Ravenea rivularis

[nomolos]

This is my majesty palm can anyone tell me how long before it starts trunking?

close up

[Jonathan]

About 2 minutes I reckon,its looking very good Sol.

Much better than the C. tepejilote behind it......oops!

Cheers,

Jonathan

[Tampa Scott]

Give them lots of water and sun and they grow fast. These 2 are 11 yrs from 3 gal pots. I have another planted at the same time but planted in the shade and has about 5' of trunk.

[nomolos]

superb

[Rafael]

About 2 minutes I reckon,its looking very good Sol.

Much better than the C. tepejilote behind it......oops!

Cheers,

Jonathan

Jonathan, how did your ravenea rivularis behaves when it comes frost?

Sol, i cant help you about that, i only have one potted, and waiting spring puting in the ground!

But yours looks excelent, i must say!

Regards.

[Rafael]

Give them lots of water and sun and they grow fast. These 2 are 11 yrs from 3 gal pots. I have another planted at the same time but planted in the shade and has about 5' of trunk.

11 yrs??????? Can you repeat???????

Amazing growth!

[Tampa Scott]

This is a current picture after the freeze of Jan. This kind of damage happens most years here in Central FL.

[Tampa Scott]

Give them lots of water and sun and they grow fast. These 2 are 11 yrs from 3 gal pots. I have another planted at the same time but planted in the shade and has about 5' of trunk.

11 yrs??????? Can you repeat???????

Amazing growth!

Yes 11 yrs ! I will try to find a picture of the shade grown palm, or take one soon.

[Rafael]

This is a current picture after the freeze of Jan. This kind of damage happens most years here in Central FL.

How much does it freeze overthere? Any frost?

Palm ID, on the side of the ravenea, please!

[Tampa Scott]

This is a current picture after the freeze of Jan. This kind of damage happens most years here in Central FL.

How much does it freeze overthere? Any frost?

Palm ID, on the side of the ravenea, please!

Yearly frost with upper 20 f lows most years (2 out of 3). The palm is Copernicia alba growing nearby.

[Tampa Scott]

Here is the shade grown rivularis also planted 11 yrs ago from a 3 gal. Only 5' of clear and much thinner trunk.

Edited February 17, 2010 by Tampa Scott

[Rafael]

This is a current picture after the freeze of Jan. This kind of damage happens most years here in Central FL.

How much does it freeze overthere? Any frost?

Palm ID, on the side of the ravenea, please!

Yearly frost with upper 20 f lows most years (2 out of 3). The palm is Copernicia alba growing nearby.

Here we have minimum 26F, and some episodes of frost, and i wonder if my ravenea rivularis will be ok.

[Jason Baker Portugal]

Rafael, they don´t like the cool weather on the coast. I have seen some nice ones in Aveiro and have one in the ground for the past 3 years but they need heat to grow that quickly. Yours will probably take 20+yrs to get there if it does. Sorry to wake you up from your dream. Abraço Jason

[MattyB]

Isn't Tasmania cool? I'd estimate 4-5 years to start of trunking if you feed and water it well.

[Rafael]

That's ok Jason, i wait ...!

Your ravenea is fully sun exposed, or has any kind of protection?

Abraço!

Thanks Matt, i am a little bit optimistic...

Edited February 17, 2010 by rafael

[epicure3]

My Majesty palms were planted out as 20G specimens. They took approximately 5 years to show the first bit of trunk. They have picked up speed since this trunk has appeared. Hope that helps.

[Tyrone]

Sol, my summers are a lot warmer than yours, but for what it's worth here is my experience. I planted mine as a 300mm yellowed out pot version. I got it cheap cos it was yellow. I gave it heaps of fertiliser in an attempt to green it up. It would slightly green up then go back to yellow just as quickly. It stayed like this for two years not really growing and stood out in my green garden with it's strong yellow colour. Anyway I figured out after two years (after asking nurseries for advice-none worked) that it was a magnesium deficient thing, so I started throwing on epsom salts which started to green it up. I started throwing an insane amount of NPK fast release and trace elements and hooked up a siphon system off of a bath tub filled up by the mainline of the bore to water it. Well then it took off. It was now 2003,04, by 2006 it was starting to clear trunk and now it has about 8ft of clear trunk. Just last year I started to slow down it's fert regime and last spring it showed it didn't like it. It ended up with a zinc and boron deficiency which produced little leaf and crinkly new leaves, with necrosis. That got me really worried and I've since put it back on strong trace elements and fertiliser again and it's resuming normal growth again. That was a close shave. It is the biggest thing in my garden with leaves a good 5-6m long, and about a 70cm diameter trunk and I love it. It's quite hard to photograph though as it's too big to fit in shot. It would be maybe 10m tall to the top of the crown.

