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Mid winter in Melbourne and it’s the Ceroxylon sp. opening new fronds catching my eye. C echinulatum C alpinum C quindiuense C amazonicum C vogelianum

It appears I have a lot more leaves to grow before my ones look like that beauty in sunny Hawaii!

Putting the new property machine to good use, a recent investment for landscaping my property an excavator. And I should have purchased it years ago. With so many new palms and exotic plants in the collection I have a lot of landscaping to do. Raised beds with good quality soil is the only way to go in my environment. The original garden was done in this landscaping manner. Dig the whole are and remove the rocks, and use them for landscaping. Backfill with soil and plant. Even the kookaburras have worked out that the excavator means disturbed soil and all sorts of critters to eat , iam sure I have a few exotic palms to fill this section up with!

Hi there, First of all, Happy 4th of July to all our American members here. Hope you have a safe and wonderful Independence Day! Alright, just a short update of this one - please have a look: A great source of joy! It looks quite happy and I recognized for the first time... ...two new spears at the same time! One more time a full shot... Maybe I got to think seriously about a small pond to be made....🤔 Thank you for following - Lars

Have always liked these medium sized palms and fast growers in my location. Produce seed regularly, providing offspring for other locations in the garden. The pair of taller palms in the one photo are the mother plants for the smaller plants. Tim

Hi Jayce. They will laugh off 2C. What they want is water water water especially on sand. They are nutrient hogs too. Young plants on sand seem to have a real need for luxury amounts of magnesium. My one in Perth was addicted to epsom salts and I just loaded it up on NPK and epsom salts plus water. I had it hooked up to the bore so that whenever the pump was on it got a drink. What you do have is clay down deeper which is great. My old place was 17m of sand then limestone so it was hungry and needed constant feeding or it yellowed especially on the older fronds (classic magnesium deficiency). Once it hits your clay its needs will diminish and it will be truly happy.

I also have some real special palms at home, that where given to me as seedlings that need to grown before they can go in, plus theres the rare stuff I have in my collection give it another 5 years and then the garden will really be underway. They also want to go around the whole garden and identify all the palms they have just as a revised checklist. As things die or get misidentified. Even yesterday there was two palms with lost tags, I had some sort of an idea but when it comes to a botanical garden it’s a lot more important than just guessing. I was with Colin Wilson in Sydney botanical gardens and even there palms were mislabeled it mostly happens when staff are cleaning up or renovating around the palms the label gets moved and just put back on any palm in the case of found signs accidentally moved during gardening activities. Richard

This Thai palm has been in the ground awhile now and the large, attractive,segmented leaves are pliable and relaxed rather than stiff and thick. Well behaved and good scale. Me likes this one. Tim

That was my feeling too at the start of this week too, this was always going to come some time. My overnight lows since the start of July. -1.0, -1.6,-1.1,+1.4 I relented on the no protection this winter intention, gave just the A. Alexandrae a basic overhead cover, a single piece of frost-cloth suspended to create an artificial overhead canopy, reflect the radiation from the ground. So far damage seems minimal to none, although on Bangalow it can take weeks to show. The time below freezing was only 5 hours for the worst night and even the bananas are not completely fried yet. What I am seeing though is the spotty/blotchy effect mainly on the Nikaus , which I have seen many times without any permanent damage. I had another look and still can't find any scientific articles on why this occurs, which is weird. It's a real effect, most of us have seen it, but seems no-one has ever bothered to study it.

They most certainly do grow their roots through, and when they do it’s not easy to remove!

Hi there, not to waste your time but when I was very young and my parents and I made a trip to subtropical region in the early eighties, we went to a botanical garden. Since I for some reason always liked the tropical plant section of our local zoo, I had my attention radar tuned up a bit at that time when walking around with my parents and the travel group we were a part of. However, one plant - a palm - caught my attention because of the translator's description of the plant - palm - we looked at. He said:"This is a Chilean Elephant Palm". I looked at it and made the "connection" immediately...the trunk! The trunk looked like an elephant's leg! Of course it does, so it made sense to me right away, I kept in mind and moved on. (eleven years old at that time) When we moved down to Okinawa and finally purchased the house and the garden, the first seeds I ordered from rps were - exactly - seeds of Jubea Chilensis "The Elephant palm" It was like a dream coming true. Of course I had educated myself in the meantime about what I am dealing with here, but it didn't matter. After three years of waiting to sprout and a decade in a pot, always checked it liked the holy grail since it was were all of it started, I finally went to action and "unleashed" it a couple of weeks ago. Soon after the rain season started with tremendous amounts of water and soaking the garden more than once for weeks - I was kicking myself myself for the bad timing - but since this fella is now alive for more than ten years and has experienced every possible freak weather in the meantime, it went through it remarkably well. Here we go, this may be one of the very few publicly documented Jubea Chilensis planted out in a private garden in Japan. I would be very happy to learn of any others. Alright, enough of talking... I know, it is a strong statement for such a small garden, but why not? Happy growing, little beauty! Lars

A beautiful bit of colour on the new leaf of the ptychosperma cunneatum, and a nice dypsis lantzeana showing off again.

