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This Spring’s annual order from Floribunda has arrived! Three one gallon Basselinia glabrata, two Pinanga coronata, two Cyphophoenix alba, and three 4” container Prestoea montana. Are are robust and big for container size as is usual.

It’s nearly 13 years since I had the great fortune to first meet the legendary ( and extremely generous) Tassie Troy and I thought it’s time to pay homage to all those who have helped me , and those in the Palm pantheon , like Darrold and Colin and Jonathon, who visited in the early days ( when there were only tiny plants) and didn’t wonder, at least out loud , if anything would ever eventuate. Here are a few pictures .There are around 25 species including 12 of chamaedoria. Some like the big baueri , trachycarpus and forsteriana are hard to depict . Nothing can keep up with the torallyii. Of course all 4 Lord Howe Island palms love it here in Hobart. Mike

Flowering Oraniopsis appendiculata at the Royal botanic gardens in Sydney

Don't see them actually eating the seed, but they sure seem to be attracted to them.

I am curious if other SoCal gardens have had their KO’s bloom and/or set viable seed? This is by far the biggest and best flower mine has set.

Trachycarpus princeps

A couple pix of bliss!

Bactris gassiapaes, Chambeyronia watermelon and a rather well dressed moth.

Just one Sabal (burmudana) in my garden of well over 100 different palm species but I love it. The photo doesn’t show how massive it actually is very well.

One of my Royals is almost ready to get her first ring

Red Latania opening a new frond

Yeah, a Royal Palm would have a long bright green crown shaft on its trunk beneath its canopy of fronds. $500 sounds reasonable for a Majesty that big but starting out with a vigorous younger one would probably make more sense.

A bit small but i call it a victory, my freeze damaged spindle i thought was a goner has survived the trunk cut and started a new spear! the white petiole seen above it is about 4 inches tall with no leaves, and was at the cut a week or so ago. hopefully it survives summer and a few fronds so it gets strength before winter🤞

Congratulations! I got my spring order from Floribunda about 10 days ago. My container garden was decimated by Ian and last winter's nights in the upper 30s. For future orders I am sticking to Floribunda and sellers I know on PT. TIP: If a palm seller peddles stuff with outdated scientific names or cutesy meaningless monikers consider red flags raised high. 'Nuff said.

You’ll see them around in Southern California, though they’re a lot less prevalent than most other fan palms. i used to think that they were slow and that’s not entirely true - though slow is a relative term. They’re definitely sturdy, in Sam Diego, and worth the wait (in my opinion). Shoot me a DM if you’re having trouble finding any. Here’s a link to a thread which documents a lot of my experiences: Not the best picture, but here’s a S. Uresana and a S. Mexicana type, from the other day. I’d estimate that they are around 10years old, from a 5 gallon. They’ve been on their own, without any care, and are self sufficient where I’m at 10a (maybe even 10b). 92104 zip code. There’s also a S. Bermudana (maybe) and a S. Causarium further to the right, which can’t be seen. Those are also living on their own, with no help. These are growing with a lot of other palms in the 3500-3600 block of Wightman St, and there’s a Livistona Chinensis, Arenga Engleri, and a big Sabal Mauritiiformis two houses south, on Wilson Ave, if you were in the area.

It's Nannorrhops ritchiana, Mazari palm. Not native to Russia, but further south in Asia and the middle east, including Pakistan and Afghanistan. I know some cold hardy palm enthusiasts in the US grow them but they are certainly not common in cultivation. The only place where palms are grown in Russia is along the black sea coast, primarily in Sochi. They plant a lot of Trachycarpus there and probably some others. None are native to the region.

The offset on the main caudices is flushing. It is like a wort on the otherwise perfectly symmetrical main plant. Perhaps I should see it ss a beauty mark instead? A chunky monkey Encephalartos longifolius male.

Look, my great lord and friends. Look at the little Juania Australis. They are like your beautiful palm trees too. But just look at them. You know that every palm tree gladdens the heart of us all. This one, of course, gladdens my heart. The more I search, the louder I will applaud it, the more shouts of joy I will raise, and the more trust I will place in it. This other unique kingdom has been added to my collection.

