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With some logistical arrangements and the kind work of @palmtreesforpleasure Mr Colin Wilson. He has arranged for some plants to be sent to Tasmania. So iam kindly donating some Arenga engleri, a jubea chiliensis and some lepidozamia peroffskyana. This is all I can think of at the moment thay will survive the winter freezer in Tasmania. I have also placed in box some gifted plants to @Jonathan his holy grail palms 2 calmus muellerii and 3 black petiole baronii. These will go into his garden. So good luck to all involved in making it possible for the botanical gardens in Tasmania to get a few plants into there gardens. Oh and Jonathan who better not kill the baronii in Siberia!

Trunk Height. Jun-2020 14", Aug-2020 36", Dec-2020 48", Jul-2021 62", Oct-2021 74", May-2022 80", Sept 2022 92", Dec-2023 104", May-2025 134" Today estimated 13' trunk ----- 2022 Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un0O0tfCKos 2019 2025

I planted a good size windmill in my front yard this summer, and after crawling all the way up till the beginning of December, it has opened one spear and working on opening another with a spear cranking out behind that one right now. All because i cut off half its crown to reduce water loss (this should have been done months ago). Curious to see what kind of growth i can get this next summer. Thats some serious growth though, and a wonderful looking palm! Great work man!

I've never used ChatGPT but Grok tells me that people will pay $150 for my giant elephant ears. They're gonna sell for more than I paid for them, but not no damn $150. Something I learned a long time ago - the value of something is only whatever someone is willing to pay for it. If someone will pay you $1100 or whatever, that's cool. If they won't pay more than $100 then they're worth $100. Something else I've learned is that plants are a very niche hobby, and you might see it as some sort of rare exotic hybrid - most people will see it as a palm tree. We look at our seedlings as future 15 foot trunking behemoths, most people see blades of grass. It's all in the eye of the beholder.

Here are some of the more colorful palm trunks in my Northern California garden. Post yours please! Howea forsteriana Rhopostylis baueri Archontophoenix purpurea Chambeyronea macrocarpa Archontophoenix myolensis Chanaerops costaricana Rbopalostylis sapida ‘Chatham Island’ Rhopalostylis baueri Rhopalostylis baueri Chrysalidocarpus decipiens Wodyetia x Veitchia Chamaedorea ernesti-augusti Howea forsteriana Chambeyronia hookeri Euterpe edulis Archotophoenix alexandrae Phoenix roebelenii Caryota urens R. sapida Hedescepe canterburyana Chamaedoea tepejelote Bentickua condapanna Dypsis rosea Chamaedorea species Euteroe edulis ‘Orange Crownshaft’ Chamaedorea elegans C. radicalis Livistona australis

A very kind gesture . A gift so others can enjoy them in the future, thank you . Harry

Wonderful, Richard 🤗

No budget was spared in this little makeover, with 5 dypsis louvelli and a lovely dypsis minuta as the stars in the makeover. And a trio of chamaedoreas with the usual winners metallicas, adscendens and a few Ernie’s, so a bit seed production in the years to come with this nice trio of exotics. And for a bit colour a nice draceana goldieana along with an anthurium vietchii, there will be no shortage of eye candy in this corner of the garden!

Like the man said, if you have the money we can do anything you want! Richard

…..and if you have the money , worth every cent! Harry

It takes a lot of time and effort not to mention patience, when growing palms especially new varieties unheard of in your area. There are only so many cold tolerant palms out there in cultivation, yes a few new ones coming into cultivation but as for super cold zone 8/9, there are those that have done the hard yards so to speak in zone pushing, it’s those growers who put there time, effort and money into trialling new palms. And they are more than willing to share their experiences with others. It’s so frustrating to want a certain variety of palm tree and only to kill it in the cold weather and try again and have the same results dead palms. Listening to others who have tried it and know there stuff on cold tolerant palms is worth its weight in gold!

Some good ones in there for sure, if I was to buy them the total cost of all plants would be around $1200 for all the plants that got planted, depending on where you get them! That’s the going rate for exotic palms nowadays, and that’s buying of the wholesaler, imagine full retail prices, for 5 louvelli, 1 vietchii, 5 adscendens, 3 Ernie’s, 3 metallica, 1 dypsis minuta, and one goldieana. Richard

Nice addition to that corner . No shortage of unique species to view. Harry

Wow Allen. That is very fast growing. The only palm I have that may be close to that speed is a washingtonia.

