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I’ve been observing this palm for probably 50 years now. It was planted at Two Harbors Catalina island around 1920-28. Its looking better now than a few years ago due to the drought ending. It gets only rain, no irrigation.

I have had received some interest in this elegant Malagasy species that I have been growing, and I'll take a little time to present some pictures and comments. Seeds from RPS were sown in July 2008. Good germination, four plants were planted out in April 2014. Here is a pic of the quartet taken a few days ago: I took another pic (in rare full sun) from a different angle with a lawn chair for scale: The pinnate portions of dead leaves tend to break off, leaving numerous very thick leaf bases that exceed in toughness any other genus I can think of at the moment. Here is the largest one. Smaller palms next to the left are Dypsis (still Dypsis) rivularis. For a while, plants of the two species were of identical height. Two larger palms in the distance are Clinostigma exorrhizums. Inflors are two or more feet long, very straight and vertical, emerging from those tough leaf bases. Three of mine have produced them - I'm not sure which sex they are. Here are two that fell off after dying. This species is among my favorites. They do trunk after sufficient time, as I have seen in published photos. But I am in no hurry for that.

So when we do that, the flowers open within about 48 hours and then begin getting some pollination for seeds. Crazy, this is the only species that this is a problem with. Weird. First picture is today’s surgery. The second & third has some surgery that we did about six weeks ago.

The bismarck palm is a very fast grower and a good trouble free choice for beginners. This one has 6 new spears at the ready, and will replace the entire existing crown over the next 2 months. aztropic Mesa, Arizona

Hey all, here’s something I can’t quite figure out. My neighbor and I have a couple of this species and they throw out flower spathes regularly. But they simply never open on their own. So… We’ve taken to performing surgery to free up the flowers.. The thickness of the spathe is just crazy thick. We have found that if we simply allow them to sit, eventually the contents of the spathe will just get moldy-and yet never open. We are generally perplexed at why this is happening, but it is what it is. It actually requires a combination of a sawzall, a vibrating saw, and some clippers deftly used to remove the woody section without damaging the flowers excessively. The walls are thicker than my thumb is wide.

Many flowers over the years. First time I’ve seen seeds. Will see if they turn out viable. 20’ish years old from a 20 gallon. Dana Point, CA

If you want a palm that’s easy to grow and fit into any reasonable small space, the feather palm, wedding palm or the lytocarum weddlianum is the one. Easy to grow and germinate, single plants will set viable seeds. Quite cool and dry tolerant. Perfect understory or bright light palm. An absolute beauty of a great palm that’s gives a lot of effect for little work!

Macrozamia johnsonii I grew from seed is now coning. 1996-2026. These are large plants with 10ft+ leaves.

This is a big boy. Thick, heavy trunk 25 feet from the soil line to the top of the tallest branches. Dead knock off for a cocos, if it wasn’t so thick at the trunk!

Here’s Jayne Mansfield my big Roystonea oleracea. Makes my heart sing to look at that lovely thing. And my big regia in the background.

I have two satakentias from ken johnsons farm, planted out in early 2019 with 2-3' trunk. I also have a smaller one I grew from a 4" seedling in 2021 that was planted in early 2025 is now 6-7' overall. They are great palms and the trunks are pretty thick. I will quote ken " ythey are emergent palms so they like shade when young but with size they take the sun well. The trunk at the crownshaft is about 8-9" caliper, definitely more than my archies and all my other crownshafted palms except for the royals. They hate frost with a couple upper leaves burning a couple years ago. They do look a lot more colorful in sunlight after shedding a leaf. Here is one of mine, they trunks/crownshafts glow in the distance in sun. No sign of inflorescences yet. closeup of the same palm to see the crownshaft color a week or so after a new leaf was dropped Easily my prettiest crownshafted palm. I checked the trunk measurements, 8 1/2' clear trunk as of today.

