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A nice cycas taitungensis in male cone, they have the smell of dead ants wafting through the garden.

Time to pot up a few kerriodoxa seedlings, and to my surprise some trachycarpus sitjong seeds have germinated on the potting bench, I usually reuse the germination medium and just tip it out on the potting bench to recycle it. These are so lucky little sitjongs, just never give up on some seeds you just never know what will come up! And with the warm weather time to start potting up some tropicals.

Try 18 months after purchasing this ferox seed. I gave up and walked away giving up all hope, it was only the fact I left it the container and forgot about, to my surprise a baby ferox!

A lady visitor to my garden said that about the royal.

With a bit of luck a few Ravenea glauca seeds have set after many years of flowering.

Look carefully at the two foreground palms. The image appears to show long filaments that exceed the crown profile. These are likely old spadices, a diagnostic character for B. armata, Thanks for posting !

Clinostigma samoense in a light drizzle. One of the world’s most beautiful palms. Tim

I would treat the crown and soil for a fungal infection. I lost a Butia that way. Started on the outer leaves and moved to the newest.

All of the Greeks are insisting I put mine in the ground but I have been putting it off. The big advantage of not doing so is I can move my cocos into the shade for the summer. The Malayan dwarfs I've managed to get through the winter have been killed of by cats or intense summer sun. Now that I have a couple Panama Talls, I am becoming far more optimistic. They have taken the summer heat quite well and still look perfect. The Panama Talls are the smaller ones.

This part of my garden is decorated with red color near Christmas. That's what I like more in radicalis and microspadix as well.

Probably hard to get a concrete answer, but if it's in South Florida from a big box store, it's most likely a golden Malayan dwarf coconut.

Well no 2 IDs the same yet from the Palmtalk community so definitely far from an embarrassing question. I’d be very confident there’s P canariensis influence in this one, but I think it’s a hybrid too. John’s P canariensis x reclinata guess seems reasonable to me.

I was there again last August and drove by at that mysterious property. This time I took a better look at all the palms. But again, I didn't dare to take photos directly into the property with my big camera. I just took the cam of my iPhone. the small ptychosperma (of the above postings) was not at its place anymore. I think they took it to another location inside the big property. If you zoom into the pictures, you can see leafes in the background that could be of that palm.

If I had a neighbor growing a coconut like that one, I’d sure give it a try or at least a few tries!

No, this palm is in a private garden in south Florida. It's quite rare in cultivation.

OK I’ll play along . These don’t fall on their own like Dave’s Chambey frond or Jim’s super long frond , but last time I cut an overhanging Obtusa frond ( hanging over a neighbor’s driveway) , it took almost an hour to cut it up in order to dispose of it! I had to drag the frond out into the street to cut it up . Harry

Sitting in my home office yesterday in the middle of one of those Eternal Zoom Conferences when I hear this sudden crash thud and see a shadow across my nearby window. it turned out to be an abscised leaf from my watermelon hookeri. Okay, not big like a royal but still big. Maybe you have palms and/or parts of same with unexpectedly large size?

Correct. Just like the Kentias. The Pananama Talls are the opposite so far. Maybe because they were barely germinated when I received them, I don't know.

Greece is home to large numbers of feral cats and can be a real nuicance. To decrease the nuisance, you feed a couple and they will keep the others away. One of the ones I kept around had decided my 2 year old potted cocos made a great litter box. He managed to kill one. "Albert" now lives at an all inclusive hotel about 40 km from here.

They seem to be pretty popular with the cool climate growers and just about everyone who grows palms would have one or two around their house. So easy to grow and propagate there fast becoming the modern day chamaedorea elegans. Very tough dry tolerant cool tolerant and fast to grow, is one reason they are popular, from medium amounts of sun to deep shade there a palm that fits into any garden or container!

Some nice colour for the garden ready to go in the ground.

That’s the whole idea of it all, future garden plans!

Almost 1yr. Not the best pics but decent growth.

Horridus sorry, not ferox!

Surely a hybrid, sylvestris is a smaller relatively thin trunked palm that doesn't grow so tall and has a smaller crown with less rigid petioles. I cant add anything new to the hybrid ID. The dactylifera have biplanar leaf arrangements, that one almost appears a flat arrangement as a CIDP would be. This could be a hybrid crossed several times. I see many more sylvestris hybrids than pure sylvestris here in florida.

I have some of them sitting in trays of water all year and they don’t mind it, provided they have good drainage. I have a lot of Altifrons in the ground and will drink any amount of water I give them, but my soil is black sandy loam derived from sandstone, so actually to much drainage that has a drawback in the summer droughts. The big amount I have in the nursery I do monitor the amount of water they get to avoid the fungal disease. Being careful not to overwater them.