The palm tree that I've been asked for a lot from abroad, especially in Latin America. I'm sharing just my five Juania australis palms. I hope to receive more seeds of this species and genus soon. From CONAF Chile, the park ranger tells me it's false that this palm dies. It's a myth. And if they have died, it's due to poor care, or even small palms exposed to terrible heat. And you already have your rare Juania australis.

It's a majesty, Ravenea rivularis. As for price, I have no idea.

I would just cut it off at the base. Removing 1 frond off a Phoenix palm isn't going to hurt anything. aztropic Mesa, Arizona

Dave, I’ve always been a “plant them even when they’re tiny” kind of guy. Many of my big honking palms were planted as 2 or 3 inch seedlings directly to the ground. Here are just a few of them…

Capada palm

This is my old F1 woodii x natalensis I got from Cynthia Giddy who made it in SA. My cycad log says 1985 acquired for $60. Cynthia was visiting Hermione Stover in California and brought with her hundreds of these bare rooted in bundles of 3, like cigars. All had been treated with her signature petroleum dip, so they largely failed. Mine I washed off and soaked and rinsed many, many times, but it still smelled of petroleum. Well, here's the plant today with 3+ feet of trunk growing 20 leaves. You'll notice the characteristic folded- hands leaflets among the lowest leaf bases -- a trait directly brought from pure woodii.

Ceratozamia zaragozae x hildae

Sabal Yapa opening a new frond

Lanonia dasyantha

Unlabeled large and spiny Aiphanes horrida:

They sprout easily. The hard part is living long enough to see some semblance of maturity on the babies.

I’m more concerned why Coccothrinax and Copernicia aren’t grown more here than “Sablah”. 🤣

I planted out this weddelliana yesterday. The soil in this part of the garden is heavier than the rest (takes about five minutes to drain 2" of water). The area gets consistent summer "rainfall" from fog dripping from the neighbor's Magnolia grandiflora overhead. It also gets almost no sun any time of year and as a result is continuously moist. I know this species is prone to root rot, so I cut off irrigation to the plant. It will be our only palm that isn't irrigated. What does everyone think of this strategy?

One of Royals opening a new frond

BISMARKIA

Here are more tall Pindo Palms (Butia) in Jacksonville, Florida. Enjoy !!!

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

Chamaedorea liebmannii is a girl (I think)!

I germinated these from seed that I collected and brought from Yucatán. Now growing in Monterrey zone 10. Notice the little hairs.

Harry, all but one are planted as of today. One more to go into the ground. I rarely keep any palms potted for long. I don’t like to wait until summer. I did put the Pinanga coronata palms into a big decorative pot however.

I have one Sabal , a Riverside or Palmetto . Not sure which , but it grew about the same speed as our Brahea Edulis and Butia Oderata . Way faster than Livistona Chinensis. Mine was a gift from my mentor in 1997 or so . Just a strap leaf baby that I planted on our hill in full sun . Almost 30 years later , it is a full sized beauty . Harry ‘This was about a year ago . I agree they should be more common here in California . They grow so well and look great at all stages of growth. This species , whichever it is , takes a bit of room . Not for a small garden. Harry

Pleurothallis ornata

Cattleya mossiae coerulea 'Blue Bird' x C. mossiae coerulea 'Herrerae' Watering day in the orchid room, so glad to find this cattleya in bloom: also, the color really intensified on that vanda I posted a few days ago.