Is this a field dug palm or a potted one

Step into the wonderful fairy-tale world of exotic plants. Wait a minute, it's a real fairy tale 🤗🌈

A good friend told me to take a look in the little forest next to the small stream. See for yourself 🤗

@Fusca to get an idea, this is the oldest and sole surviving offshoot of my loureiroi. It is obviously stunted. It is so old, that it has started blooming regularly but stems height does not exceed my ankle.

Ofc

Nice cocothrinax alta!

A nice little dypsis paludosa, and a nice little Chuniophoenix nana with a few seeds maturing!

With some slow release fertilizer I assume?

😂😂😂😂😂 Classic

Above are correct yucca alofolia, your climate is not the warmest of climates. So one only has to think what die hard yucca would be a volunteer in that climate! And it’s nice to meet you!

Good point. It's said to be moderately salt tolerant but can get a bit beat up by wind.

Will, this is its third winter in the ground and it’s fattening up now. Growth nearly stops in the winter but it speeds up and is steady late spring through later in the autumn. It’s in mostly shade. I bought another one from Floribunda last summer and it’s done well so far in full summer sun. Here’s a photo of the one in the shade.

I wanted to share something important with fellow palm enthusiasts who have been following the ongoing issue of lethal bronzing. I’ve recently published new research that looks deeper into how lethal bronzing may actually lead to palm death. Instead of viewing the disease as simply “blocking” the palm’s vascular system, this paper explores the possibility that the palm’s own internal defense response may become over-activated — and that this extreme reaction may be what ultimately causes the collapse of the apical meristem. This is not presented as a cure, but as a step forward in understanding the mechanics of the disease. My hope is that clearer insight into what is happening inside the palm will help guide better treatment strategies and research going forward. If you’d like to read the paper, it is openly available here: 🔗 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18027736 Author: Gary Kennemer Title: A Host-Mediated Defense Collapse Model for Lethal Bronzing Disease in Palms (Phytoplasma-Associated Phloem Failure) I know many of you care deeply about palms and the spread of this disease. Hopefully this contributes meaningfully to the conversation and helps move the science forward.

It’s a Washingtonia. Appears to be a hybrid of W. filifera and W. robusta. That’s California Fan Palm x Mexican Fan Palm, commonly called Washingtonia filibusta. They get tall and grow fast.

So the 1g I planted in the yard from @teddytn that has Rocket DNA should get there in what, 10 or 12 years?

Not sure how alfredii fares in the salt air close to the sea. I haven't seen any reports of alfredii that close to salt water and natural habitat is far from the sea. Many palms do not like salt air. Perhaps you will be the first to try. I would pm @kinzyjr to see if he has any data on salt air compatibility. Living that close to the sea I would want to check that for your planned plantings.

Those louvelii are gorgeous things Richard! Is that minuta the one you bought with seeds on it? Looks like you might get some more next year!

There is definitely a benefit to getting them out of pots and into the ground. Mine are all from this same seed batch from Matt as well. Christmas Eve I walked by the one that inspired my interest in my neighborhood. This was before I saw Matt's or Len's specimens. It is pretty heavily shaded facing north with the jungle to its south and overhead.

That growth is slightly more than 2' per year on average. I would typically see that type of growth with trees that have reached a moderate level of maturity but not assured. There are a numbers of factors that permit that rate of growth, & I think this one has all the boxes checked. Well done.

My hands would be shaking adding fertilizer to such a small seedling.. I've got the Osmocote one but I was planning to use it only for bigger palms in the ground.

Hello dear Sean. Indeed 🤗

Some interesting colours in there for sure garden, red is one colour that stands out in the Aussie bush garden.

