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Today’s catch features Licuala, Licuala, Pinanga & Associates.

It sure feels good , it looks like Mother Nature is going to soak our gardens . It has been quite the dry spell here since the deluge in November. I have been holding off on watering the last few days because the weather calls for a lot of rain to fall in our area. The last rain event delivered about 10” of rain over 3-4 days . The palms and flowers looked so happy. Then it turned dry and warm with high pressure dominating our weather. THAT is about to change. In my area it should start late afternoon . Los Angeles and south to San Diego will see rain by evening 🤞. Our Northern California neighbors have had flooding inland , unfortunately , and the burn areas down here may be evacuated . So with a watchful eye , I am embracing the chance of rain. Harry This is what we woke up to ! No rain yet but my sailor instincts ( and old bones) tell me it is imminent. Got me a new rain gage , I retired my hillbilly gage( empty cat food container)😂. Harry

A nice book worth reading, the history of the kentia palm. An interesting book that chapters the history of the Howea palm species from the very beginning of the island to modern day. If you like Howea species than this is a good book worth having a read.

Mine is also slow in Florida heat,humidity, and occasional freezes. I’m so glad younger i started some for future i to enjoy 😊 Planted in sugar sand and full sun from a 3gal

Burretiokentia vieillardii. Tim

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

I fell in love with this palm with my first visit to the gardens and through the years I always look forward to seeing it there. This is a highlight reel of pics since 2018. It doesn’t seem to change much. I’m grateful it has never been given an unnecessary pruning. Second to last pic is a month after Hurricanes Helene and Milton. To the right you can see the heavily wind damaged Corypha (which HAS recovered). The last picture is from earlier this month I do have one of my own growing in a container for now. It’s good to have some things to look forward to down the road

Might as well get a couple more in the ground, with some good irrigation they will be fine in the house garden. With a little soil amended and a good watering from the grey water septic system they will certainly get a lot moisture and nutrients, Thanks to a bio cycle system, a great way to water palms.

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

Zone 6 I admire your gardening skills!

Great book. I’ve never seen it but that was the first seed I germinated . It takes patience ! Worth it though . I wonder if they mention the farm I sold seeds to in Oxnard , California. By 1990’s the largest Kentia Farm in North America , or so they said. Harry I did a few about 2 1/2 years ago.

@Ohiopalmloverz6 You have Sabal minor going, so that much is good. One other palm that stays compact and is cold tolerant enough to attempt in a well-sited and protected area is Rhapidophyllum hystrix (Needle Palm). If you're looking for something that eventually trunks, Trachycarpus fortunei - but it will eventually outgrow its protection.

Raindrops keep falling on my head…… You can buy second hand rain guages from out west , some as old as 10 years old and have only ever seen rain 3 times in those ten years, a bargain almost brand new rain gauge that has never been filled up with water! 🤣

I have some. They are perennials but they stay extremely small here. We just don’t get hot enough quickly for them to grow a ton

My sprout is turning green and the roots are already pushing out the bottom of the 1g pot.

Oh well, maybe that suckering trait won't carry forward! 😄 Regardless I'm looking forward to seeing this one grow, thanks again Konstantinos!

I took some pictures today of what I purchased as sabal rosei many years ago. I started some uresana same time and they both have similar trunk size. Both are in sugar sand and we get 48-52” rainfall. I also irrigated these during the dry several months.`The rosei i planted as a triple and had a storm blow one stem downward. I left it cause it adds history. I do have a few 15g plants that have rooted into the ground, but could be cut/transplanted pretty successfully. Let me know if you’re in need and willing to drive to pickup in SE Hillsborough county. I have 3 and will give a good deal to whomever want one this badly

That’s a good amount. It is just starting to rain here . A couple of hours ahead of schedule. Harry

And you added some additional color to your garden at the same time! 😆 Hope you get a decent amount of rain for the plants but no mudslides.

Sending good Wishes to have Merry Christmas with a safe & creative New Year, to Palm Lovers to the North, South, East, and to the West of greater Miami and the Redlands. We are preparing to plant 100 Palms at the soon to open "Bailey Botanic Garden" this Holladay Season. "Three generations of Baileys, planting a Bailey Palm on Christmas day 2024, everyone got their hands dirty, even baby Lilly."

Brahea in the rain

A nice salacca to give the gardener a bit of trouble when pruning!

