Sabal Birmingham growth thread

[Sabal King]

Picked up a couple of 3yr old Sabal Birminghams and put one in the ground yesterday.  Looking fordward to the slow progress on this one, but also great cold tolerance!  I'm using this as a progress thread over time.  I've got two others that went into 1G pots in the event some of the other palms around my yard don't put out new growth this year from the freeze..  Looking forward to growing this one!

Anyone already growing one of these?  Thoughts and experiences with them thus far?

[ahosey01]

35 minutes ago, tlow said:

Picked up a couple of 3yr old Sabal Birminghams and put one in the ground yesterday.  Looking fordward to the slow progress on this one, but also great cold tolerance!  I'm using this as a progress thread over time.  I've got two others that went into 1G pots in the event some of the other palms around my yard don't put out new growth this year from the freeze..  Looking forward to growing this one!

Anyone already growing one of these?  Thoughts and experiences with them thus far?

Where’d you get one? Trying like hell to find one myself.  I’ll never get anywhere even close enough to test their cold hardiness but I just like rare Sabals.

[Sabal King]

25 minutes ago, ahosey01 said:

Where’d you get one? Trying like hell to find one myself.  I’ll never get anywhere even close enough to test their cold hardiness but I just like rare Sabals.

Ebay.  I picked up three of them in this order, all three years.  They came in quickly, and look great.

[ahosey01]

46 minutes ago, tlow said:

Ebay.  I picked up three of them in this order, all three years.  They came in quickly, and look great.

Boom!! Picked up two.

Sorry for hijacking your thread.  I'll shutup now.

[Sabal King]

2 minutes ago, ahosey01 said:

Boom!! Picked up two.

Sorry for hijacking your thread.  I'll shutup now.

Great.  The seller is fantastic and shipped rather professionally.  They look REALLY good for the price.

[Jubaea_James760]

I bought 1 too thanks! 

We could all compare growth  

[NBTX11]

Do you have pure Washingtonia Filifera in the ground.  If not, you should get some.  They are good to go in your area (outside of a 2021 freeze), and grow fast.  Much faster than Sabals, they put out fronds like gangbusters.

Mine has already put out 4-5 green fronds since the freeze to 9 degrees a month ago.  Unless you are projected to go below 10F (very rare, even in N. TX), set it and forget it.

[Matt N- Dallas]

Birmingham is cold hardy but exceedingly slow for me growing in Dallas.  Here’s one planted in 2002.  It’s a year older than the tall w. filibusta in the background.

[Sabal King]

2 hours ago, NBTX11 said:

Do you have pure Washingtonia Filifera in the ground.  If not, you should get some.  They are good to go in your area (outside of a 2021 freeze), and grow fast.  Much faster than Sabals, they put out fronds like gangbusters.

Mine has already put out 4-5 green fronds since the freeze to 9 degrees a month ago.  Unless you are projected to go below 10F (very rare, even in N. TX), set it and forget it.

oh but I sure do... as part of losing a few of the palms I planted last year (robusta) I picked up six filiferas (seedlings) and got eight sent, so I have another four to place.. they are already growing quite vigorously for even being in the ground just two weeks.  Can't wait!  They're the slower growing, and hardier cousin to the robusya.

[N8ALLRIGHT]

I am on the bus as well, one en route via ebay

[Ben G.]

14 hours ago, tlow said:

Picked up a couple of 3yr old Sabal Birminghams and put one in the ground yesterday.  Looking fordward to the slow progress on this one, but also great cold tolerance!  I'm using this as a progress thread over time.  I've got two others that went into 1G pots in the event some of the other palms around my yard don't put out new growth this year from the freeze..  Looking forward to growing this one!

Anyone already growing one of these?  Thoughts and experiences with them thus far?

Good luck with them. I have two in the ground here in NE Oklahoma. They are reliable growers, even if they aren't fast. Mine look fairly rough after the big deep freeze, but they will both survive. 

[WSimpson]

Here is my first picture of my Birmingham in the early spring  of 2010 , so I guess it had 1 growing season in the ground in 2009  at this point .

Water it really well ( you can't water it enough in warm weather ) and fertilize it twice a year and it can look like this in around 10 years .

 

Edited March 20, 2021 by Will Simpson

[ChrisA]

Here is the progression of my Sabal birmingham from Plant Delights. It was planted in 2015. First photo is from 2016, the last is from October of 2020.  Slow grower but seems to be picking up the pace. It LOVES water and I often let it flood as precip in Albuquerque is far too meager for its liking. It doesn’t get a ton of sun due to being next to a cinder block wall just to it’s east and a large Sycamore that shades it in summer; but the sun it does get is mid-day and scorchingly hot.

