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Here’s my Cycas Panz x Debo coming alive. -dale

I have tried growing Vanda coerulea twice. The first one survived a couple of years and the second attempt was similar in duration. They don't seem to like my damp and cool winters. That is a lovely Vanda you have. I am happy that this third attempt with Epidendrum lacustre Panamanian variety is thriving still after 4 years. The flowers aren't especially large or colorful, but I love their structure.

These 2 Cycads basically never stop flushing and flushed right through the winter. Encephalartos Cleopatra x True blue Arenarius.

When I planted the two (another a few plants down the wall), I realized that it could be a temporary planting due to the ultimate size. I'm just enjoying them while I can. I still have a few inches between the footing of the wall and the edge of the plant, so still some room before they cause a problem. Speaking of big green cycads, my wife actually likes the Encephalartos laurentianus on the other side of the wall best. She isn't a fan of getting poked by my cycads, so that says a great deal. One of my favorite greens is starting to flush now. It will never be as giant as the Encephalartos ituriensis, but with time, it can get big.

Here’s one I’ve grown from seed. It’s been flowering about four years, and is just now developing seeds. It’s growing away from a big Beccariophoenix, & is surprisingly stout. Nor is it very tall, maybe 2-1/2 meters.

They shouldn't have built that so close to the palm!

I have lots of Cycads flushing right now! Like Dale said this is an exciting time of year. Here is Hor Wood x Are Wood(aka bride of frankenstein) I can definately see the Horridus starting to come through.

This just in from IPS President Andy Hurwitz! Help Celebrate 70 years of the International Palm Society

A few from LHI.. Last one is a red leaf emergent fosteriana

There’s some cones, there is some flushes but people often ask how do i propagate suckers/offsets or how do i pollinate a cone, how do i know when it’s ready etc….. today i removed a couple nice offsets from one of my female E. Dyerianus plants. A fairly easy process depending on plant location and soil. These happen to be in easy digging soil. I removed the excess dirt around the area of the offset. Today my tools consisted of a hammer and crowbar. Simply placed the crowbar between the offset and main stem and a couple love taps later we have a beautifully removed female dyerianus sucker. I treat these in a fungicide and add a rooting powder to the exposed areas on the offset. Place in perlite or pumice and give it a good water in. Sit back and wait for your roots to grow….

What you said about the color of the Purpurea is interesting, as is your comment about its growth. Of course, I can't just compare its size based on how long it's been planted; there are many other factors. Although I read that it tends to be one of the more delicate varieties and grows somewhat more slowly than other Archontophoenix species... but I don't know if that's true, and many factors are involved. They arrived today, and yes, it's definitely a Purpurea. In person, you can see the difference in the crown cap, although it's young, and I imagine that when that old leaf falls off, it will be more noticeable, especially when it's a bit more mature. I love learning from such passionate people on this forum. I'm grateful for the patience you show in explaining things. I've had hardly any luck on another forum in my country, and nobody shares information there.

Lots of commonly planted palms in CA need extra water to survive. Syagrus, Archontophoenix, Howea, etc. They all need more water than most Sabal species. By the way, I have a humongous Sabal bermudana on my side yard.

Thanks Tyrone quality not quantity, but in my case quantity before quality. But iam sure I could post a few pics of some good disasters I have in the greenhouse. I took my grandmother’s approach to gardening less is best. But iam still learning, some palms no matter what I do will always be messy and not up to standards, they just simply don’t like the microclimate or soil, water or whatever it is. Overwater underwatering too cold or too hot, I call those ones the goldilocks palms just not right! If I was to have every variety of seed germinate that I have purchased I would have hundred of varieties, alas as you know they don’t all germinate! You grow pretty good stuff I have seen your work, you do quite well. It’s lack of good viable seeds that holds us back. Your climate holds you back as well but given those seeds and climate you would be cranking em out! Australia has some dam good palm growers and gardens, Australians can give them a run for their money, we got it going on down under! Dont let them tell you any different just keep planting palms !

You’re a really good grower Richard. Your palms look perfect. This weekend I’ve been planting Howea belmoreana, Rhopalostylis baueri and Rhopalostylis sapida Chatham Island. Last weekend was Chamaedoreas. Trying to get things in the ground so I have room to pot up things that desperately need love, bigger pots and fertiliser.

Nice one there a tough palm!

You gotta spend money to make money, personally iam not in the game of growing palms purely for profit, it’s the love of palms and gardening that drives my obsession. And if I can make a few bucks along the way even better, but you can rest assure it will take quite a few palms sold before I get anywhere near my money back. And at the current rate of everything going up in price, I need to be growing quite a few more rare palms than 1500 joeys! That said the rewards are there just not overnight, I have met a few growers who have been growing palms a lot longer than myself, they have been successful in what they have done. But it takes a long time to do so! The older we get the better our palms look! The little adscendens in the picture 27 years old this is the sort of time it takes.

squashed queen palm

Two more smaller but well tended. These trees are ubiquitous and when the fruit starts falling in early summer, it gets very messy!