The five sabinara i planted in summer are taking the cool conditions well, temperatures down to 5 degrees celcius so far. And yesterday it 25 degrees celcius a huge difference in high and low temperatures. So far it’s been a very warm winter. But winter is not over yet, we will see!

Noticed this Arenga Pinnata? at a garden park in the middle of the city recently finished flowering/seeding. Does that mean it’s done for now?

Hello :) , I also really love this palm to grow in my garden, the size really just fitted the landscape. This palm seeds were actually being sale on a local e-commerce here for only $1.5 but sadly it sold out really quickly that I missed the chance to buy :( Btw, I really like the pictures, it looks super good👍

My Pinanga coronata ‘Kuhlii’ which has grown to 3 ft in a year and half from an 8 in plant. It has always produced reddish new fronds.

Something celebratory in the botanical realm in observance of the United States semiquincentennial!

I managed to get a few hapala seeds up, apparently these are red velvet crown shaft that are totally different according to @palmtreesforpleasure who gave me the seeds. But iam pretty happy either way about getting a few hapala going!

A little trip into the gardens today for a spot of planting with the garden team. Rick ackland the garden curator is right behind getting the palms into the garden. And I will say it’s not only palms he is working on with the garden, the major improvements he is implementing are going to change the botanical gardens into something that will be a must see on any botanical gardens list. And if we can get a lot more palms in there even better, all palms that get planted are going into the database Hortis which is linked to Kew botanical gardens. So this project will be a vital link in the chain for palm conservation in the future. And iam in it for the long run as long it’s permissible to do so, and a big thank you to @palmtreesforpleasure Mr Colin Wilson for donating a lot of the palms you see and backing me up. Future generations will have something to look at!

A lot of work , for sure. Harry

I have a seedling, but it's not in a hurry...

A toasty, ..but not awful ( ..except when breeziness stops, lol ) 103 -108F around town at 2:51PM under passing, but slowly increasing high clouds.. Clouds, courtesy of ..what is left of Douglas.. will continue to increase thru the rest of the afternoon / evening, and stick around thru the day tomorrow, helping to limit what could've been another open oven door kinda 4th, to something a bit more manageable. While it isn't listed in the current forecasts, keep a close eye on the UA WRF HRRR runs tomorrow.. While it may not add up to more than a few sprinkles, locally at least, reasonably consistent thinking from the HRRR runs over the last few days suggest " spit ", ...here or there tonight thru Sunday morning.... can't be totally ruled out as thicker moisture ( still confined to the mid high levels ) passes through town. 2 fer 1 special Sat imagery today lays out why.... What is left of Douglas, sending a decent plume of high and mid level moisture our way.. Low level circulation entertains fish out over the Pacific. At the same time, bit more of an increase in activity / N.W.-ward flow down across Sonora today that might trigger gravity wave - induced disturbances that could provide enough lift in the mid levels to spark another round of widely isolated late night / morning sprinkles / bolt or two as such a disturbance gets caught up in some weak " out of the south " flow and pushes through Cen. AZ. if that even occurs at all.. If some of the more aggressive HRRR runs pan out, might even be a chance for a little more activity tomorrow evening.. We'll see... As decent of a job as the HRRR can do picking up on near -term precip chances, it can also overhype it's thinking/ a given outcome, just like any other WX model ...so, I'll be watching, regardless.. Never pass on even remote opportunities for surprise bolts " Better " chances for storms < mainly dry, even up there, however > up in the mountains, esp. east and south of town thru the weekend. Oven Door opens again down here, starting on Monday, while Dew Points start a slow climb back to where they should be atm thru the week. Hot in T- Town too, but with more clouds ( and a storm or two perhaps??? ) around As the 4C High starts building back over the area, first ...good... signs of an uptick in Monsoonal activity return to the mountains, and S. AZ starting sometime next week, ..Slowly < ...ever so slowly... > inching their way closer to the valley as we head toward next weekend.. ..Per the current thinking ..which of course, is subject to change. As usual, this idea shows up best the closer you get to the border... Today's 14 day and 3 week thoughts..... Fingers crossed......

Thanks Guys. I will discard it.

Ehhhhhh like 5 of the grocery store seeds made it. None of the cool stuff @WaianaeCrider sent me survived. They're such divas and not easy at all to balance moisture and airflow. I did buy a couple Red Ladies and a Hovey from Wellspring. They're all in 5g now, the Red Ladies are in full sun and the Hovey is still on the carport. The Red Ladies are really taking off but it's probably too hot for them and time to feed them. I'm trying to upload pics of the elephant ear bulbs @N8ALLRIGHT sent me but I'm not getting cooperation. I finally sold the last 2 and I have a volunteer from my soil dump pile. At some point some Pink Dragon alocasias will pop up from there. Anyway, as always, more stuff on the evil sites.