I hate to tell you, but if you think you can transform the nursery industry, you might want to think again. I think what you're calling a "regular nursery" is a "plant retailer." Big Box stores have overtaken the industry and typically employ people with zero-to-scant knowledge of plants and sell rafts of product carefully coordinated with huge grower-corporations (think "Proven Winners" and the like) disseminated through marketing channels and trade-shows to develop a thirst for some new variety or cultivar in a seasonal blitzkrieg. Of course these big retailers will also carry a selection of bread-and-butter landscape palms: queens, kings, Washingtonia, Butia, Trachycarpus, et al depending on the dictated climate zone. They will likely special-order something if it's available from their regular list of suppliers, but the wholesale growers are also tuned in to what sells and grows quickly because they have to stay in business...and real estate, containers, soil and water are expensive when there's little hope for moving the plants out in good time. A production-to-market time of three years vs. seven years makes a huge difference in the profits of a grower, and as others have mentioned above, this is why you will find queens, kings and in particular Washingtonia over Sabal...they grow, and thus move, quickly. And Joe and Mary Homeowner are happy to see a nice fast-growing "palm tree" at their new tract home because they suffer from our modern-day need for instant gratification. In SoCal it's almost a miracle that we now see Bismarckia sold regularly in garden centers; with Ravenea heavily pushed for the houseplant market. Yes, Foxtails, Triangles, and a very few others are occasionally encountered, and it took many years for this latter group to gain any kind of foothold, which is really not even a foothold, they're still oddities to many but they grow at a decent speed and growers can probably make a bit of money on them in certain areas. Sabal is not likely to join even that outlier group, despite its hardiness and other positive qualities, because it is just not a fast-growing palm and has no customer familiarity. It's just an uphill battle for both the grower and the larger retail channel. While the rarer-and-rarer traditional nurseries will most likely order many plants from wholesalers, they are often growers themselves, they may go to great lengths to acquire propagation material of unusual species, nurse them, shift up to saleable sizes all by their own hand. They may buy bud-wood and graft fruit trees using a known rootstock for their area, etc. These are generally multi-generational, dedicated and knowledgeable nursery people whose horticultural and real-world experience in the landscape have gained them a major reputation and make for a completely different experience that appeals to serious gardeners who want to gain horticultural or botanical knowledge. Those nursery-people also gain a lot of satisfaction from interacting with customers and exchanging knowledge and experience. But they are realists, and if you get them into a conversation about something like Sabal, will likely say, "well, we don't get any call for them, so they're just not something we carry, and we can't even special order them without importing them from Florida, because they're just not profitable for growers here. You should go to a specialist palm nursery." And here we lead back to the community of specialty growers, including backyard growers, who offer a wonderful array of plants that was unthinkable even fifty or sixty years ago. It is thanks to these people who have poured their hearts and wallets into a risky business that we have them...so I think the best thing you can do is spread the word to others about the palms you champion and point people in the direction of these knowledgeable and dedicated nurserymen and women who have enriched our personal and, for many, professional lives with a variety of unusual plants that was unthinkable a few decades ago.

It comes down to money. How much does the nursery invest, how much demand is there, how quick is the turnaround. If the market in California supported Sabals, they would be mass-grown by Monrovia and sold by all the big box retail stores.

Hmm, interesting topic @SCVpalmenthusiast! Sabals as a group grow great in non-desert California and have a lot to recommend them. They’re tough and take the cold and they’re not fussy about soil. Heat is no problem outside the desert. They’re not spiny and won’t get that shaggy appearance that Washies often do, if you clean them once in a while. The trouble with them is they’re slow, and can take decades to form a trunk. Bismarckias are pretty too and a lot faster growing, which I think explains their much greater popularity.

Congratulation on finding that Black Sphinx. I have one in my yard that i planted in 2018. I had my first full harvest in 2025, it took my 7 years to get that harvest. I have sort of a pedigree doc about the trees source dating back to the first one in 1928. Mine hasn't bloomed this year yet but it should push blossoms soon. I had 7 blooms on it last year and pollinated with male pollinator palm i had access to with 100% success. Absolutely love this date, i think its the best tasting palm date out there. Here are some pictures.

These guys are all blooming now

Three for the price of one, archontophoenix Cunninghamiana, dypsis saintlucei and Arenga engleri.

Butia yatay and friends under a mist halo a couple of weeks ago.

Yes they’re always in or near water in natural habitat.