I added a low wall of black lava rocks to block north winds a bit and add additional heat.

 

[Sabal King]

Thanks everyone, love this thread.. Can't wait to see mine grow up (albeit slowly).  While doing some clearing around the property yesterday I found some nice spots to remove dead trees, small garbage trees doing nothing, and prepared my wife for more palms... she's thrilled , hah!

Edited March 21, 2021 by tlow

[Chad king NC]

20 hours ago, Will Simpson said:

Here is my first picture of my Birmingham in the early spring  of 2010 , so I guess it had 1 growing season in the ground in 2009  at this point .

Water it really well ( you can't water it enough in warm weather ) and fertilize it twice a year and it can look like this in around 10 years .

 

Holy crap, mine from PDN has been in the ground 8 yrs and just looks like a mature minor.  Definitely need to work on the fertilizer. 

[Sabal King]

What kind of fertilizer are you using?  Those are beautiful and I hope with patience, and TLC mine will all grow into something like that, albeit a little different as they each have a different sun profile, and locatin on our property.  Quick update on two of our six S. Birminghams.

Starting to put out a split leaf already.. woot!  It got beaten up in our wind\near tornado event a week ago so it's getting some additional help at the moment.

Second one in the ground also looking quite happy.

[Swolte]

10 hours ago, tlow said:

Quick update on two of our six S. Birminghams.

Six? Nice going! I had to do quite some scrounging to find mine.  They were quite hard to come by a few years ago!

[Collectorpalms]

In the time my Birmingham has put on just leaves a volunteer palmetto has gone to about 6 feet of clear trunk and a Mexican Sabal 10ft. (A little over a decade)
... granted if your putting it in full sun ( mine got shaded out with a wall), with good soil and tlc it should do 1/3 as fast as palmetto. 
I don’t trust any washingtonia anymore, unless I grew it! Just too much frustration getting a pure one, and then the agony of a huge removal job. Even my thick trunk Washington hybrid are stubbornly looking dead. 
I gave faith in the large washingtonia hybrids because one or more lived through 1989 locally, but this must have been much worse. In El Paso, after Feb 2-4, 2011 low single digits almost all washingtonia that lived had several leaves in April according to google street-view (exact date in April not sure) It is April tomorrow, and zero leaves
I wish they wouldn’t sell washingtonia Species out of Florida since none are filifera. In 10 years, they will be everywhere again and seeding, and they will die all over again in zone 8a and 8b. 

Edited March 30, 2021 by Collectorpalms

[Sabal King]

8 hours ago, Swolte said:

Six? Nice going! I had to do quite some scrounging to find mine.  They were quite hard to come by a few years ago!

Thanks!!  I found a great seller who has 4year old plants at a very reasonable price, so I figured I would stock up as I have a LOT of room on the property and plenty of sun.  The less I need to worry about them during texas "winters" the better.

 

2 hours ago, Collectorpalms said:

In the time my Birmingham has put on just leaves a volunteer palmetto has gone to about 6 feet of clear trunk and a Mexican Sabal 10ft. (A little over a decade)
... granted if your putting it in full sun ( mine got shaded out with a wall), with good soil and tlc it should do 1/3 as fast as palmetto. 
I don’t trust any washingtonia anymore, unless I grew it! Just too much frustration getting a pure one, and then the agony of a huge removal job. Even my thick trunk Washington hybrid are stubbornly looking dead. 
I gave faith in the large washingtonia hybrids because one or more lived through 1989 locally, but this must have been much worse. In El Paso, after Feb 2-4, 2011 low single digits almost all washingtonia that lived had several leaves in April according to google street-view (exact date in April not sure) It is April tomorrow, and zero leaves
I wish they wouldn’t sell washingtonia Species out of Florida since none are filifera. In 10 years, they will be everywhere again and seeding, and they will die all over again in zone 8a and 8b. 

They're almost all in full sun, minus two which are mostly sun.  I picked up some, what were labeled, washingtonia filifera seedlings and I am growing those out, but those are the only washingtonia I have.  The rest of the property consists of Sabal Texana, Sabal Birmingham, Trachycarpus Fortunei (as well as a Bulgaria), chamaerops humilis, Pindos, Sabal Majors, & 3x Washingtonia Robusta (acquired them, put them more out of the way to fend for themselves), and I'm going to go nuts and try a CIDP where I can protect it easily as it grows..  That's my most zone pushing I'm going to attempt here.  All said we're over 40 palms in total.

[Collectorpalms]

21 minutes ago, tlow said:

Thanks!!  I found a great seller who has 4year old plants at a very reasonable price, so I figured I would stock up as I have a LOT of room on the property and plenty of sun.  The less I need to worry about them during texas "winters" the better.

