Leaderboard

I’ve got all my neighbors fertilizing their grass and plants before any rain now. 👍🏻 Free deep watering is a good thing for us in SoCal. -dale

Hmm, One of the things I like about the Facebook page is the number of reactions and comments I get from most of my posts there. I love this forum and its “family” feel but, as many have noted, a lot of the “family” seems to have moved on but I see some of them occasionally posting on Facebook.

I've been quiet, but I do lurk. The facebook groups are easy to post on, but they lack the breadth of relationships, knowledge and expertise you get here. Usually when I post on fb, I get a handful of likes and a few emoji reactions. It's a lot more intimate and personal here

When I sensed this kind of development a couple months ago I brought it up and it was well discussed. I would say half of the members were pro and the other half contra regarding a limitation of new threads. Therefore this forum lost its value for me when finally turning into the predicted diary-like medium, I have drawn my consequences.

Add my voice to those supporting a limit on number of new threads a single poster can make in a day. 🌱🌱🌱 I consider many of you to be great friends and have hesitated saying anything since I don’t want to hurt feelings, but it really is excessive! I do enjoy the photos, but I also enjoy seeing what’s going on in EVERYONE’s gardens (not just one person’s nursery). Seeing how fast new posts get buried is discouraging and makes me less likely to post than in the past. 😶 To be clear, I’m not saying anyone should stop posting! But do we really want one person to be the author of half of the posts on here? Especially when the posts are so similar. For example, can we perhaps have a single “my Joey palm collection” post and add to it (rather than a daily Joey palm update post)?

I’ve tried the “ignored user” function, but it’s frankly useless. All it does is hide the content of the individuals post, not remove it from your feed altogether, so the same issue remains with threads being smothered into oblivion before anyone gets a chance to see them. The beauty of Facebook groups is one can block an individual if required, which ensures you don’t see their posts nor visa versa. Wonder if something similar could be implemented on PalmTalk?

I think this is a pink princess. New leaves are that cool chocolatey bronze color, lots of variegation in this one. No label, got it for $5. Got a white princess with it for the same price.

Yep, without the pink variegation it could have been "Rojo Congo." I had a Rojo Congo next to the front door for several years. The dripper got plugged and I didn't notice in time to save it. "Moonlight" never did well for me, though.

This is a Roystonea regia I saw. Looks very unhealthy. Can someone tell me whether or not this is normal?

How you guys in Southern California doing w/all the rain? Friend of mine in San Diego says it's been raining for 3 days and the temps down to 50*

We got about 4 inches in Fresno, which is close to half of what we normally get in a whole year. Everything's drenched, and we usually get dense fog after a heavy rain so things take a while to dry up. Today's the last rainy day and then it seems we'll get some sunshine to help dry up. My soil is deep, sandy loam so no standing water or flooding. Palms are loving it.

I'm currently 20 & joined PalmTalk in 2022. My interest in palms developed during the early days of the pandemic.

And from what I've seen on Reddit yours are probably 3-5 years from seed at that point

After we had two days ago the 1. frostday this winter, it's snowing lightly at 1.2 degrees Celsius / 34.16 degrees Fahrenheit 🤔☹️

I don’t wait for my seeds to germinate, you can wait too long if you do. My key is plant as many as you can and then your not waiting too long, sooner or later something germinates. I have another batch of decipiens in the mail split the orders in two just in case customs give a hard time. Richard

I spotted it the other day, just by chance. It is 7/8 mts tall. I picked a dozen of ripe seeds scattered on the ground, but there are many more green ones on the tree. So another source for future seeds. I know of two more " sources". There used to be more tall, seeding ones in the area, but they all were chopped down.

You are quite right. None of them has seen freezing temperatures, and if so, for a short time. The first Howea in this thread, the one 7/8 mts tall, is planted in loamy soil. And the two first palms which were chopped down, were also planted in loamy soil. All the others are or were in sandy soil. These following ones are the only ones left still alive and with seeds, of which I have picked seeds and have sprouted (very randomly) The last two pics are of those in La Coruña, and they are the tallest I have seen in northern Spain. About 10/12 mts tall. Look at the base of one of them. My shoe for comparison. Last time I was there, I picked 400 seeds.

