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I hope you're right! Another year for Theo! I'd say, it's been a reasonably good year. I had a low of 14F in the winter and that is the highest its been in several years. Its almost like I was actually in a zone 8b (I am ignoring the new laughable 9a classification for my area). No severe drought or really insane temperatures in the summer for extended periods. The fall was exceptionally dry though, with no rain for over 2 months (but luckily temps were not hitting 100s like the previous 2 years). The drought did kill some plants but many boar, attracted by the more moisture/life-retaining conditions in my garden, destroyed several beds (never seen it this bad!!). Theo was untouched, though. I guess the spikes helped!! As you can see by the stats, Theo appears to have benefitted from these relatively good conditions (or at least wasn't held back). Both trunk diameter and height have increased rapidly. I note that Theo receives no care other than some weeding around the trunk. I added a pic with from a different angle with some counter-light (looks great in real life). I have been experimenting with vining and waterwise roses that can climb up on it, however, this year was not a success. Probably because they do need water to get established the first year (and I have ignored that spot most of the year). I may get once of the exceptionally drought tolerant climbing rose this year from the rose emporium (these are NOT your typical roses). ~ S

@happypalms I mix my own soil up with various ingredients. First is coco coir coarse, perlite, nutricote, top quality potting mix, and volcanic rock crushed, blue metal is another alternative to the crushed dust. Give it a good mix up and you’re ready to go. I prefer this coarse mix for seedlings it has good drainage and plenty of air. Get your soil corre t from day one and your growing troubles are over, well sort of so to speak. It works for me, you may want to tweak your recipe to suit your own growing conditions and climate.

Best way to go about it would be to post heaps of photos of it here! I really just want to admire it but seriously it may help for advice based on the size of the palm and it current planting situation and surroundings. I’d say a 30 year old L cordata is worth a great amount of effort to keep with you. I can’t say I can offer specific advice on this species but a good general rule of thumb would be to get as big of a rootball as possible. Keep it moist and shaded after digging. Being a smaller species, I’d expect there’s hope in doing it successfully.

I’ve tried a few things over the years. I’ve run with straight up premium potting mix at times, sometimes I’ve mixed in sphagnum moss for things like Ceroxylon and Hedyscepe, then I went through a while of using straight up coco coir. All had issues with drainage and reflecting on it I probably lost quite a few palms before I knew what I was doing. A few years back I moved to coco coir and perlite but found the coco coir would clump unless I added heaps of perlite. Just couldn’t get the balance of drainage and moisture retention right for it for pots kept outside. I then moved to premium potting mix and perlite and that’s when my results started to improve. What I found was 90% of what I tried to grow loved it. The 10% that didn’t were notoriously tricky species coming from native habitat with unique soil e.g some New Cal species. After some advice from our very own @happypalms, I purchased some of the same volcanic rock dust as above and started introducing coco coir back into the mix. What I’ve landed on is very similar to the OP; coco coir, premium potting mix and perlite in roughly equal parts with a sprinkling of volcanic rock dust. I’m pretty confident in saying this mix has brought back palms from death’s door; I had a necrotic Cyphosperma balansae which bounced back immediately after re potting in the new mix. Having a look above, one thing it looks like I’m potentially not doing is added much slow release fertiliser. I’ll sprinkle a bit on the top of the soil of each pot in Spring, but I don’t actually ever mix it into soil, and I generally avoid using it on seedlings in liners with only 1-2 fronds. What’s everyone’s thoughts on ideal amount and usage?

Iam not surprised you’re wife dislike the soil china, the lord only knows what was in that soil! And when it comes to the wife my good friend gyuseppe one never skips on such presents for the wife when it comes to that special lady in our lives, cost is never a thought a good man knows that!

Planted 3 L weddellianum together about 4 years ago and they caught my eye today.

Hey yall, I happened to be biking through part of my neighborhood in Anacortes with kids just after the New Year. My kids, being familiar with my willingness to stop everything to admire palm trees, shouted out: "Look, baba! Palm trees!" Sure enough, there was one Trachycarpus fortunei standing tall as a flagpole. Then I noticed the fronds of some cocoid looking palms (or rather, should I say: Attaleanid) tucked along the driveway. I'm going to go back up there and see of I can chat to the folks living there and get any intel!