 

They're almost all in full sun, minus two which are mostly sun.  I picked up some, what were labeled, washingtonia filifera seedlings and I am growing those out, but those are the only washingtonia I have.  The rest of the property consists of Sabal Texana, Sabal Birmingham, Trachycarpus Fortunei (as well as a Bulgaria), chamaerops humilis, Pindos, Sabal Majors, & 3x Washingtonia Robusta (acquired them, put them more out of the way to fend for themselves), and I'm going to go nuts and try a CIDP where I can protect it easily as it grows..  That's my most zone pushing I'm going to attempt here.  All said we're over 40 palms in total.

For Arborescent palms in DFW.... Sabal Palmetto, plant plenty. You will think me in the future I know they are unsexy, but they are the nicest looking palms in my Yard.
If you have 40 palms, 75 percent should be the extra hardy stuff. That is my new rule. 
I am not sure what percentage of Trachycarpus will survive compared the Sabal Palmetto, and Sabal Mexicana. In DFW.

Edited March 30, 2021 by Collectorpalms

[Sabal King]

Just now, Collectorpalms said:

For Arborescent palms in DFW.... Sabal Palmetto, plant plenty. You will think me in the future I know they are unsexy, but they are the nicest longing palms in my Yard. If you have 40 palms, 75 percent should be the extra hardy stuff. That is my new base line.

Well most of the things I have are on the hardier side, with a few being we'll see how they do and fend for themselves... I need to find some needle palms locally and get those in the ground.  We have a ton of room and most everything I have bought is from a small seedling or 1-3G size so I am patient.  I really enjoy seeing progress year over year versus plunking down a big palm.  I tried to ping North Texas Cold Hardy Palms but have yet to get a response on something like Mazari or Needles.. I'm not zone pushing much at all, I don't have the heart to lose my entire collection a decade from now, I'm going hardy for that peace of mind.

Curious though.. at what age\size do these cold hardy species above NOT need to be covered from the 20's temps during winter?

[Collectorpalms]

6 minutes ago, tlow said:

Well most of the things I have are on the hardier side, with a few being we'll see how they do and fend for themselves... I need to find some needle palms locally and get those in the ground.  We have a ton of room and most everything I have bought is from a small seedling or 1-3G size so I am patient.  I really enjoy seeing progress year over year versus plunking down a big palm.  I tried to ping North Texas Cold Hardy Palms but have yet to get a response on something like Mazari or Needles.. I'm not zone pushing much at all, I don't have the heart to lose my entire collection a decade from now, I'm going hardy for that peace of mind.

Curious though.. at what age\size do these cold hardy species above NOT need to be covered from the 20's temps during winter?

I have learned locally even After this event that cold hardy palms can die even when they have full girth trunks. So be prepared to cover everything most years as they get established. Then I am not sure what the weather has in store. DFW is much colder for me most winters. Most of my plants got established in a 10 year very warm cycle. 

Edited March 30, 2021 by Collectorpalms

[Sabal King]

15 minutes ago, Collectorpalms said:

I have learned locally even After this event that cold hardy palms can die even when they have full girth trunks. So be prepared to cover everything most years as they get established. Then I am not sure what the weather has in store. DFW is much colder for me most winters. Most of my plants got established in a 10 year very warm cycle. 

Well here's hoping we get a bit of a warm cycle for a bit as these all grow up and get established.  Once they get established they should be good barring another event like last month.

[WSimpson]

On 3/20/2021 at 2:00 PM, ChrisA said:

Here is the progression of my Sabal birmingham from Plant Delights. It was planted in 2015. First photo is from 2016, the last is from October of 2020.  Slow grower but seems to be picking up the pace. It LOVES water and I often let it flood as precip in Albuquerque is far too meager for its liking. It doesn’t get a ton of sun due to being next to a cinder block wall just to it’s east and a large Sycamore that shades it in summer; but the sun it does get is mid-day and scorchingly hot.

I added a low wall of black lava rocks to block north winds a bit and add additional heat.

 

I got mine from PDN too . It was so  tiny back then in those super small pots , but worth it . Sorry I just remembered that I got my plant from Gary of Gary's Nursery and it was in a 3 gallon pot . I don't know what I was thinking . Probably I was thinking about my small Tifton Hardy Palmetto that was from PDN and is getting some decent size on it now . 

Edited March 31, 2021 by Will Simpson

[teddytn]

Sabal Birmingham I planted in spring 2016 that’s how it looks now spring 2021

[Sabal King]

1 minute ago, teddytn said:

Sabal Birmingham I planted in spring 2016 that’s how it looks now spring 2021

Beautiful!  Nice work on that one obviously given the pictures.  I'm looking forward to seeing mine start moving along once we get into the warmer months here in Texas.