@Than this is my Albang entering warm season after a comparatively rainy winter. I think, given my xerothermic summer and water cost, is the best result I can achieve regarding its appearance. I expect from now on a progressive deterioration.

I can’t see any major problems that will lead to progressive deterioration. I have seen worse looking than that. I will say keep the water up to them in summer archontophoenix are thirsty and to look there absolute best they need to drink.

CIDP is not nearly as slow as sabal palmetto, and they are one of the few choices for a really cold hardy pinnate palm. ANd people like the pineapple look architecturally. Most of the CIDP I saw in CA were public plantings and you can grow a phoenix in the heat with much less maintenance than any sabal. They are tough in the desert too, less needy of water than any sabal. Water is expensive out west in my recollection.

The Encephalartos ituriensis flush is progressing nicely and yes it will be big.

Happy birthday Dear IPS 🎂🎉 Love, Kris ❤️

Being Australian any excuse is a good excuse for a party, so happy birthday IPS!

Bunch of stuff coming alive in the garden. I’ll post quite a few times here in the coming weeks/months. Love this time of year. Admittedly I don’t know the cross but I believe it’s Longifolius x Princeps. Could be Lehmannii x Princeps as it’s very blue. Who knows….its happy tho. Last year was a 2 Leafer, this year it’s 4. -dale

V. Manuvadee. A favorite blue. been looking for this one for years to replace the one I lost to cold one autumn. Just shipped from a wonderful grower in HI.

Johannesteijsmannia altifrons The seeds have a thin hard outer shell, some cracked easily by giving them a gentle loving tap with your tool of choice, I cracked a couple in a vice but you have to be careful as one seed almost split in half. Once you get a little crack you can leverage a flat tool too pick off more, do not apply more pressure. If we describe the seeds as having a flat or slightly concave bottom and a flattish round top connected by a rounded circular side, the embryo could be located anywhere along the side. The seed shell above the embryo comes off easier than the rest. Anytime the shell came off really easily, it always revealed a bad embryo. Had a few bad embryos, some looked fine but ended up recessing into the seed and a couple looked kinda bad but seem to be germinating nontheless. Germination began almost instantly once delidded. A tentative 4 out of 10 germinated seeds. Kerriodoxa elegans These seeds were not listed as new in RPS but I decided to take my chance, sadly most were rotten or the embryo had shrunk or recessed, 3 seeds appeared to have healthy embryos but only one pushed out and expanded, sadly it too doesn't look healthy. This method is great but can't save what's already lost. The embryo is located on the flat or "bottom" side, sometimes it's clear where it is as it will be marked by a lighter or reddish seed coat, sometimes not so much. The embryo is very close to the surface and the seed coat is relatively soft so care should be taken when removing the seed coat. The one seed that has made some movement began almost immediately. We'll call it 1 out of 10 for now Butia(grus) Two species here, b.lallemantii and butiagrus nabonnandii (b.odorata) but the process is the same, lallemantii seeds were not new and had been listed for sometime, two mule seeds had germinated naturally before I got impatient. Shells were cracked in a vice, with the pointy ends in contact with the ends of the vice, pressure is applied slowly and the seed should be wrapped with some cloth or held between fingers if space permits, otherwise things may end up getting scattered. Cracking revealed up to two seeds per nut for lallemantii and up to three for the mules, technically they should germinate easy from here but if you're skipping the queue you might as well go to the front of the line. Cracking the nut is worth doing for old seeds as sometimes rotten seeds were next to healthy ones which may have ended up infecting them. The embryo location is obvious, it's the pointy part of the seed which would have corresponded to the germination pore, the embryo sits deeper in the seed than you would think but slowly removing slices from the pointy end will reveal it. Can be done with a sharp blade but I did a couple with just my thumbnail. A few seeds seem to have missing embryos all together and a few didn't germinate, with embryos recessing into the seed instead. The healthy ones pushed a button out within 24 hours. First photo is butiagrus, then butiagrus(left) and lallemantii(right)

"Also, ..for those who really < ..really? > want one of those brutally hot n' dry summers?" People actually want that in the desert? That being said, there are always people on the fringe who enjoy strange things. I like very warm, even hot, weather, but I still have my limits. Summer in the desert southwest is quite the experience.