I acquired this lithograph at the Paris flea market, L'Illustration Horticole, circa 1880, It is not labeled but almost certainly is Howea belmoreana.

Somewhere in here, buried amongst the rubble, there used to be a "What did you do today?" thread that was friendly, all-inclusive, nothing but hugs and high fives all around. In that spirit, here's what I did this morning. Some "craft beads" from @happypalms sprouted somewhere along the way. One didn't make it and there's 6 more in the baggie. Chamaedorea Adescendens. And don't be hating on my labels. That's Dollar General PROFESSIONAL masking tape. Grocery store papayas. I haven't seen them in stores here in a while, so I hope these make it. (The ones in the cups) I'm gonna have to ask my friend what these are again. They're some kinda philodendrons and/or pothos she grows from tissue culture. They've been in tiny cups and shot glasses and she grows in moss, so they were super soggy and super rootbound. Hope they adapt well.

@gyuseppe this ones for you keep an eye out for those craftwork beads!

The wife picked it up, clever lady she knew the gift to give me on holidays! You remember nemo the fish in the southern warm current we get down here, it’s pretty well much the cut off point for the warm tropical water currents, in summer the water is so warm to swim in now. This is one of the special microclimate gifts, this is why I can grow such beauty’s in my garden. The unique microclimate with all the ingredients for the true subtropical climate in my area!

The same here a company two hours away delivers all sorts of specialty mixs that top of industry stuff and it works. It pays to buy quality soil!

Not myself, but I did see a great documentary on the biochar in the Amazon region and it was the bomb stuff!

Hey who’s a cropping now, hey John. One day the best student becomes the teacher @happypalms

The advantage of selecting only hardy palms for your climate! Unfortunately it usually does not work with marginal spp. Pot up for example a Dypsis prestoniana in such soil and do not keep it in heated- house conditions. Kiss it goodbye!

Anyone tried Biochar?

That cinder dust is a treasure. Unfortunately it is not available in my area, so I buy large lava chunks which I smash afterwards with a hammer to smaller particles. Hard additional work not to break them but to gather the resulted smaller pieces which had flown around during violent process

Found two 2021 surviving p roebelenii in Houston near Uptown: https://maps.app.goo.gl/RFLozJNyMyKh4XfK9

But then again you have a good point about the trunk base

All the nuts that are grown in Netherlands come from Costa Rica. I've bought green(referring to level of ripeness and not variety) from Costa Rica in London as well. They are all dwarfs. The nut is small as you describe (however I nelieve you described your nut as ahusj removed?). The nuts from the talls stretch out at the front like a torpedo. You most likely have a golden malayan dwarf. That's actually good news as it means a tall would do even better in your climate. This is a photo from Alex in Amsterdam comparing the nuts between a tall and a dwarf:

First thing, checked the pig trap that was set up yesterday afternoon. Then yanked several dead fronds out of the Neoveitchia storckii palms and the Chambeyronia grove, plus lots of Chrysalidocarpus lutescens fronds that had fallen on my side of the fence from the neighbor's hedge. Piled up Cyrtostachys renda fronds along the path, then a bunch of Pinanga philipinensis fronds and a few Clinostigma and Satakentia fronds, hauling them all to the back compost heap, pile by pile. Just got back to the island a few days ago and everything a mess, but a few sweeps like this and it no longer looks abandoned. This is how I have fun. Off to a good start. The pigs have wreaked havoc while I was absent, rototilling huge sections of grass, but mostly leaving the palms alone. Missing several ornamentals, however. 😡

Posting a few photos of my Parajubaea torallyi. I planted this palm about 15 years ago from a 5-gallon pot. It currently has about six feet of clean trunk and it’s about 25+ feet tall. This time of year, I tug on the old leaf sheaths to see if any of them are ready to come off. If they're ready, they pull off easily. However, if they aren't, no amount of pulling will remove them. It’s not unusual to find Arboreal Salamanders (Aneides lugubris) under the old leaf sheaths as shown in the photo below. I'm in the San Francisco bay area.