[teddytn]

It stays hot and humid here in TN, but in Texas you’ll have some monsters in a few years!!

[Sabal King]

1 hour ago, teddytn said:

It stays hot and humid here in TN, but in Texas you’ll have some monsters in a few years!!

That's my hope!  They will get PLENTY of sun, and water.. and some fertilizer too!

[OC2Texaspalmlvr]

On 4/2/2021 at 9:04 AM, teddytn said:

Sabal Birmingham I planted in spring 2016 that’s how it looks now spring 2021

That seems like really good growth for a Birmingham 

Also welcome to PT !!! 

[WSimpson]

On 3/29/2021 at 1:47 PM, tlow said:

What kind of fertilizer are you using?  Those are beautiful and I hope with patience, and TLC mine will all grow into something like that, albeit a little different as they each have a different sun profile, and locatin on our property.  Quick update on two of our six S. Birminghams.

Starting to put out a split leaf already.. woot!  It got beaten up in our wind\near tornado event a week ago so it's getting some additional help at the moment.

Second one in the ground also looking quite happy.

I've been getting my fertilizer  from Site One . They have branches around the country . I would call them and order tropical and palm fertilizer and they might have it in stock , but if they don't have it in stock they will order it and you can go and pick it up at the store . 

Will

Edited April 4, 2021 by Will Simpson

[Jtee]

After reading this posting y’all inspired me to get on eBay and purchase a small Sabal Birmingham 

[Collectorpalms]

10 minutes ago, Jtee said:

After reading this posting y’all inspired me to get on eBay and purchase a small Sabal Birmingham 

Or Try a Sabal Louisiana instead if you want a faster palm that’s just as hardy Or hardier. Here is mine after the texas blast. 

Edited April 4, 2021 by Collectorpalms

[Collectorpalms]

Brazoria is the fastest among Birmingham, Brazoria and Louisiana. All roughly same hardiness. Only beat up because of tons of snow wind and ice. This Brazoria saw close to 3F.

Edited April 4, 2021 by Collectorpalms

[Jtee]

9 minutes ago, Collectorpalms said:

Or Try a Sabal Louisiana instead if you want a faster palm that’s just as hardy Or hardier. Here is mine after the texas blast. 

How long has it been in ground? 
I saw a Sabal Louisiana on eBay. With shipping its $30. I didn’t realize it was faster than Birmingham and now I have to fight the urge to order one. I think the seller only has 6 available now.

Edited April 4, 2021 by Jtee

[Collectorpalms]

4 minutes ago, Jtee said:

How long has it been in ground? 
I saw a Sabal Louisiana on eBay. With shipping its $30. I didn’t realize it was faster than Birmingham and now I have to fight the urge to order one. I think the seller only has 6 available now.

This thing has been trunking for about 10 years, meanwhile a Birmingham directly behind it had no trunk and about 4 leaves. Lol no comparison. A lot of it may have to do with my alkaline soil. Birmingham seems to do great in the southeast with acidic loamy soils. 

[OC2Texaspalmlvr]

26 minutes ago, Collectorpalms said:

Or Try a Sabal Louisiana instead if you want a faster palm that’s just as hardy Or hardier. Here is mine after the texas blast. 

That is an awesome palm these should be distributed more !! 

T J 

[Sabal King]

3 hours ago, Collectorpalms said:

This thing has been trunking for about 10 years, meanwhile a Birmingham directly behind it had no trunk and about 4 leaves. Lol no comparison. A lot of it may have to do with my alkaline soil. Birmingham seems to do great in the southeast with acidic loamy soils. 

Fine Fine, you sold me.. I just ordered two of them (ebay) and they look great for the price.

[Jtee]

I hesitated too long and now the seller is sold out of the Sabal Louisiana.

[teddytn]

On 4/4/2021 at 8:27 AM, OC2Texaspalmlvr said:

That seems like really good growth for a Birmingham 

Also welcome to PT !!! 

Thanks for the welcome, long time grower first time poster haha. Of course there’s a bunch of variability from plant to plant, I would say that one is on the fast side for sure. When it started to take off I almost thought it could have been a palmetto, but it never shows any winter damage. Has to be a Birmingham 

[Sabal King]

22 hours ago, Collectorpalms said:

Brazoria is the fastest among Birmingham, Brazoria and Louisiana. All roughly same hardiness. Only beat up because of tons of snow wind and ice. This Brazoria saw close to 3F.

Seems to be damn near impossible to find a Brazoria anywhere... if you spot one that will ship, let me know!!