Drove by the filifera in Clayton, NC today. It’s looking really good

The beauty of the pinkish inflorescence on a King palm . The first time I’ve seen the flower open before the leaf base falls . The color was lost a bit when I zoomed in to capture the image , but it sure is colorful to the eye. . It looks like I will be germinating more Archontophoenix . Harry I have quite a few babies from this palm . The Cunninghamiana has a pinkish inflorescence , unlike the white color of the Alexandrae in our courtyard.

Richard , you are an inspiration! Yes , some take quite a while but seeing that sprout or sprouts is a reward . This past several months or so I’ve been dabbling in germinating seeds that @DoomsDave gave me , also seeds from the Sullivans and my own or friends palms . The amount of time each species takes varies significantly. Harry

I never thought about roots clinging to or growing through styrofoam. That would be enough to keep me from trying it . My concern was just the mess it can create . I did use aquarium gravel (white) , that I got somewhere for a pond I was building , when I was out of perlite . It seemed to mix in the potting soil ok but not as good as perlite. That’s why I bought the big bag of it recently. Harry

Yet another photo of Prestoea acuminata var montana in bloom. Opens pure white, then becomes pink, and finally dark red with green fruit. Never fails to draw in visitors to the garden. I'm not sure if the geckos are hunting the many bees attracted to the flowers, or something else. But you gotta love those blue eyelids. Geckos were introduced in Hawaii decades ago and now number in the billions. The Kalij pheasants love eating them, but don't put a dent in the population. Plenty of geckos make themselves at home inside my house. And my first Pinanga speciosa has gotten too tall to appreciate the colorful crownshaft, so I've planted some babies. Just starting to hint at the coming show.

Neither Parajubaea nor Butia are self cleaning palms and, therefore, the hybrid is not as well. Occasional pruning of old dying/dead fronds is necessary.

Nice Cycas Thouarsii flush getting photo bombed by Zamia Furfuracea flushes. I planted these at a property I do the landscaping on in Pacific Beach.

Update of my B hapala after another year or 2 of growth since the last photo. Really bulking up before producing clean trunk. What’s more noticeable to me now looking at this is how quickly my nearby Cyphophoenix elegans is growing (white trunk and crownshaft to the right).

A few colorful flushes around the yard today.

Hedyscepe canterburyana dropped an old frond and the freshly exposed crownshaft is looking great!

Borassus flabellifer were looking good at sunup this morning...

The Chambeyronias throughout the garden are pushing new leaves, a welcome bit of winter colour!

Yesterday was the 15th consecutive day of +20c max temps in Sydney... in the winter month of June no less ! With records dating back to 1855, it's the longest such run in recorded weather history. I visited Warragamba Dam, south west of Sydney on Saturday; it was a glorious winters day, about 21c and even me, a Darwin resident in the deep north tropics, was comfortable wearing shorts.....

Red Latania

My first full day in Jakarta, Indonesia, quite an introduction to the city. First, a 2-hour ordeal via ride-share to get from my hotel near the airport to the main train station in the city, a lesson in what to expect when you get on the roads here. I will not be driving!!! Once on the train, all went smoothly. Upon arrival in Bogor at the hottest time of day, I accepted a ride to the gardens via motorcycle, not my usual mode of transport, but more efficient than going by car. below, my driver Alic, the elegant entrance to Bogor Gardens as backdrop. It’s a very old garden and fairly extensive, but the palm collection was my primary objective. Even so, I was immediately distracted by a bromeliad display. Beyond a bend in the road, I began to find palms; old palms, big palms. Like this humongous Arenga undulatifolia. …and an Orania sylvicola, below. Fortunately it was labeled.

Hi, just to add a few thoughts since Indonesia was a major topic in my second subject of study at university back then. Indonesia is the largest islamic country in the world but it depends on the region how strong local life is dominated/ruled by religion, not to forget that the well known island of Bali is actually ruled by Hinduism, tolerated by the central government. That means, you will experience sometimes completely different conditions in daily life when traveling within Indonesia. Being aware of those regional differences is of great help/benefit when navigating through it, not to mention avoiding unintended trouble. @Kim , you are doing great when reading local moods - you trip will become an awarding one, guaranteed! Lars

From there I deviated to other attractions— the Nepenthe House, the Begonia House, and some of the semi-domesticated inhabitants. After a few more minor adventures in Bogor, such as crossing chaotic streets on foot and communicating with gestures to find an ATM and a group taxi ride to the station, I returned to Jakarta and my hotel by train. Seems everyone was as weary as me.

Many of the palm delights were added later, such as. the four Lodoicea maldivica, the Pelagodoxa henryana, and these very thick-leaved fan palms. The label wasn’t legible for the following photos; my best guess is possibly a Borassus, but I failed the class in Advanced Palm Identification. Ideas?

A little background info and a look at the stately formality of the main palm area.