Leaderboard

Dale it's seeding like crazy 🤪 now could be in the hundreds if they all stay on the 2 large inflorescence

The only Vanda species which has repeatedly flowered for me is Vanda tricolor. I have two slightly different variations. One has flatter flowers and the other has flowers that are less just in a single plane for lack of a better distinction.

Here’s my smallest one just slowly truckin along. Planted as a 1G about 4 yrs ago. Definitely getting more size in the trunk area. Hopefully it’s past the slow infant stage these things experience. -dale

As @DoomsDavehas the right idea for you I say just plant it! They are super tough ernies I plant tube stock all over my garden and they grow not a problem!

The rest of the buds opened for this nice bouquet display.

This is a Specimen acquired as possibly a Pritchardia hillebrandii. As it grew I don't think that was fulfilled. I don't have Don Hodel's book on Pritchardia to key this out. Given the prevalence of hybrid Pritchardia in the trade here in California, I might not be able to key it to a single species anyway. I don't recall it ever pushing out a successful inflorescence that resulted in flowers let alone fruit. Thoughts on it's id are welcome.

It’s a never end love of plants out in the garden!

If you had to replace it, are they available locally as potted trees, or do you have to start over from seed? With these extremely fast growing species, it seems most people just start their trees from seed anyways ? aztropic Mesa, Arizona

Myself I would not use it in containers. And in the soil eventually you get a heap plastic looking gel all through the soil.

The wonderful world of plants!

The tropical look so desirable, deep green and fat broad leaves help create that look. I just planted them with that vision. Richard

What a coincidence @Meangreen94z This issue has become again of interest to me, because another grower suspects that seedlings from my bermudana may be hybrids with Sabal rosei, which also exists in my garden, and blooming times overlap. He claims the bermudana seedling from the first seed batch (when I had cut off all flower buds rosei before expanding) is greener and softer, while the seedlings from the second batch (when both palm were left blooming to the end) are bluer with a rougher texture. First picture shows on the left side seedlings from the second batch and on the right one seedling from the first batch. I have also grown seedlings from the first bermudana batch and kept also a seedling of rosei about one from seed set before blooming of bermudana. On the left bermudana seedlings and on the right rosei seedling. And another solitary bermudana seedling on the left compared to same rosei seedling

Very tropical looking arrangement there @happypalms. That Latania looks like it has some age to it @bubba. Talk about a perfect palm . Well cared for and in the right environment. Harry👍

Look at all the wee Ernie’s !!! The more the merrier , I see. Harry

Chamaedorea Radicalis

You don’t want to spike a royal get a ladder or a pole saw and cut one off!!!

Still undecided Jim. If you see a news report about a dead older guy at the base of a palm tree, just remember that Steve made me do it..

A beautiful part of the world!

I’m guessing you’re joking about the climbing spikes! 🙂

Just snapped these pics just now. Seeding for the first time. Definitely faster in sun than shade. She gets sun all day now.

I had heard from a source and later verified through iNaturalist that Sabal uresana and rosei appear to hybridize in Sinaloa. South of where they overlap rosei is solely a green species, but blue ‘hybrids’ can be found in habitat overlap . Not definitive but definitely strong evidence.

sometimes it helps to climb up there and sniff the flowers. If they smell like Cheetos and Pepsi then that might be the problem. Please let us know what you discover.

Apparently there are two varieties as others have said, but I like the look of the Vietnam variety, but I will be happy with my Thai variety! They seem easy and very compact palm for a specific spot in the landscape. I like them. Richard

And an absolute perfect variegated rhapis!

Chamaedorea adscendens 27 years old in the garden and he is a beauty!

yellow Phaius

Pleurothallis grobyi

my Pritchardia hillebrandii has been producing seed for several years now in Carlsbad. I was just cleaning up the trunk earlier, removing some old retained leaf bases and snapped a photo. I wonder if climate plays a factor in when they produce their first flowers?

I just noticed that my clump of an unknown species of Puya that has been growing for 12 years in the ground is finally pushing up an inflorescence, so flowers will be coming! The first photo shows the paler Puya above a Puya alpestris clump that I had growing in the same area back in 2013. I have since removed the Puya alpestris and what remains of that is in a couple of pots. The unknown Puya is both lighter in color, forms much larger rosettes and each individual leaf is much thicker and longer than with Puya alpestris. So with the flowers to open in the coming weeks, I will hopefully be able to nail down the species as well. The inflorescence pushing up is visible in the second photo below. It began as an extended protruberance of leaves, with the leaves diminishing in size (both length and width) as it approaches the current apex of the inflorescence. Given my experience with the height of Puya alpestris and Puya mirabilis, I expect this one will continue growing up for a while before it actually opens and I see any flowers. While this clump is large and has many individual "plants", I only see this one inflorescence thus far. I know that some of the other Puya bloomed nearby at Quail Botanical, now San Diego Botanic Garden, here in Encintias during the Spring/ early summer. My Puya mirabilis was later to bloom waiting until late July every year. More photos to come as we get something more visually interesting to show.

It is not available anywhere in my country and very rare in Europe in general. It grows so fast and the seed sprouts so easily that I would start from a seed again for sure. If it didn't die back due to the cold, it would be 2m tall by now (that's 6.5 ft), in just 3 years.

My guess is absolutely beautiful!

It’s a real thing guys. Here’s the proof.

Lucky to find both varieties, there would be no chance of finding the Vietnam variety in Australia!

Update on this tall skinny Jack without copious blooms:

I am hopeful that this is a Geiger/Cordia sebestena:

Steve, That's why I come to this forum; for out-of-the-box thinking like that. I'll be renting some climbing spikes on the way home, so stay tuned.. 😑 Bret

I have only just discovered these wonderful looking plants, and they are beautiful! I hope you had your safety glasses on!

Next shipment I will chuck a pup in.

Thanks you know your broms a lot better than me!

Bismarckia

For me the slower the better, and the slower they are with age the more beautiful they become for a good reason. It takes years to grow such a container collection! Richard

I think I have 30 and a couple more in pots which I may as well plant!

I feel sure the real reason for the bans is a view that native = good, non-native = bad. But even native trees like Pohutakawa are considered weeds by some if they stray out of their natural distribution of the past few thousand years. I'm just grateful to have a fascination for plants which has brought me lifelong pleasure and try to ignore the joyless extremists.

It's political rather than biological. Of course there will be "consultation" before the bans are enacted but the last process which saw Phoenix canariensis, Trachycarpus fortunei and Archontophoenix cunninghamiana banned was painfully lacking in evidence.

For me , other than the emergence of the red frond , the size of each frond is so impressive . My C. Macrocarpa is getting very large fronds for the size of the palm. Those that you have are very nice. Harry

There are a few older coconuts in Lakewood Ranch too. That area seems to be z10 (by the old standard) and I don’t understand why.

Some flowers starting to open but not fully. You can see a hint of the blue, definitely paler than Puya alpestris. It looks like I may need to break out a ladder to get a good photo of the flowers, at least until the ones that are pointing down open.

If you stick it in the ground and wait a few years, yours will eventually form a nice colony like this one has done. You can see why I was wondering if any of the other plants might bloom given all the pups this has put out over the years.

Uh oh! Maybe I should name an heir in my will for my P. venusta if it might not flower in my lifetime!! 🤔