Love them or dislike them, there here to stay in a garden near you. We all know how tough they are and the yellow colour is what sets them as winner. The only fault they have is drop leaves like a hot potato in butter fingers. But they are proven in the palm kingdom as the magical beauty of a palm up there with the coconut as picture of tropical holiday by the sea or poolside. I still grow a few and will still a few around as pioneer palms to help establish new plantings. Theres even a dwarf form worth tracking downl to grow!

The best palm is a gifted palm tree. I love the colour of the trunk and the spacings on the one you have there, almost bamboo like the look. They where so popular back in the day, imagine if they had been discovered yesterday the palm world would flip over them and they would be worth a fortune with everyone wanting them from tropical to temperate zones. Your allowed to miss that weed, but you better get out there and get it today for the next photo shoot🤣 Richard

@MSXI also ordered and received some new seeds of RPS this week. They are indeed very small compared to my previous order.

Can anyone identify the Brahea species highlighted in this photo of the gardenside view of the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild?

In the summer of 2022, I spent about $20 to purchase this beautiful palm and planted it in an 8b area located in Nantong City, Jiangsu Province.

I have a Sago palm here in zone 6a, Colorado, that's suffered some damage. I've done some research on protection methods and whether it will survive, and have concluded it probably will. I still, however, would love any advice/help you can give me. I have a sago palm (cycas revoluta), and it is surviving, but unfortunately, I was a bit faulty in my protection methods, and it's suffered some cold damage. The tips of the fronds are burnt to a CRISP, and the lower you go, the more bendy you get until they turn green and healthy at the base. The crown and trunk are still alive and healthy, which is all that matters and should, as I've heard at least, push out new fronds this spring. I had it covered with a Frost King heat cable, a blanket-brand frost cloth, and a cardboard box. This, however, is where I went wrong; I covered the sago with a cardboard box, and it snowed about 4 inches. The top collapsed and let snow touch the frost cloth, which indirectly contacted the tops of the fronds, causing tip burn. I checked on it afterwards, and it had some slight damage, but I then checked on it the next day (it got down to 6-8f (-14 to -13c) that night), and the tips of the fronds, as I stated, had burnt and crisped. As I previously said, the sago should push out a new set of fronds next spring, but until then, I've devised a new idea for protection and will NOT be covering it with a cardboard box again. Until spring, I will hope and pray that she survives, but any help/advice would be great as well as important to me. Have a great day! God bless!

The trick with golden canes is plant them out as singles, the standard dozen in a container from the plant store doesn’t work well when mature, one great big ugly clump, but plant them out as single ps it’s a different story! Richard

I'm ready for a mild winter 🌴, betting on 31F at IAH and 33F at Hobby for the season 😆. It sounds hard to believe with the recent cold blasts but 6 out of the last 15 winter seasons have been zone 10 at IAH and/or Hobby. If we go back to the 90s and 2000s it's even warmer! 2019-2020: 30F/32F 2018-2019: 30F/31F 2015-2016: 32F/34F 2014-2015: 28F/30F 2012-2013: 29F/31F 2011-2012: 29F/31F Ready for mango trees and royal palms🤩🌴.

careful freezing for too long as you very well will affect germination rate. Weevils are easily to kill - Take your seeds, strong bleach mixture, and soak your seeds. Your first patch of them will day - Purchase bifenthrin and mix that into a container (big glass jar) let it sit for 24-48 hours and watch more die. - Wait another couple days, or a week, and do it again. The ones that were waiting to hatch, will get hit on the second time around. Refrigerating seeds is fine, but careful on freezing.

white nerine bowdenii, which bloom here in winter, and a South African bulbous plant

Hello everybody! I have been a long term member of the IPS and Palmtalk and I really think this is an incredible organization, and I have been wondering how I can do more as a member. I live in areas where it’s difficult to get involved with local chapters, but are there other ways I could volunteer for the IPS through volunteering roles I could do from online? Again I really love the IPS and as someone who studies biology with a focus in tropical horticulture I believe a lot of my goals align with the IPS and I genuinely believe it to be a wonderful organization that I would love to get involved with!

