Madera, CA (Central San Joaquin Valley)

[iwan]

My final palm expedition of 2006.  

Here are some interesting or unusual (for our area) palms growing around town and county.  I already posted the various Brahea armata in another thread.

A row of Washingtonia filifera lining the old driveway to the winery where I work.  Normally, I would not consider Washingtonia particularly interesting, but this winery dates back to the 1870's.  I am not sure however, how old these are.  The driveway is ~1/4 mile long.

A typical hazy winter day in the valley.

This guy has brought in a bunch of specimen trees....

Yet lives in a mobile home.  One of those trees probably cost more than the trailer.  There is also a large collection of cacti/succulents all wrapped up in clear plastic.  Sorry for the blurry picture.  

[iwan]

Some nice Butia at McDonalds

Much more interesting, are the Sabal at the Taco Bell across the street.

Aside from the Sabal at Roeding Park in Fresno, I have never noticed a Sabal anywhere in the valley.  It is quite odd for five of them to show up at a small town Taco Bell.  They just remodeled the restaurant this summer and really limbed these up pretty hard.

[iwan]

Can anyone ID this?  Note a small amount of fiber on the leaf.

They pruned off all the infructescence this year, but the fruits are round and dark black when ripe.  These are real slow.  I can't say that I have noticed much/any growth in almost 12 years.

[iwan]

Ravena rivularis fully exposed in a new housing development in town.  This is the second winter that these have been in the ground.  They were severly yellowed after a very late freeze in Feb 06.  The recent december frosts/freeze does not appear to have done much additional damage.  I am fairly confident that the owner is not providing the water and fertilizer that rivularis desires.  Note, what looks like nice new spears emerging.

Here is one in a pot under the front entry of a neighbor's house.  Looks a little ragged, but can't tell for sure as this was taken from ~100' away.  

Dracena (never knew it would survive a freeze).

[iwan]

More Home Depot palms.

I need to drive around some more new neighborhoods and see how if anyone has the new (to our area) A. cunninghamiana, Bismarkia, Wodyetia, Kentia, Bottle and other more tropical palms (that showed up for the first time this year at the big-box stores and even the local grocery store) in their gardens learning painful lessons, or maybe even some surprises.

[Kris]

Dear Iwan  

hey those pictures & palms are fentastic,

iam glad to see my favouriate Washy filifera's

& sabal sp beautifully used in those landscaping.

the first set of stills are simply phenomean,they

impressed me the most.i have dreams of my mansion

with such line up of those beautiful palms_just terrefic.

all that was missing in those filifera stills are a bunch of

lion & lioness_so wild & serious is the appearence.

a zoo or some van damee's kick boxing area !

wish to see more from that perticular region_if possible.

Thanks/Love,

Kris.

[SubTropicRay]

Robert,

Good stuff.  I love seeing what other metropolitan areas plant out.

Ray

[Kathy]

Great pics Robert.  You've found some nice ones around town.  Been a while since I've been through Madera!

[iwan]

(Kathy @ Jan. 03 2007,11:17)

QUOTE

Great pics Robert.  You've found some nice ones around town.  Been a while since I've been through Madera!

It has really boomed in the 11+ years that I have lived here (almost doubling in population).  There is a huge disparity of housing and incomes here from migrant worker shacks to million dollar monster homes.  Official unemployment is probably around 15%, but that does not factor in the huge migrant worker population.  It is becoming a bedroom community for those that can no longer afford to live in Fresno.  

Those are some of the reasons why a lot of these palms are quite unique for this community where they would be commonplace in the bay area.  It is great to see the old growth palms at older farm houses and to see people trying some of the Home Depot specials beside Washingtonia and Syagrus R.  As much as I enjoy a good healty Syagrus, there are a lot of sickly ones being neglected all over.  In the neighborhood where I took most of the HD special trees I did not take an overview of the street where just about every house had at least one (yellowing) tree randomly planted around the front yard.  Basically the Fruitless Mulberry of the 21st century.

[iwan]

(iwan @ Dec. 31 2006,21:28)

QUOTE

Can anyone ID this?  Note a small amount of fiber on the leaf.

They pruned off all the infructescence this year, but the fruits are round and dark black when ripe.  These are real slow.  I can't say that I have noticed much/any growth in almost 12 years.

So, any ID on this Sabal?