Just for your information, here is one Veitchia in Greece: https://maps.app.goo.gl/7wri6XZzcTHr3YXc8

Many thanks, Stelios! The arecina's trunk is indeed quite slender, thinner than that of the joannis, but its structure allows it to withstand the wind well, like all tall palms. This is the cross-section of my arecina after the "accident". As you can see, it has a thin but compact outer ring and an inner portion where the vascular bundles are immersed in spongy tissue (parenchyma). This non-rigid structure, similar to a hollow tube, makes the trunk resistant to bending due to the wind.

Some happy plants in winter after a few freezes, just some chlorosis from sun or chill. The current project is a greenhouse, so no photos of other stuff yet till it's done in the next few weeks. After the summer slaughter things calmed down and the potted plants are mostly happy, so once they are organized into a good look I'll get more photos of them too. In order: cyphophoenix (I think Alba), chrysalidocarpus lanceolata, leptocheilos, basilongus, carlsmithii, B. alfredii, and chrysalidocarpus titan and Prestonianus to finish. All in ground two seasons and starting to get going a bit faster than the start. Losses were all due to heat and wet after the January freeze deaths, so learned to give more shade in summer planting spots, and less water with the high humidity even if they drain super sharp. Not pictured are a bunch of others, cold damaged and recovering from the cold last year, like hyophorbe and chambeyronia. Chrysalidocarpus lastellianus is not a good 10A palm for looks, it chill spots in the low 30s, but could survive a warm 9b event most likely under good cover (like a Christmas palm would do I think). Hoping the two cold events this November and new years are the two this year (average is 1 or so) and we are done but that's a stretch being January 7th.

Doing a spot of landscaping, and as usual I need to plant palms in the new garden. I will see how this one goes all i know is I had choose carefully where this one went, not a palm you plant next to path with thorns thorns that would stop Alcatraz escapes!

Some nice summer seedlings just perfect for potting up in the warm weather. Now’s the perfect time for those tropical seedlings, heat and humidity certainly help tiny seedlings, I might as we’ll take advantage of the warm weather iam sure winter will be a different story!

Lacospadix, kerriodoxa and a nice little dypsis lantzeana all seem to get my attention!

Archontophoenix alexandrae

Looks like a good mix Richard. I've been doing something similar...start with a good quality potting mix and add perlite, tree fern fibre, which is easily available here, and the little clay ball thingies. I've also started adding a handful of clay balls to the bottom of the pot before filling it which really seems to assist drainage.

I'm far and away no expert on Phoenix palms...but one of the things that I think is working for you now is time. It seems that the longer a plam is in the ground and growing, it handles cold snaps (esp the typical brief ones in the southern USA) better and better. The experts say that most palms get better and better at shrugging off cold the older and BIGGER they get. I don't know if that is true, but in my travels around far northern Florida, and coastal South Carolina (similar zone 8b/9a)...you see many huge Phoenix palms that most definitely have seen low 20's F in their life and they are fine:

I don’t think it’s likely, no sign of any pruned suckers at all, both very solitary plants. The gardeners also let all other suckering phoenixes form offshoots without pruning them, so they wouldn’t specifically prune these two plants to be solitary

I've been using this stuff recently Tim, as a top dressing, which seems to be pretty good...a little less chemistry and a bit more biology compared to osmocote, etc. Seems to have pretty good spread of trace elements plus high nitrogen content. Can't find any volcanic dust supplies down here but lots of seaweed!

Haha, no I'm not as bad as I seem! I was just joking with Richard about the germination but the joke might have been lost in translation.

I was about to give to you seeds also from my plants. Never mind...

Happy new year everybody. A small update of my coconut palm in Cyprus. It's still alive for another winter. I increased the water in the summer and it started to make a difference in the growth.

Likewise man! I’ve gained some great knowledge from a lot of your posts.

Oh yeah keep em coming! Along with objets d’Palme in the hands of others that you covet!

What a beauty, congratulations! Nice to see the clean trunk without leaf bases...I wonder at what age/size they become self cleaning?

This is awesome. This is what brings me here. Keep up with it. Looking great!

