 day guarantee.

*sigh* 2 more packs of Colocasia bulbs from California. Both were due to arrive today. One is currently in Milwaukee, one is again in New Jersey. At least there's no blizzard this time.