Local Arizona Thread

[96720]

Couple of other feather type coconut queen and Beccariophoenix alfredii!!

[RANN]

Thanks 96720 and Aztropic.  I guess a potted plant  it will be.  I was hoping a northern exposure in front of a short pony wall would work. Unfortunately it gets blasted with sun this time of year for several hours. I currently have a very old multi trunk Pygmy palm that has survived there but not sure how much longer. 
One more question…do you recommend a certain brand potting mix for palms in pots?
 

 

[RANN]

Thank you all for the palm suggestions. Grateful to have this forum to come to and be able to hear from experienced growers!

[aztropic]

1 hour ago, Silas_Sancona said:

Should mention:  I did ok with both Chambeyronia oliviformis ..and the standard Flame Thrower ( C. macrocarpa )... in containers,  in the shade of a large Mesquite for awhile here in Chandler though.

Assuming ..Scott can correct me if wrong..  they'd probably fry too once reaching into full sun though.

Yes,Chambeyronia are definitely stronger than kings in our area, but still would not put up with our full afternoon summer sun. I do have 3 oliviformis planted in ground though doing well, all on an eastern exposure. Had a macrocarpa (flamethrower) in ground for several years that died in the heatwave of 2020... 

 

aztropic

Mesa

[96720]

@aztropicwhat was 2020 like next to what we are seeing now???

[aztropic]

7 hours ago, 96720 said:

@aztropicwhat was 2020 like next to what we are seeing now???

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://ktar.com/story/3792617/heres-a-look-back-at-the-phoenix-weather-records-set-in-2020/%23:~:text%3DPhoenix%20also%20broke%20records%20for,(14)%20in%20a%20year.&ved=2ahUKEwiH_fLZqvn_AhUgHkQIHfCqDgQQFnoECB0QBA&usg=AOvVaw1b-v-3h3RgVJBuqx9bUZHx

[Silas_Sancona]

22 hours ago, 96720 said:

@aztropicwhat was 2020 like next to what we are seeing now???

Take a look at my post in the " Current Temp ". thread ( ...In the Weather section of the Forum )   No one is going to like what we may be experiencing here/ across the state by this time next week..

[azjim66]

Spotted two good size Mules at Home Depot at Happy Valley and Lake Pleasant 25g $999 each. 

[Brad Mondel]

Hey there! 

I just moved to Tempe, AZ about a month ago. I have two palms now because I sold my property back in South Carolina. I have a Sabal Lisa and a Mule palm. I am so excited to learn what I can grow here in 9b! 

Edited July 17, 2023 by Brad Mondel

[Silas_Sancona]

10 minutes ago, Brad Mondel said:

Hey there! 

I just moved to Tempe, AZ about a month ago. I have two palms now because I sold my property back in South Carolina. I have a Sabal Lisa and a Mule palm. I am so excited to learn what I can grow here in 9b! 

You're in AZ now? ..Very cool.. Welcome. My apologizes about the heat, haha..

[Brad Mondel]

22 hours ago, Silas_Sancona said:

You're in AZ now? ..Very cool.. Welcome. My apologizes about the heat, haha..

Yes! I am very glad to be here! Thanks for the welcome.

[96720]

Lantania iontaroides another great palm for Phoenix!!!! I bought this palm from Scott @aztropic he said this was a great palm for our area after I got it Scott came over to pick a place to plant it he chose a place in full blooming sun not what I would have done, I planted it and it does great with this crazy weather we have had!!! This is a picture I just took today after all the days of 110 + weather we have had!!!

[aztropic]

Surprisingly,I've found this species to be as strong as the bismarckias in our area in all aspects,except I never let it see below 30F,which it was exposed to several times without any problem. Always took the full,blistering afternoon summer sun with little to no burn. The more sun it gets,the redder the petioles.

 

aztropic

Mesa, Arizona 

[wrigjef]

I have a flower pot that has a few Robusta volunteers I cleaned up today and noticed one does not look like the others.  Do you think this is something different? 