Sabals have long been established in California, Franceschi (and probably a number of other pioneering horticultural pioneers and nurserymen in the burgeoning region) was working with them in the late 19th century and there are today specimens of many species scattered around the entire region, in botanical gardens or other landscapes. In Santa Clarita you have a rather hot inland climate and you can probably grow all the species (maybe depending on your microclimate with rare damage to S. mauritiiformis or S. yapa). They are not harmed by low humidity, at least I've never noticed this on specimens I've seen over the years in SoCal, and barring any extreme drought/water-restriction issues that may crop up in future, they're probably not going to die from lack of water, certainly not after establishment and if there's a water-table available (and note that the L.A. County Arboretum's collection of Sabal species enjoys a notably high natural water-table). But certainly there are species better adapted than others. Tom's notes on S. uresana are indicative of how well adapted some species may be to the hotter interior areas where resources may be harder to provide, whether that may be Arizona or California, and I agree with him that something from Sonora is likely going to be better adapted to the rigors that may face a palm in the dry interior of California. Along those lines, I plant S. mauritiiformis in protected, shadier areas here at my landscape in the desert but I'm not worrying about S. yapa, since the latter is a heliophyte growing in open savannas, whereas S. mauritiiformis is a denizen mostly of Central American jungles and would likely resent an open exposure here. Researching these details can be revealing and informative, at least as a starting point in selecting species for your area. In the coastal belt S. bermudana and S. mauritiiformis, with 'Riverside' coming up behind them, seem to be the most discussed species by growers on this forum, and that, too, can be used as a clue. But there are a couple of factors that influence the usage of certain palms, one of those being how unique in appearance the palm is, and how quickly it satisfies the needs of the landscape designer/owner. Human patience and plant patience are two different things, and the growth-rate of most of these species in the cooler coastal zones is what makes them less attractive to homeowners and designers/landscape architects, and in particular nurserymen are not going to be jumping at any of these species because they're not going to be making money when they have to hold stock for many years before it's saleable. So larger specimens have to be imported from hotter areas, whether that be desert or the southeast/Florida. Which is expensive. And when you can buy a Brahea or a Washingtonia for a fraction of the price and get a nice specimen sooner, the dust settles and you're left with a genus that gets overlooked by most. And as I noted above from my experiences with S. palmetto in Mississippi (of course a very different climate) there was a huge difference in growth in sun-soaked, really hot-hot areas where they raced skyward vs. the north side of that two-story house in a very leafy courtyard, where they hardly budged over more than a decade, only 30 feet away. So your positioning of them is very important. If you really want a Sabal, go ahead and plant it. But research can be valuable. Drive over to the Huntington, and also to the L.A. County Arboretum, and look at their collections and see which appeal to you, look at the tags to get a clue how many years it has taken for them to reach their current size. Take into consideration your own climate and microclimate, heat-units, night temperatures, etc., and your possible needs for quick growth. That should guide you toward finding the species that will work at your location.

A couple of good ones today! dypsis baronii black petiole bentnickia condapanna Areca songenthensis

I think pacsoa have voiced there opinions about the subject in writing to the powers that be! And I think a few others have verbally voiced there opinions in such a manner that it seems to have upset the powers that be!

Well that was a bright idea someone had 25 years ago planting it so close to the building.

Quarantine didn’t stop shot hole borer from getting here. Funny how it got to Fremantle first. All that wood furniture coming through from Asia through Fremantle. Then you hear of borers in wooden furniture from Harvey Norman. I think big business are more likely to breach quarantine, not little palm collectors who have no interest in doing the wrong thing and don’t want to import pests and diseases either. We absolutely need quarantine and biosecurity in this country. It’s how they go about the process which is maddening. They should be working with collectors not against them. A case in point is all the wrong palm names on BICON. They’ve been approached to help correct them. They’re not in the slightest bit interested.

Sabal palmetto has always been the go-to landscaping palm in the southeast because we already had millions of them available to dig up and move around. Some people appreciate them as a valuable native species but to most people a palm is a palm and the cheapest, readily available option is the best option. Even here in Florida, Washingtonia are much faster than Sabal, and I can't imagine they are very profitable for any of the nurseries out there to grow compared to other fan palms. So yes, California's climate is great for growing Sabal, especially some of the Mexican species, but there isn't much supply or demand. Same as it is here, there's hundreds of palms that grow well in south Florida but you'll have a hard time finding more than five or six different species at a big box store. Most people are happy with a triple Adonidia in front of their house and hedge of "Areca" palms around the back. Best to fit in with the neighbors, not stand out. It's very rare to see big Cuban Copernicia around here, as another example. Commercial nurseries would be insane to invest in growing them when Bismarckia are an option.

Sometimes a good threat is all you need to jumpstart a plant.

Not sure if they'd go after them if nothing else around. Maybe in a year or two things will settle down. At 83 I'm beyond major landscaping changes or adjustments to the physical area.

Very sad, some big names have recently been lost.

Tracy, that looks like the spineless form🤔I have one just like it that just started to flush as well. I will post a pick when the flush gets a little bigger. Steve

Cycas Sp. Silver. At least that is what it was given to me as many years ago. Maybe it has a real name now🤔 Anyhows this Cycad is deciduous dropping its old leaves right as its getting its new ones. Also when I potted it up the tubers were orange like carrots or yams. I will post another pic once the flush fully expands.

It looks like Spring is very welcome in your garden. Amazing plants and palms . Thank you for sharing. Harry

Your yard looks amazing! Great work with the hardscaping too 👍

Lots of activity going on in the gardens.