My three young Areca Gupyana. Same mother plant, same seed batch, but big difference in growth. Same potting mix, same place in the garden

Well, I'm only just getting started with my new garden, but here's a few starters. Chrysalidocarpus Baronii - greenish, yellow with a hint of white trunk, juxtaposed with late fall leaves. Chrysalidocarpus Ambositrae Chrysalidocarpus Decipiens

Calyptrogyne ghiesbreghtiana. Looking stellar this morning. Tim

A nice foggy day most of the day in my area. Had a lot of rain relatively speaking in November and the temperatures really haven’t dropped too much so far, so everything looks pretty darn happy. Dictyosperma album var rubrum, with the standard form and conjugatum at its base.

Chrysalidocarpus Robustus on left and Leptocheillos on right. Two happy pups in the middle

Beccariophoenix madagascariensis in my desert neglected area.

This guy shows some available right now: https://www.achat-vente-palmiers.com/en/hardy-palms/408-butiagrus-nabonnandii-.html

Mangoes don't survive here without protection. Avocados do. I'll keep the dwarf mango in the pot and cover it when temperatures go close to 0. Avocado I'll just put it in the ground coming April and it should be fine on its own

And taller too. Mine is either by genetics shrubby or just painfully slow. There is an impressive variability in this sp.

Epic garden Jim! I wish they all could be california trunks!

It had sped up a bit only after I had buried next to it a mastiff dog🙄! If it were a Caribbean sp, I'd say it needed some dose of voodoo magic, but it is actualy from the West Coast. I like the bright reddish fiber around leaf bases.

Nice color on the first new leaf from our little C. ambositrae, purchased from @Darold Petty a couple of months ago

Ive been noticing a lot of growth in the garden this year due to timely rainfall and of course warm temps. One of my newer plantings is copernicia hospita which has jumped in growth over the last 14 months, at least for a copie. Last summer, it needed to root and didnt grow much, but now it seems to be on the march this summer. All the heat and a good amount of rain has it pumping out new leaves and gaining height. I had this one in a container for too long in part shade and it started to look poorly. I was waiting for the roots from a large(25'), "weevil killed bismarckia" to rot enough for me to get motivated to dig. After planting, it initially was obviously deficient in older leaves as these cuban copernicias all HATE containers. I dug out the spot last year and the first pick is a month or two after planting in june 2025. The second pic is a few days ago. The palms has increased wax production and colored up a bit along with the extra leaves. Older leaves in pic 2 were de waxed a bit during Hurricane Milton in 11/24. After the damage they tended to dry out from the tips after losing the wax coating. Soon those leaves will be gone, maybe by summers end. I am not a grower who cuts off mostly green material as this is a wasting of chlorophyll that the plant had to use energy to produce. The palm will draw back chlorophyll and nutrients before the leaf goes totally brown. yet more evidence that these cuban palms want to be in the ground in a big way.

Yes same here Hedyscepe canterburyana grows like escapees in the ground and Leppidorachis mooreana.

Too warm for too long . I really hoped for a much cooler winter , not only to get a break from 8 months of sweating, no I want my palms NOT to get out of dormancy because January and February is around the corner and us Texans know , it's when sh.. hits the fan most of the time. Those warm temperatures aren't helping at all. But hands down I'm excited!! Would like to see some snow.

Root disturbance. Whole genus is quite sensitive to it, when specimens are young.

Apparently my alocasia is gonna flower.

Chamaedorea adscendens spike potted up The seed was a gift from Mr. Richard, thank you brother @happypalms

These photos are from 2024 but here is the Washingtonia Robusta at the Lost Garden of Heligan in Cornwall… And one of the biggest Filifera’s in the UK in north London (greenhouse below for scale)… I’ve only just seen these updates, even if they are from over a year ago. It’s a shame that I can’t get more recent photos from this year!!!

A year and a half after the first pic, this hospita is growing much faster than I thought. Its nearing 6' tall overall. Much faster in ground than in a container.

Lovely! Jason have you culled some of the offsets from the C renda?

Today I can almost see the Mauritia but still photo bombed by neighbors.

My Chambeyronia’s first inflorescence! It has gotten spathes before but they usually just fall off. Harry

Brahea new spear

C. Decipens splitting again. Started as a double then split to four trunks below ground level. Two trunks have split at about 50cm above ground. The photo shows a shared fused leaf A new spear has developed on either side of this leaf

A couple of beauties there @Hilo Jason. My Cyphophoenix is just a baby , nice to see what a larger one looks like. Also the Kentiopsis Oliformis , I just sowed some seeds and the New Caledonia palms grow slowly for me. Harry

I am frost free so really couldn't say. It didn't much appeciate the 2m of rain that we had this year but is generally bullet proof.

I have a large bed, about 80 ft wide by 25 feet deep. I had a path through the middle, left to right, and a deck and across the back, but nothing going into it. I lost a lot of things in there winter before last, but before I start to plant it out again I wanted easier access to you could walk up close to things without having to walk in the bed. Not quite finished with that last one.