Best regards

Tyrone

[Jonathan]

Isn't Tasmania cool? I'd estimate 4-5 years to start of trunking if you feed and water it well.

Yes it is cool here...I think two minutes may have been an exageration!

My three have yet to be through a winter outside - we will see.....

Cheers,

Jonathan

[Tyrone]

They grow fine on the south coast of WA, although that is quite a bit warmer than Tassie. The cold fronts and rain are the same though. Albany for example averages 6C-16C in the middle of winter and they look fine down there.

Best regards

Tyrone

[Tassie_Troy1971]

Isn't Tasmania cool? I'd estimate 4-5 years to start of trunking if you feed and water it well.

It sure is Matt ,because of out lattitude we dont get many warm nights through summer 50f -60 f overnight is the norm .

[Tampa Scott]

Here is a then and now picture of a R. rivularis. Picture #1 taken April 2002, picture #2 taken Dec. 2009.

[nomolos]

The answer is never.

It is dead

It was growing well even in winter. Then something quite innocuous happened. One of its petiols was bent like as though a possum had climed on it or something.

Then slowly the leaves went a papery white colour.

The spear however looked fine. I thought I would pour some hydrogen peroxide down to see what would happen -quite a bit of fizzing and millipedes and slaters(pill bugs) came scurrying out. A few days later I notice that the spear was still green however when I pulled back the leaf sheaths a bit I noticed the bottom of the spear was a whitish colour. I tugged on the spear and out it came. More slaters started to emerge.

It now appeared it was time for drastic surgery. I cut it bak trying to get to heathy material but it appears the fungus or whatever had gone too far. I noticed that only the center of the spear had discoloured not around the sheaths. It had gone a light brown colour with red streaks in it. I also found an ugly green furry catepillar.

I have planted 4 majesty palms and this one looked the best, but it was the only one to die.

[Tassie_Troy1971]

Hi Sol

If the other 3 are looking good then it defiantely wasn't cold damage . Anyway here is a pic taken 10 min ago of mine that has been through 2 winters chugging away in sunny Old Beach .

[Alex-v]

My climate is temperate and humid, and I think MattyB is rignt, my rivularis will show me a trunk in one or two years.

2008

2009

2010

[Jonathan]

Hi Sol

If the other 3 are looking good then it defiantely wasn't cold damage . Anyway here is a pic taken 10 min ago of mine that has been through 2 winters chugging away in sunny Old Beach .

My three are toast, toast and more toast!

They were destroyed by 18 frosty nights over winter and I hearby declare them NOT frost hardy at South Arm Tasmania....no matter what Troy says. If they survive (two still have green spears) I'll move them to under canopy where they should be fine.

Cheers,

Jonathan

[DoomsDave]

Sol:

OUCH!

Sorry to hear!

Rav rivs like lots of heat, lots of water, and if the soil's poor, lots of feeding. If you have clay, they LOVE that. It holds lots of water. Boggy and soggy is better.

I've got one that now has about 2 feet .66 m of trunk after about 6 years in the ground from a plant about half the size of yours. It has a crown about 10 feet tall, and it's growing well.

I think you'll get a growth rate more like mine than Scott's. Scott is in a hot place, and Rav Rivs rev, roar, rock, roll and rollick in a place like Tampa.

Since Taz is so cool so much of the time, you'll want to put your majesties in the hottest spot you can find for them, like up against a north-facing wall (or south, in the northern hem), etc.

Let us know what happens.

[nomolos]

Well sadly I dug up what remained of the palm. THe roots lookwd in great condition so it does not appear to be a root rot problem

[Tyrone]

Probably bud rot. I think you had a dud.

I was just watching Kath and Kim last night on a DVD and couldn't help noticing the healthy Majestics outside the kitchen window in Melbourne. They're only just a bit warmer than you. I'd try again. Get a dozen and plant them around the place.

Best regards

tyrone

[cfkingfish]

That is too bad your Majesty kicked it. These palms are the most improperly used palms in Florida, in my opinion. They love full sun and tons of water (look at Katrina pictures of Majesties submerged up to the base of the crown for a week in water!), but are labeled often as "indoor plants". Those that plant them outside usually take shade grown plant and throw them in full sun with not enough water.