Hah! It's definitely a jungle already

Grown from a seedling

This has turned into an interesting discussion . I really don’t know how to respond as I enjoy this forum and it seems we all get along so well . Very good points , I haven’t been on the forum long enough to make a comment but other forums I was on for over ten years had some pretty heated “back and forth” stuff , so I no longer frequent them. They seemed to have gotten off track. Harry

@Jonathan Haycock + @iDesign + @palmfriend Thank you for weighing in. Please keep in mind that I can't control this aspect of the forum software. That decision and implementation are outside of my rights and responsibilities. I'd be fine with limiting the number of threads and agree that a lot of the content mentioned could be consolidated as many posts in fewer threads. The link to @palmfriend's original thread on this matter is provided at the end. A lot of the folks in CFPACS are in a WhatsApp group, some citing this as a reason. A few have jumped almost exclusively to Facebook because of the reason Jonathan mentioned - blocking someone's content works much better there than here. It was discussed once in a more cursory manner, but it looks to be revisited because the numbers seems to be tilting a bit since the original 50/50 split referenced by palmfriend. Thank you all for providing your input in a respectful manner. Original Link for Reference

Now if it would rain like that here regularly during the summer, we would be almost like Florida's weather.

I'd wager your social media obsessed friend probably calls all the random people they might interact with ..but not know ..at all.. " friends" ...Don't get me started on that pile of bull - Lol

Sooooo I started Bokashi composting. I'll let y'all know how that goes in a few weeks. If I could get the rest of the house on board I think we'd do well. I kinda cheaped out and got the 8 dollar lids instead of the 20 dollar lids and they're kind of a pain to open and shit but I guess that's a good thing if you want it airtight, right? Blatant attempt at subject change on a convo I started 😬 Anyway I'm glad to hear folks checking in. Please take some Sabal seeds from me.

My first Chambeyronia Watermelon! Several germinated, but this is the first to open its first leaf, and I believe it's the first Chambeyronia in Chile. Even this little specimen fills me with immense joy. The slightly dark red hue in the center of the leaves is striking. Thank you for appreciating this beauty, which you undoubtedly also possess.

@kinzyjr sure, I was just making a suggestion. It doesn't help grow PalmTalk when a new member joins and post a desperate request for help...and then that post is immediately buried several pages deep by a single PT member. I've seen it happen several times recently. Of course, there's a fine line between "stifling discussion" and "preventing spam." But when people start posting threads about "where's the regulars?" then maybe it's time to address the root cause with a simple fix?

I'm not as familiar with forum software as I am with enterprise systems, but regardless, @PALM MOD would likely have to make that change. As far as a decision, I think that is a decision for folks at the @IPS President and director levels. If memory serves correct, @Cindy Adair handles PalmTalk. As for me, I'm mostly Bot/SPAM/Inflammatory Post Police.

@kinzyjr it seems like a forum could have a convenient "max new topics per 24 hours" setting...

In my own case, still pushing down on the grass instead of up. Between work, my own garden, the gym, CFPACS, and once in a while, sleep, time is at a premium nowadays. Some of the folks on here that were frequent fliers went to other platforms like Facebook, Twitter/X, WhatsApp, etc., with several citing the reasons similar to @Merlyn's.

We have had close to 7” of rain up on the foothills of Santa Paula! According to the forecast , more in store for tomorrow. Our low this morning was 48f so ….yea , burrr. I have French drains all around the house for the gutters so not much puddling or standing water anywhere. The palms love water and our soil is fast draining. Last year we got less than half our normal rainfall , which is about 18” . These last two storms total almost 10” ( one storm a few weeks ago was almost 3” ). This is a welcome relief. Harry

Yeah, I regret wasting so much time endlessly scrolling the Book of Face. I have a friend who I swear spends 3/4 of his waking hours on some antisocial media site. I told him I'd rather spend my spare time tweezing nose hairs with a pair of rusty sporks.

All good Steve. Plenty of rain to be sure at times, but breaks in between that allows some to soak in. More on the way for the next 3 days as well. It is indeed cool between systems; was 42F this morning. Pretty cool for mid November...

I have not long come out of jail, hence my lack of posting. I occasionally managed to post via a 'burner' phone from the inside. Anyway, it is important that I do not criticise the UK government anymore. 👍

👍 Face- plant X ...wetf it's being called now Tacky tok = Absolute trash Glad I bailed.. ..let alone never joined 😉

Glad to see I'm not alone in the "no thanks" to Facebook, mine is not on the phone and I only check on desktop on rare occasions. I don't miss it so why bother? This place is better anyway!

I'm still kickin'... I read this site religiously, but don't post much, as I don't have a lot of new material worth posting... I too, am not a fan of Facebook, and only used it to keep up with family and friends... To much drama on most of the sites there, so I tend to stay away from them.. Recently I just stopped reading it at all... Butch

I have had some medical issues but hope to get back on track soon. It is great to have the “unread content” option to catch up on all the content when we check back in. I know of one other IPS Director who has had some fun travel recently plus all the normal IPS duties and paid job. But we remain loyal PT users and neither use FB. The IPS felt we needed a presence on the most popular social media sites but really it is PT which we support with our dollars and moderation. Please continue to read and post here when you can.