[96720]

How are everyone’s palms doing in this weather? I have been surprised queens suffering and dying robellinas looking terrible pseudophoenix probably not going to make it Cambeyronia doing amazing red latan doing great Chrysalidocarpus leptochellos, prestoniana, and hovomantsina are unbelievable other palms I haven’t mentioned all seem fine!!!

Edited August 5, 2023 by 96720
Spelling

[96720]

Forgot to mention Jubea I don’t expect to lose them but the fronds are really burned and the problem with slow growing palms is they will look really bad for a long time and if we are going to have this kind of summer every few years it would be a bad choice!!!

[aztropic]

My in ground Jubaea just gets minor burns each summer,but it is still protected from the afternoon sun by a wall. When it gets taller,it may be a different story,burn wise.

The 15 gallon pots of Jubaea that I sell are in full,all day sun,and just yellowed,with very little burn. These get watered daily though,whereas many of my in ground plantings only get deep watered once a week.Pics taken today.

 

aztropic

Mesa, Arizona 

[aztropic]

6 hours ago, 96720 said:

 pseudophoenix probably not going to make it

Very surprised at this news. Pseudophoenix sargentii has always proven itself to be quite hardy in my garden. A couple of them are even putting out flowers now,although the extreme heat will kill the pollen,so no seeds this year. The worst looking one I have has only yellowed up quite a bit,(probably underwatered), but is nowhere near dying. 🤔 

 

aztropic

Mesa, Arizona 

[aztropic]

Of course,not everything in the garden gets away without burning with over 40 days of 110+F,but not expecting anything to die outright.

 

aztropic

Mesa, Arizona 

[96720]

My Jubea in full sun in grass gets water every day!

[96720]

The shocker Attalea cohune in full sun pushing a new spear??

[Palm Sundae]

19 hours ago, 96720 said:

How are everyone’s palms doing in this weather? I have been surprised queens suffering and dying robellinas looking terrible pseudophoenix probably not going to make it Cambeyronia doing amazing red latan doing great Chrysalidocarpus leptochellos, prestoniana, and hovomantsina are unbelievable other palms I haven’t mentioned all seem fine!!!

 

Nothing too fancy here or in my neighborhood. Only comment is that the colder weather palms (9b here) are the ones showing the damage. Many Chamaerops with noticeable burn. Queens are hit and miss depending on care. Mules showing burn. Phoenix sp. and Washingtonia all okay with the exception of a few robellini that aren't getting enough water.

[mnorell]

2 hours ago, 96720 said:

The shocker Attalea cohune in full sun pushing a new spear??

One of my Cohune seedlings is planted here in Rancho Mirage in full, all-day blazing sun, still rather tiny, not fully pinnate yet, and it looks fantastic without one tiny bit of burn. They are amazing palms. Interesting because in their native haunts they seem to sprout more in the shade and grow up into the sun. But they are tough little (big!) devils and the heat and sun just make them push. On the other hand, they do not like extended cold when they are seedlings, I lost a couple over the long, nasty winter this last year planted in a northeast-facing area totally shaded. A couple of others pushed new fronds and are recovering slowly, but the one I have out in the open has done the best. I suspect Attalea guacuyule (very coconutty-looking smaller Attalea closely related to A. cohune, very common around Puerto Vallarta) would be a better choice because its natural range is drier for a longer period each year, and also much farther north, but I can't get ahold of seed or plants...so A. cohune is what I'm growing, and I am happy that it is so strong against the sun and heat. We went a little north of 122F two or three times during this long heatwave and it didn't flinch.

