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A great palm for SoCal

Two different palms have come in over the years as Dypsis (now Chrysalidocarpus) Sp. Ambanja. The first was a multi trunk palm somewhat like Baronii. The second was a larger solitary palm. Mine has just revealed its first ring of trunk and is a really nice looking palm. Has similar characteristics as Leucomalla (white spear and coloring) and Sp. Dark Mealy Bug with the black flecking. But has a unique look of its own. Anyone else growing this?

Everytime this palm loses a leaf sheath is quite the event. Who needs sun on a rainy day with this in the front yard, It’s really quite the chunk. Tim

Mine has been a great grower for me. The colors on the crownshaft and petioles are great. I just recently took a close up photo of the trunk showing the coloration:

Beautiful palm. I have one 25+ years old, been in the Backyard Jungle for 15-20 years. It is about 3' tall but even more amazingly it has survived Hurricanes Irma, Ian, Milton, yadda, yadda (my 25 y.o. trunking H. forsteriana succumbed to Ian in 2025). H. belmoreana is supposed to keel over in my sweltering climate but this one clings on year after year. It is shielded by a mutant whole leaf oil palm above the canal, overhead canopy and palms to the east and west. I plan very carefully how to protect this little palm.

Veitchia arecina or Veitchia joannis:

How bout a small ‘BUMP’. So, how are all of the posted specimens doing? Thriving I hope. Here is a photos I took yesterday of a grouping grown from seed back in 2012. The tall palm in the center surrounded by B. condapanna is B. nicobarica. Tim

Thanks for the "bump", Tim. Beautiful photo. I'll have to update this thread with a new photo when I get home. Unfortunately my B. condapanna doesn't look quite as good as it once did since I went to Kauai and left a friend in charge of watering. Hopefully I can limp it along and with some deep watering I can get it to fully tap in this summer.

Received my two Butia eriospatha today in great shape. The order went from west coast to east coast and shipping was fast. I ordered and paid just before midnight and Pdmesa shipped the following morning on 4/30, before 9:00 am, and the package arrived on 5/5. Well grown beautiful plants were packed perfectly and with great attention to keeping them safe. Not one thing was out of place or broken. Seller communicated very well and did everything he said he would. Would definitely buy again!

@Tracy Thank you! That is indeed quite a process! I always wanted to live in a hot climate, somewhere in the south, with palm trees, but never managed to move there. So I decided if I don't go to palm trees, palm trees should come to me To be completely honest, packing and unpacking 12 palm trees for winter is too much for me, and if I could rewind back, I would have planted fewer palm trees, like 8 or 6...

Woooohoooo, signs of life from one of my Beccarriophoenix alfredii that took 23f unprotected!!!

Jialubali, you have done very well with these small cuban palms in pots, they look very happy. On the Fallaensis, they may turn more green when under stress or lower temps, it makes ID more difficult when you see a green one. The blue wax on palms reflects sun leading to intense sun tolerance but also a need for a higher level of sunlight at the low end. My hypothesis is that the plant will stop replacing the wax if higher photosynthesis is needed. I have had other blue palms go green after a spear pull from cold. They come back after they recover. Some appear to "green up" a bit in shade (like brahea armata), or over winter which is not surprising. I see the blue color of my fallaensis and hospitas peak in the heat of summer. The hospita blue is much more seasonally persistent than the Fallaensis blue.

Good looking baby palms there, nice color on those hospitas! You are correct these palms prefer a slightly alkaline soil and dolomite does the trick. Dolomite will add Mg, Ca to the soil slowly, the larger the rock the slower the dissolution into the soil. I do this with all my cubans in my sandy soil. I also add langbeinite for K, Mg micros. The cuban copernicias are all susceptible to nutrient deficiency and in sandy soil (low cation exchange) they will struggle more. The dolomite will stabilize these nutrients over time. My large Fallaensis was delivered with about 1000lb of limestone it was planted in. It was a huge rootball of limestone rock. Limestone rock is the common in the soil in the miami/homestead Fl area.

That is spectacular color. It looks like it has a glossy finish like both ssp of alpestris, just a different color. I like the mix of colors too with orange , the purple and pink. Unless I missed it, my Puya venusta still hasn't flowered. I assume my tenants would have noticed and commented on it but maybe not. I planted it in Carlsbad before I moved to my home in Leucadia, so it is at least 12 years in the ground and probably closer to 15 or 16 years.