Hey there! Doing well and hope the same for everyone else. I noticed it slowing down also, seems to go in fits and starts but the latest lull seems to be longer than usual. I always worry that everyone is more and more using groups on social media… I was on Facebook for years but deleted my account a few years back as I was stupidly spending a huge chunk of a finite life mindlessly scrolling. Evil damn thing that there is literally no end to scrolling! So much negative crap as well. I used to be a member of a few snake forums (as I am into reptiles as well as plants) and all have sadly gone by the wayside in favor of FB. Drives me nuts that I can’t find a website for so many businesses as they’ve all gone to FB. Can we just go back to 2010 and leave it at that? Maybe even 1999? Would like my youth back as well! 😝 This forum is notable in that it still persists while so many others have not. The members here are prolific and dedicated and continue to create fantastic posts with all that palmy eye candy we love to see. It’s also so reassuring that I don’t have to scroll too far before I get to the bottom of a page, puts my mind at ease and gives me chunks of my life back for other things.

Hah, no...not you! If it had occurred to me that you might think I meant you...then I would have typed "(not you)" in the middle. How's that for a convoluted sentence?

The anxiety makes me wonder if this meant me, but then I remember I primarily post in my own thread which like, 2 people actually look at. I've tried to get back on there but their algorithm permabanned me for violating community standards before I even finished setting up my account. Me and Sancho are surviving and my grow room is absolutely absurd now. You called me insane before, I think this room needs a name. It's completely out of hand.

Last time I checked it was all good down under!

it always seems like this time of the year the posts start to slow down. a lot of people don't have stuff to post about and it seems like a lot of people have moved to posting in the palm Facebook groups. That's just my guess I don't know I could be wrong.

Still here and just posting less frequently. That's partially due to "finishing" my yard and moving on to other big tasks, and partially because a certain member keeps "spamming the board" with 20 or so new and yet somehow highly repetitive topics per day.

We're all here. It's Fall... Winter coming up. Most places get cold and slow down a bit i reckon JD

I have been growing palms since 1981------ no telling how many spcies I have but heres a list Caryota obtusa ( 10 foot of trunkk) Caryota maxima 20 foot of trunk and flowering Arenga pinniata 10 foot overall Brahea aculeata --maybe 10 foot of trunk Jubeaopsis caffra ---- may be 5 foot of trunk Chrysidalacarpus decaryi easily 10 foot of trunk Chuniophoenix nana Lytocareum hoenei Livistona saribus , chinensis and Livistona australus and fulva and L. drudei and L. muellerii and L. decora Sabal causerium, S. domingensis , S maritima S. mexicaa large adult trees over 10 ft of trunk Syagrus schizophylla S. kellyana Lots of Jack-ass palms ---- Butia x Jubeaex Sr Butia x Syagrus coronata Butia Jubaea

Btw non-native speakers tend to be better with punctuation and spelling. We don't write "should of" and we know the difference between they're and their, because we have actually studied these things. But yeah, our syntax is often wrong.

I have dyslexia the struggle is real!!

The King Fern has no drought tolerance whatsoever... my garden speciemen wilts after about 12 waterless hours.... dry winds and low humidity/dew points are not their friends. They are native to the wettest regions of the tropical and subtropical eastern coastc of eastern Australia and the root bases are often permanently wet. My son's pic from Babinda in far North Queensland.

Tree ferns are great plants, fast growing and underutilized in FL. Cyathea cooperi is your best bet in South FL. Most other tree ferns are highland or cooler climate growers, maybe there are others that would work here but they aren't commonly available. I don't think Dicksonia antarctica can take the heat, even in shade. Those are the only two species you will probably ever see at a nursery. My two C cooperi are on the north/east sides of the house but still get quite a bit of sun and tolerate it well, as long as they have water. Irrigation is a must during dry periods. I recommend compost and lots of mulch. I don't know about flooding, probably not ideal but as long as it drains relatively quickly shouldn't be fatal. They don't have spines, just a lot of scales/fur which on C cooperi is very coarse and can be irritating. Far from the worst thing to handle in the garden though, never really bothered me touching any part of them bare-handed. I can't imagine the roots ever being a threat to anything, they are very fine.

Could not believe my eyes this morning... this is a big Robusta leaning hybrid off metric and Kramer that is just starting to push green. You can’t see it in the picture really, I’ll try to go back and get another one at some point but I am amazed.