Jack Dane's San Francisco Palm Garden

[JasonD]

Yesterday, thanks to International Palm Society members Darold Petty and Steve Klocksiem, I had the chance to visit the late Jack Dane's garden in San Francisco's Cow Hollow neighborhood. Wow! The biggest Juania australis I've seen flanks the back of the house and is paired with a tall, adult, staminate specimen of a Ceroxylon species I couldn't identify; a Livistona fulva rosette grows at the Juania's base. A self-sowing grove of nikau palms, Rhopalostylis sapida, proliferates, while a nice little clump of Laccospadix australasica occupies the shady center of this typically tiny San Francisco back yard, maybe 25ft / 7.6m wide an 40ft / 12.2m deep.

There's a very nice Rhopalostylis baueri and possibly another buried in there. A huge, robust Livistona species overtops all the palm trees in the garden, and a Ceroxylon quindiuense (semi-plumose type similar to those from Tenerife, Valle del Cauca in the San Francisco Botanical Garden collected by Garrin Fullington in the late 1970s) is still in a rosette with huge leaves in the shade. Plus, a few Chamaedorea and a couple of Howea forsteriana clumps are scattered about.
Also of interest are the rather tall Cyathea / Sphaeropteris medullaris and S. cooperi tree ferns.
Enjoy the photos!

Any advice on dealing with the alarming scar on the Juania trunk is welcome.

- Jason

1. Juania australis & Livistona fulva
2. Juania & Ceroxylon (right)
3. Rhopalostylis sapida (mostly) and Livistona sp. (australis?)
4. Rhopalostylis seedlings
5. Ceroxylon sp.—a flowering-age male
6. Rhopalostylis baueri, R. sapida, and Livistona sp.
7. Same species as above.
8. Possible Rhopalostylis baueri next to Archontophoenix cunninghamiana
9. Juania australis trunk scar with Rhopalostylis baueri at left
10. Juania australis crown, upward view
11. Juania trunk again
12. Juania trunk
13. Photo posted at right, Rhopalostylis baueri, R. sapida, Livistona, Laccospadix

 

 

Edited August 27, 2020 by JasonD
Names added corresponding to photos

[kinzyjr]

@JasonD Thank you for sharing this garden!  It's nice to see some stuff that is gorgeous and just can't be done here.  The scar looks pretty bad.  Hope someone can help you with that.

[Frond-friend42]

Thanks for sharing. Could it be Ceroxylon echinulatum?

[Firepalm]

Thanks for posting these Jason.  That Juania is the biggest I've seen pics of in a domestic garden.  Hope that scarring isn't a sign of some kind of infection,  never seen something like that before. 

[tejas1978]

Did the Juania have a tree stake on it at one point? Looks alot like a stake scar I commonly see on trees 

[realarch]

Jason, thanks for taking the time to post photos of such beautiful mature specimens. They looked so healthy too. Gotta love those Nikau palms, so nice to see so many in one garden. I remember visiting Keith Boyer’s garden in Auckland, the number and variety of Nikau were memorable, something I’ll never forget.

Tim

[Tyrone]

Thanks for posting. That’s the biggest Juania I’ve seen pictured outside habitat. The scar looks like sunburn. Howeas sometimes get it. Some amazing plants grown at that place. I wish I lived much closer than I do. Pictures often don’t do reality justice.

[JasonD]

On 8/28/2020 at 7:06 AM, Frond-friend42 said:

Thanks for sharing. Could it be Ceroxylon echinulatum?

That did come to mind—the size and the presentation of the fronds give that impression, somewhat.

[JasonD]

13 hours ago, Tyrone said:

Thanks for posting. That’s the biggest Juania I’ve seen pictured outside habitat. The scar looks like sunburn. Howeas sometimes get it. Some amazing plants grown at that place. I wish I lived much closer than I do. Pictures often don’t do reality justice.

I agree, sunburn was my first impression. I hope that no bacteria or fungi get in there to mess things up.

[JasonD]

On 8/28/2020 at 2:03 PM, tejas1978 said:

Did the Juania have a tree stake on it at one point? Looks alot like a stake scar I commonly see on trees 

I don't think it was staked and the scar is too high up to have been made by a stake. I'm going with sunburn as the most likely culprit. The scar is on the southwest quadrant, our hottest direction.

[JasonD]

On 8/29/2020 at 3:17 PM, realarch said:

Jason, thanks for taking the time to post photos of such beautiful mature specimens. They looked so healthy too. Gotta love those Nikau palms, so nice to see so many in one garden. I remember visiting Keith Boyer’s garden in Auckland, the number and variety of Nikau were memorable, something I’ll never forget.

Tim

This garden really makes the case for planting nikau in San Francisco. They are too rare here. But they are thirsty, and most people want to be careful with their water budget.

[LJG]

2 hours ago, JasonD said:

I agree, sunburn was my first impression. I hope that no bacteria or fungi get in there to mess things up.

Yep. Winter, low sun angle burn. And yes, it’s dangerous as fungus can start. I lost two trunking Hedys this way. 

[BrianRBruning@gmail.com]

My R. sapida always has burnt leaf edges esp. at the far end of the frond.  What is wrong?