Spring is only another 5weeks away, now is the danger time for any of the new plantings, so far so good with only one palm taking a bit of burn.

Some blueberries on the dreadlocks. Also my breakfast raspberry substitute fresh off the guava tree. Yellow.

Hydriastele splendida living up to its name. Tim

A few R. Sapida in SF

Chambeyronia macrocarpa var flavopicta on a rare sunny Melbourne winter day - this show never gets old. It produces exactly 2 new fronds per year for the last few years. Every late July it will open a frond which stays red longer in the cooler weather than the one that opens in summer.

Been growing nicely in deep shade since 2020 Just planted The other day. Iʻm 5ʻ10" tall so itʻs doing just fine.

The mid north coast of Australia a subtropical paradise. With thousands of hectares of rainforest that covers a fair chunk of it. Before settlement it would have been one very unique piece of land. Now it has been fragmented into isolated areas broken up by farmland. Much of it is either state forests or national parks with a lot of special reserves locked up for conservation purposes.

VThe garden is holding up to the usual winter weather not a problem 2 degrees celcius this morning, and iam sure the low lying areas in the valley most certainly would have seen a very white ice blanket on the ground possibly even a minus degree reading somewhere.

A vine that was scrambling along the ground.

The peace and quiet and with a lot of areas inaccessible to the family car there’s always a spot where you won’t see anyone at all except for the animals!

Iam lucky enough to live near the habitat of linospadix monostachya. They make a fantastic garden palm, predictable size and growing patterns. They flourish with good water, cool tolerant wet deep shade understory is there perfect habitat. Somewhat similar growth habit to lytocarum weddlianum and similar growing conditions being a little dry tolerant once established. They look amazing in habitat by the hundreds covering the forest floor under the canopy.

M amicarum seems to be building some momentum…

I haven’t been watering the garden, trying not too wet the foliage. In the morning would be the best time for waterings, but with plenty of rainfall the garden doesn’t need it.

Calyptrocalyx albertisianus popped a new leaf. Blue sky……a rarity lately. Tim

Calyptrocalyx pachystachys

A bit of winter colour in the garden today.A couple of Chambeyronia hookeri and a nice Japanese variegated rhapis kannonchikushima

Freshly drizzled Pinanga & K elegans.

Sabal Yapa Palm & sun making art

With very unique plants that have adapted to cope with all sorts of climatic conditions, and relying on the animals for that symbiotic relationship to survive for a lot of species and visa versa with a lot of animals dependent on that ecosystem for survival.

Last night as the sun dropped low in the sky, I was reminded why the relatively common Encephalartos longifolius is one of my favorite Cycads. The shadows on the leaflets really was emphasizing the insertion and overlapping nature of the leaflets. This is a smaller one that has grown slowly since I transplanted it from one garden to the other several years ago. It had already stalled prior to the transplant due to my neighbors having planted a hedge along the property boundary that completely changed it's sun exposure, starving it of sunshine until I dug it and moved it to Leucadia.

E tegulaneus

It’s been a bizarre week. 106f yesterday here in Sugar Land. Ridiculously hot, hottest I’ve ever experienced. Today, we have a tropical storm that was supposed to be a nonevent but winded up causing a lot of rain, lightning, and somehow no wind.

Beautiful beautiful rain totals across the western half of the Houston Metro. Could not ask for anything better! Picked up >1.5" at the garden near Katy 😍. Long slow steady soaking rain

Areca vestiaria new red emergent leaf. When I bought it a few years ago it was solitary, now it seems to be clustering instead. to the left of the Areca vestiaria is a variegated Caryota mitis. it was quite variegated a few months ago, but the newer leaflets are mostly green. I wonder if they will become more variegated later, or this is a sign that the palm as it matures will have less variegation?