Something else I do is I go on eBay and Etsy to look at price history and sales. I'm gradually trying to transition into stuff that sells for ok money. Most of what I'm growing and will be selling is profit. I think 5 of my bananas were gifted. I've got seeds galore. Those are the long game. The banana pups, the papayas that I don't keep, these philodendrons - I'm still up in the air if I want to sell them as big plants or propogate them and wait - either way I have a very large pink princess and very large white princess (possibly a tri variegated) that I paid $5 apiece for. They're roughly 3 gallon size now, those are $125+ plants all day. The willows and crape myrtles, I literally cut branches and put them in dirt. I've got elephant ears that were gifted bulbs and I have some that I cut up a $25 Lowes plant and got 7 pups and they're exploding. I'll have to see what the market is when it warms up a little, plus I can say that I'm fully 100% organic and inspected and licensed by the state so that's gotta be worth a dollar or 2 in price. But (forgive the long post, I've taken my night night meds and I'm literally 2 credits away from a degree in economics) - the market is what the market is. If you're selling niche palms to (I say this with love) palm dorks on here you can kinda walk the line between premium prices and friend prices. If you're selling to like Joe Schmoe who doesn't know anything about plants or palms he's not gonna care that it's some super exotic variety of coconut that's harvested only by trained monkeys in an organic field and the monkeys are all fed caviar and it's grown in pure gold - they're gonna see a palm tree. Sort of like the same demographic that looks at a Porsche 935 is not gonna be the same demographic that looks at a Toyota Corolla. You've gotta find your audience and market sh.. stuff... That will sell to them. Etsy is another animal. Etsy is where people go for the rare exotic collector stuff. The Pappadeux crowd is not the Burger King crowd. I already know what's gonna sell locally and what's gonna sell on Etsy. I might get a couple surprises here and there but I know I don't want to ship anything 4 or 6 feet tall. Even if it sells for $300+, it's a headache and even using Pirateship it's pricey. Anyway, 12 pages to basically tell you that you should figure out your demographic before you make any big purchases. I hope you sell every one of those coconuts for $1k, but we've also got to be realistic. Maybe someone wants a yard full of them, there you go. Best of luck, I'm just saying to be smart about it. I'm pretty confident I can clean house in the spring and summer and start all over again with bulbs and pups while I wait on these seedlings to grow. You also wanna look at what sells in your area. If everybody and their mama has the same thing, the market is saturated and you have to undercut everyone else on your prices. I spent a lot of time doing that in hotels - look at what my competitors rates were and undercut them by $10 a night. You can't compete with big box stores, you just can't. You're gonna lose your.... Backside. There's a lot of chess to it.

Beautiful! Thank you very much for all the help and input you have provided me.

Cold front passes thru here Monday. Heres my forecast lows for each night: Monday night - 31F Tuesday night - 27F Wednesday night - 33F Thursday night - 39F My bananas and cannas have all started growing again with the warmth this week, each day has featured highs in the upper 70s. Fresh, bright green grass has also started filling in the backyard like its early March. But strangely enough, some deciduous trees around here are still trying to cling onto some of their leaves. Its been a strange fall/winter so far for sure. Some of my palms have not even blinked at the cold ive had so far, only palms with even minor burn is my bizzy and pygmy date. Hoping that January and February is as easy on us as December has been up to this point.

This winter I'll send you my observations too, since I now have palms in the ground. I expect some to not make it so I'll have some info to share. Of course a very important parameter is the wetness of the climate and the soil, as well as the frost, but at least we have an idea of the temperatures.

I have 20 seeds of Coccothrinax argentata subspecies argentata, the tall type found throughout the FL Keys and Caribbean ( I am also selling the shorter growing mainland form, C. argentata susp. garberi, see my other posts). These seeds are supremely fresh very golden color. Picked from fresh fruit. $0.75 per seed $10 for all 20 seeds

Hmm alright then as soon as they go pinnate it’s ready for the ground ?

Which species of palms can you find lakeside?

My phoenix loureiroi humilis has a single trunk and no suckers.

I have come to realisation that if you want to grow tropical palms, or plants out of there native habitats, water and irrigation are an absolute must have. As you have noticed with all the good rains and high temperatures the difference in growth rates is very noticeable. I realised I wasn’t watering way near enough after such rain events.

A few more: Chrysalidocarpus ambositrae Chrysalidocarpus rufescens Vonitra crinita Chrysalidocarpus sp. Bef Chrysalidocarpus prestonianus

I will share a few too. Chrysalidocarpus pembanus Chrysalidocarpus robustus (2 photos) Chrysalidocarpus leptocheilos Cyphophoenix elegans

Konstantinos your hybrids are beautiful 👌

Richard, you forget that Konstantinos and I don't have much choice here when it comes to hybridizing or producing palm seeds. Lucky you, you can grow almost anything, but in reality I'm happy with what I can grow, also because if I could grow more species, I wouldn't have the space, my garden isn't very big, and I'm lucky to have a small garden, almost everyone here lives in condominiums.

Brush tail possum in the backyard. Thats a fruiting Arenga Engleri in the background.