I just googled Torremolinos Spain Coconut and it came up straight away. The person who made the post described the climate: "Average january extreme is +2C or 35F, 10a/b marginal Mediterranean climate, but the extremes are -3C" February is the only month we may see temps as cold as +2. If it happens, it's normally exactly 2 nights right at Valentines and that will be the coldest night. Bananas will start to grow again by the 20th. We used to get lows of +8 degrees a few times in January / February but even that's become unusual. 12-13 degrees is our normal low January / February. I'm really impressed with that guy's work - he's got some balls and doing something right. I'm curious if those cocos are a tall variety or if they are the bog standard Dutch ones that are on sale all over the place. My Dutch one, again, did not enjoy our summer heat and grew very little. My Panama Talls had no issues with the heat. amd got little burn whatsover. I still hesutate to put any cocos in the ground but maybe will next year. I took this photo last Thursday ( 27 November ) :

That’s a chunky Chamby frond Dave! Here’s a 28 foot P. torralyi frond stretching across my entire front lawn area that I just removed the other day.

Three new leaves on our little onilahensis

I have been asked by Director Glenn Franklin to introduce the 2025 IPS Save the Species campaign. This program began with the successful Tahina fundraiser which ran on PalmTalk. It is now a very important part of our non profit mission statement (Education, Research, Conservation). “ Our December Save The Species fundraiser is coming up for this small palm. Photo by "Olivier Reilhes Ravenea louvellii is endemic to Madagascar. Our fundraiser will help finance efforts to document additional palms, involve the local community and start a propagation program. The team of botanists from Madagascar led by Dr. Mijoro Rakontoarinivo. Over his professional coreer he has previously worked side by side with our own Dr. John Dransfiel and Dr. Bill Baker at Kew.” More posts to come.

The seed distributors hard at work. Ducula spilorrhoa, Imperial Torresian Pigeons (or just Torres Strait Pigeons when they're not trying to be pretentious) are great spreaders of rainforest seeds, including many palm seeds. Wouldn't it be great to harness these as "carrier pigeons" and by-pass all the hassle of customs/quarantine regulations and postage costs, let alone cost itself of the seed. The seed would arrive fresh and packed with its own fertilizer. Win/win situation. ☺️

Four years after the last post, I thought I’d give an update of this ‘getting large’ palm’. The trunk reminds me of an Arenga with the dark fibers and it has yet to reveal any leaf scars. There is the shovel for scale. Tim

Alongside this, we should do something what the Conifer Society does and create reference gardens at botanical gardens and universities. I know the Southeastern Chapter of the IPS puts a lot of work into palms at the Coastal GA Botanical Gardens, but what if we expanded upon this, and created reference gardens where we could. The conifer society will designate preexisting collections, but I think we as a society should work on both creating and and identifying palm collections that we believe are a good reference to the palm world. This can also tie into conservation with placing an effort on endangered and threatened palm species when we create palm collections where it is permissible to do so. And I think if our focus is universities and botanical gardens, we could easily find horticulturalist who would want to work with us who can help us create elaborate palm reference gardens. And this can be anywhere where palms grow and we could do across the U.S. And expanding the local chapters might be a way to encourage more local palm involvement so people can enjoy the palms near them without having to spend thousands to fly to the South Pacific to experience what the IPS can offer. https://www2.conifersociety.org/page/Referencegardens

Finally got around to posting an update on my Baronii “Black Stem” from @Darold Petty. Here it is…..

Will, I give all my palms a good feeding in October. PalmGain usually. The healthier they are going into winter, the less likely they are to yellow as much if the winter is cooler than average.

Here they are now.

Few palms make a first impression as does Cyrtostachys renda. Many remember when they first laid eyes on a picture or the real thing. It's love at first sight until they become informed they can't grow it unless they care to move. IMO, almost as impressive and a much easier grow is Areca vestiaria. I could get these to last until Feb. outside in SoCal before they gave up the ghost. I believe they failed due more to cumulative cold as opposed to one cold unbearable night. I would think that would give them half a chance in Central Florida. Have you guys tried it there? Or has anyone in SoCal managed to get one through a winter? Although lacking the intense color of the 'Sealing Wax' they never the less have plenty of color. They are quite variable, ranging from solitary orange to profusely suckering red/maroon. They have a more interesting shape to the frond, and variable colors in the emergent one. And in addition they have cool stilt roots. Although almost as common in Hawaii now as 'Sealing Wax,' I hope they are being aggressively tried elsewhere. A few pics to follow. First one is more to the less suckering orange range of the scale.

You're definitely doing something horribly wrong or you got a weak sport. Mine is just 5 years-old and it's 3x that size. I'm as far inland as you can get in Broward county. Last winter it went down to 37 degrees and to the low 40s this winter. Yes, my Pacifica gets some spotting on the old fronds, but I remove them in March and by June it looks phenomenal. I just took a picture of mine, like right now and it shows some top fronds with no cold damage whatsoever. The other picture is the same palm back in June 2020.