Back in SF for a visit. Picture/video of The Presidio Parajubeas 7/22/26 IMG_0011.mov IMG_0012.mov

The classic Joey palm, so desired for that tropical look. Many a grower has wanted one or two in there collection. But due to price and the talk of how difficult they are to grow, alas many a grower has forgone the opportunity of having one. They are yes temperamental to some extent, but not as tricky as you would think. Good drainage, lots of water and they like a feed. You can sit them in a tray of water in the greenhouse, if in the garden they will drink as much water as you give them. Cool tolerant but the more temperate the slower they will be, not a frost tolerant palm but will take temperatures down to 2 degrees celcius. The ones in the ground are about 4 years old in a subtropical climate. If you’re after a tropical looking palm that’s highly ornamental get a trio of joeys!

Boy, Mike, you’re not kidding, those things are beauties! I got a couple as seedlings, probably 10 to 12 years ago, and they are definitely slower in my part of the world. But they’re green, about waist high. My fervent hope is that they speed up somewhat now that they’re reasonably established. This is just another one of those species where seeds become available on over a course of a few months, and then just absolutely dry up never to be seen again. Ravenea in particular, due to the male/female thing. Krociana, giant, robustior, julietae, all MIA after a brief availability. I guess the lesson is, grab them while you can! Great looking palms, thanks again for sharing!

Encephalartos eugene-maraisii female cone emerging. The cone has a guest, protecting it from any undesirable bugs.

This particular one is madagascariensis, although I have the same issue with fenestralis. Funny, a couple hours after I posted this, I got a call from Jeff Markus of Floribunda palms regarding an order I'd placed. So, I asked him about it & he told me that he had the same issue for the first few years with his as well, but to be patient and they'll grow out of it. I'll take Dr. Jeff's word for it. In the meantime, we'll keep helping them along. We are getting some near mature seeds developing, so that's good. I'll take an updated picture of the tree tonight.

More lost time stuff. Crape myrtles are blooming and I'm honestly a little disappointed that my Colocasia Redemption doesn't match. Every woman I've ever dated is like a croton. When all is right, they're happy. One thing goes wrong and they go psycho. Decapitated Golden Crocodile.. I thought i took pics of my alocasia Dark Star and Yellow Dragon. I guess not. Here's a regal shield.

Areca vestiaria "Maroon" seedling

Thanks for looking!

Some color…

Just having a little wander around after a bit of a holiday. And things are just fine, and dandy for the garden in mid winter! Licuala bracteata licuala triphylla var stenophylla lanonia centralis Areca warhbosabal mauritiformis

Our selection here in big box stores is just common variety palms . That said , I watch the clearance rack for flowers , and occasionally , palms (not often). A short while back there were two 3 gallon Majesty multi on the rack with very minor leaf tip browning . The palms were in good shape so I put t]hem on my cart . The clearance rack is marked 50% off and the palms would be great in pots along my fence line , original price $20 and about 3-4’ tall. When I got to check out I reminded the clerk that they were “clearance” items. He replied “how does $3 sound?” I repotted them and they are doing precisely what I wanted them to do. If you need fill in palms to maintain a tropical look , they are perfect . I will , at some point need to keep repotting them as they grow pretty fast here , eventually rehome them as I already have a huge one in my yard and the trunks get rather large. Large , corporate places have little concern over pricing when they want to get rid of old stock. Unfortunately , in my area , they will not stock anything of interest to collectors . They used to have many varieties but now it’s just the generic stuff. Harry

I got this new leaf from a Chambeyronia macrocarpa and it is asymmetrical. The leaflets are only on one side. I thought the other side is just tucked in and will emerge later but it doesn't appear that way. I will wait a few more days but I have not seen this before on this or another Chambeyronia macrocarpa.

A couple nice trays of trachycarpus princeps and sitijong. Showing there cool tolerance as seedlings!

I wax walking up the front entrance to my home and noticed the boot was ready to drop off my Chrysalidocarpus decipiens. Here it is after removing the old boot.

I always love these colors on this Caryota with a new emerging leaf.