Also, that is great news about your Latania. It looks fantastic. I have a couple of seedlings in pots and they took a lot of mid-day and afternoon sun this summer so far with no problems, but beware that they are touchy in cold. If you have another, you might want to try one in shade (but preferably south-facing with winter sun for warmth), maybe as insurance for cold temps but also just to see how differently they grow in those conditions. There is one growing in Key West that was on my regular walking route there, in deep shade, and I would always marvel at it because the intense red color and the stretched leaves were absolutely fantastic, it looks like a very different palm under those circumstances. I had one in my garden on Big Pine Key and it looked very different growing in mostly sun. But all three species are great palms and should be more widely grown in warm-to-hot areas that experience little to no frost. (And as a side-note, they are about the most hurricane-tolerant palm I witnessed after Irma struck the Keys, they were absolutely perfect-looking after 160+-mph winds, mesovorticity, under 5-6 feet of seawater for a day, everything that could be thrown at them!)

[96720]

@mnorellYou got even hotter than us did you have it for as long as we did or just have some hotter days?

[mnorell]

1 hour ago, 96720 said:

@mnorellYou got even hotter than us did you have it for as long as we did or just have some hotter days?

Yes, timing was about the same for both (off the top of my head) but we often get hotter...upper teens hits us just about every year and 120+ not every year but is not that uncommon. But 122 for more than a day is rare. 123 is the record for Palm Springs, I saw a couple of 125s on the hottest day on Wunderground out in the middle of the Coachella Valley but those stations may not be fan-aspirated and probably those numbers need to be adjusted downward two or three degrees. In my own personal experience, I have found that the very popular Vantage Vue (no fan) reads 2-5 degrees hot when in full summer sun. The unit I had in the Keys read 4.5-5 degrees hot (ridiculous) and the one I have now in the desert reads 1.5-2F hot and I calibrate accordingly in the hot season, so during the summer my nighttime readings are about 2F lower than reality but days are pretty accurate. I don't know whether Davis has problems with QC on their temp sensors or whether I just had a dud in Florida. I wish they would build in a variable calibration utility that would adjust upward/downward according to time of day. Or better yet, add fan aspiration.

I'm pretty sure most of the difference between the Palm Springs area and the Phoenix area is due to lower humidity here and your placement further to the east gives you a more humid flow (which literally "dampens" high temps) and probably a bit more cloud cover. By contrast we are really on the far western margin of the monsoon and can count on just a little activity (almost) every year, usually just during chubasco season. Ultimately as far as plants are concerned I think hot is hot, and below 110 it seems most things (including people!) can handle it if they have sufficient water and afternoon shade. But the plants I've seen starting to scorch was I think after about 115. I have one young in-ground Syagrus sancona getting full sun to about 2pm, it is just going pinnate and was looking just fine until we hit upper teens. There is some browning on some of the pinnae of a spear that was just opening, as well as the old shade-grown leaves all burned off. But the more recent, hardened foliage is still in pretty good shape. Actually I'm surprised it looks as good as it does, because it has the most luxuriantly textured and "brightest" leaves of the Syagrus (apple-green). In general and surprisingly queens are still looking good around the valley, I'm surprised but I think they really don't start looking ragged until late September/October due to cumulative stress and lack of sufficient water & fertilizer. Meanwhile I have a couple of S. coronata in one and two-gallon pots in afternoon sun and they are tough as nails, their sun-hardened foliage is almost like cardboard!

[96720]

@mnorelldo you get really cold in the winter? If you don’t try a royal they are my favorite palm all the heat and still beautiful!!!just took this picture!

[mnorell]

4 hours ago, 96720 said:

@mnorelldo you get really cold in the winter? If you don’t try a royal they are my favorite palm all the heat and still beautiful!!!just took this picture!