Planted a 1 gallon pot from FB in November of 2021. It's growing nicely. BUT this summer all the fronds got fried. Just spotted a new bright red today. Had it under shade cloth at planting Took the shade cloth down in February of '23. Looked ok for a few years. Then this summer I noticed the fronds getting "toasted". But it's still pumping new RED fronds. This summer was VERY DRY. From June to Sept. only had 1.48" of rain. Irrigation twice a week at night for 40 minutes each session. Might have to do some weeding and increase length of watering. But I think it was just TO HOT in the full sun this summer.

That looks similar to my seedling mix. I will change things depending on the species and age of the plant. Dypsis and Chrysalidocarpus tend to need excellent drainage so more perlite is put in. Howea, Archontophoenix and even Chambeyronia don’t require much more than a good potting mix with plenty of pine bark and less perlite. Hyophorbe indica actually needs a soil you could grow orchids or bromeliads in as they come from areas of lava flows with incredibly good drainage and humus rich soil over almost solid crumbly rock. So I’ll use the coarse coir, clay balls, coarse river sand a bit of the pine bark from a good potting mix for them. I get much better success than using straight potting mix. I buy Richgro Pro base mix in bulk and add Osmocote 6 month with Scott’s micromax.

My biggest surprise was my two veitchia arecina. They propably becoming my fastest palms. When I put them in the ground last summer they were 2 feet overall height. Now they are about 7 feet with a few rings of trunk. I'm glad they survived in the summer heat. I lost some palms in the heat waves, and some don't happy under the summer sun. I increased the watering for all the palms and it helps a lot.

You guys get a few more points in California for Rhopalostylis, Ceroxylon, Hesyscepe, etc. hah! Here’s my Blue Decipiens. Still a ways off from trunking when they seem to speed up. I’m guessing this one is 8-9 feet tall from ground to tip of newest leaf.

I've been fascinated by this tiny mutant variation of the familiar Rhapis excelsa but over the years managed to kill several when I repotted and/or separated the clumps. Last fall I bought another pot of this densely clumping palm from Jeff Searle and swore to handle it extra carefully. On the surface, this variation looks like a rat's nest of grasslike leaves. On closer inspection you will see among the strap leaves tiny palmate leaves of 3-4 leaflets belonging to 6" tall, 1/8" diameter stems of individual palms. This afternoon I brought my Super Dwarf out of the jungle to inspect and trim away excess dead leaves. And what did I find? In the center of the clump one little stem was producing an infructescense of 5-6 green seeds. I've never seen that before so I grabbed my phone and 4X reading glasses to document this find. Unfortunately for all of us, I've read that Rhapis Super Dwarf is female only so those seed are infertile. But it shares the same structure as its gigantic cousins. It wasn't easy capturing this one stem among 100s of others so I marked some of the photos. Rhapis excelsa "Super Dwarf" w/seeds, Cape Coral, FL

Update #2: Several more Serenoa repens seeds from @Boca Palms germinated. They’re in their own cups now. Update #3: Currently soaking the Buccaneer Palm seeds that @Johnny Palmseed sent my way. Thank you again for the seeds! I need springtime to hurry up. 😂

I feel like I've been whoring it out lately, but it's all on my YouTube channel. Also yes 😂 They give me something I can watch grow while I wait on the palms to do something.

Matt I absolutely 100% full chest unequivocally blame my love/obsession with bananas on you. I think it's the first 2 that were in the grow bag - they're at the point where I need to raise the grow lights up already. And the ones that didn't have any roots are doing pretty good too. So thank you for turning me on to the entire genus there.

Matt, I'd like the Zamia. 😊

Well, here’s an update on mine. The good news, it’s still growing very nicely. The bad news, as if it didn’t have enough room already, we installed rain gutters a couple years back, which extended the eaves of the house out another 8 inches. So, it’s doing its best to bend like a pretzel and conform. Nonetheless, it seems to be healthy and has been flowering for a number of years, even producing a few seeds that are in the process of ripening. I would attempt to dig it up, but I’m wagering that I would kill it if I tried it. So there’s a choice between almost definitely killing it or letting it live a reasonably good life as best it can. Been a great grower for me though…