We are Zone 10a here, almost always frost-free though as with everywhere in the continental U.S. north of the Florida Keys, bad freezes can occur. a hundred years ago, when this valley was mostly barren, open desert, freezing temps were rather common. As urbanization has overtaken the area (now about a million living here during "season"), it has happened less and less frequently. There were several back-to-back freezes (to low/mid 20s) in Palm Springs in the early '60s, also mid-20s notably in 1990 and I'm sure also in the 2007 event. But desert freezes are rather quick, as I believe they usually are in your area. The landscape here is dominated by many frost-tender trees and shrubs, large Plumeria trees everywhere, Pachypodium is a standard feature, Delonix scattered about here and there, Ixora is a standard shrub, five gazillion Ficus microcarpa hedges and trees as well as F. benjamina and a number of other Ficus species. Adenium is also grown in the open occasionally. And there are several known instances of Cocos nucifera making it to large, mature trees, in one case documented while bearing fruit.

So yes, Royals are here in the Coachella Valley, and in excellent condition. I am growing R. regia and also the fast-as-lightning R. oleracea, though mine are young plants still, just in the ground this year. Yours looks great!

[wrigjef]

On 8/5/2023 at 12:03 PM, wrigjef said:

I have a flower pot that has a few Robusta volunteers I cleaned up today and noticed one does not look like the others.  Do you think this is something different? 

Any thoughts on what this might be?  Does not have the same Washy trunk.   

[96720]

Look to see if you can see the seed could be a Phoenix species 

[RichAZ]

I’m noticing a pronounced difference between my palmate and pennate palms in how they’re handling this summer and you can throw in the cold/wet from the past winter.  All my palmate palms (Bismarck, MFP, MFPC, Nannorrhops, Washingtonia) are completely fine and most of my pennate palms (Jubaea, Butia, Pseudophoenix) are burned and miserable.  The two exceptions are both hybrids.  My crazy queens are fine and my BxPJY from Patric is in full day sun still throwing spears.  

[Tom in Tucson]

On 12/18/2021 at 12:30 PM, AZ_Palm_Guy said:

Well today I noticed the spear on my "Blue" Jubaea Chilensis  was starting to open up. Nice little early Christmas gift.

How is your Jubaea doing in partial shade, or did you expose it to additinal sun?

Hi 106˚, Lo 66˚

[AZ_Palm_Guy]

On 9/6/2023 at 8:14 PM, Tom in Tucson said:

How is your Jubaea doing in partial shade, or did you expose it to additinal sun?

Hi 106˚, Lo 66˚

Unfortunately it did not survive last winter as it sat in an extremely low spot in my yard and when it rained it was drowning.. but it was planted in a morning sun afternoon shade spot. Definitely bummed that I lost this one..

[Tom in Tucson]

8 hours ago, AZ_Palm_Guy said:

Unfortunately it did not survive last winter as it sat in an extremely low spot in my yard and when it rained it was drowning.. but it was planted in a morning sun afternoon shade spot. Definitely bummed that I lost this one..

That's too bad. Do you have any images you can post that were taken in the Spring, Summer, or Fall of '22?

Hi 108˚, Lo 72˚

[Tom in Tucson]

On 8/9/2023 at 2:22 PM, RichAZ said:

I’m noticing a pronounced difference between my palmate and pennate palms in how they’re handling this summer and you can throw in the cold/wet from the past winter.  All my palmate palms (Bismarck, MFP, MFPC, Nannorrhops, Washingtonia) are completely fine and most of my pennate palms (Jubaea, Butia, Pseudophoenix) are burned and miserable.  The two exceptions are both hybrids.  My crazy queens are fine and my BxPJY from Patric is in full day sun still throwing spears.  

It may be somewhat of a painful experience, but could you please post some images of your pinnate palms from the most miserable looking to the best looking in that order with the names of each provided? I am trying to compile a list of these types of palms with some accompanying data of their sun tolerance, and some results that may be expected in the Sonoran desert.

Hi 108˚, Lo 72˚

Edited September 10, 2023 by Tom in Tucson

[96720]

Jubaea’s full sun a little less sun and pretty shaded in that order

[96720]

Definitely the worst in my yard were queens 

[96720]

Foxtail 

[96720]

Foxylady 

[96720]

Chrysalidocarpus leptocheilos

[96720]

Chrysalidocarpus hovomantsina