Phoenix rupicola - glowing

[Josue Diaz]

Every morning, I get a warm sendoff and a wave from this Phoenix rupicola. I planted it sometime in 2014 or so. I love how it looks when backlit in either the early morning, or late afternoon. 

 

Edited July 21, 2021 by Josue Diaz

[sonoranfans]

Wow, nice specimen Josue!  Glowing indeed!

[JubaeaMan138]

Gorgeous dude!!! This is a species I’ve tried to grow twice and have had no luck . Not sure if its My dry heat or what. Definetly one of the picky Phoenix for me . The other Phoenix hardly even get watered and they grow nicely . Reclinata has been the best performer for me . Wish I had More shade I bet a rupi would work for me in some light shade 

[Keys6505]

Beautiful.  1000x nicer than mine!  It holds it's fronds sideways like some of the CIDP.  I didn't know that other Phoenix species did that.  Is that a pure Rupicola?

[ahosey01]

1 hour ago, Keys6505 said:

Beautiful.  1000x nicer than mine!  It holds it's fronds sideways like some of the CIDP.  I didn't know that other Phoenix species did that.  Is that a pure Rupicola?

From what I understand, rupicola was a more common palm in Southern California a century ago,  but often fared poorly and fell out of favor.  Have heard before there may be some rupicola genes somewhere in the most sideways-tilted canaries.

I could be super wrong and this is just bro science.

[ahosey01]

6 hours ago, Josue Diaz said:

Every morning, I get a warm sendoff and a wave from this Phoenix rupicola. I planted it sometime in 2014 or so. I love how it looks when backlit in either the early morning, or late afternoon. 

 

You need another one.

[donalt]

that is a beautiful specimen !

[sonoranfans]

16 hours ago, JubaeaMan138 said:

Gorgeous dude!!! This is a species I’ve tried to grow twice and have had no luck . Not sure if its My dry heat or what. Definetly one of the picky Phoenix for me . The other Phoenix hardly even get watered and they grow nicely . Reclinata has been the best performer for me . Wish I had More shade I bet a rupi would work for me in some light shade 

Nah its not heat, I saw nice ones in chandler arizona, hotter than riverside.  These palms like their water more than most other phoenix, they are not desert palms.  You probably didnt water them enough, or they were too small to put in the ground unprotected.  Treeland in chandler arizona had a nice 12'to 14' triple in full sun, in 2009, but they had other plantings that suggested watering was consistent.  That triple handled the typical phoenix area heat, 20-30 days of 110F plus a year.

[Josue Diaz]

17 hours ago, JubaeaMan138 said:

Gorgeous dude!!! This is a species I’ve tried to grow twice and have had no luck . Not sure if its My dry heat or what. Definetly one of the picky Phoenix for me . The other Phoenix hardly even get watered and they grow nicely . Reclinata has been the best performer for me . Wish I had More shade I bet a rupi would work for me in some light shade 

Thanks! I agree with @sonoranfans - the day I took this photo is was 110F+ with humidity in the teens. They don't seem to mind the dry and hot, but I do think they dislike drying out. This particular one has almost a foot of mulch around it - I know , kind of excessive lol. But that side gets sun all day and i wanted to keep the soil from getting baked in the sun.

13 hours ago, Keys6505 said:

Beautiful.  1000x nicer than mine!  It holds it's fronds sideways like some of the CIDP.  I didn't know that other Phoenix species did that.  Is that a pure Rupicola?

I think pictures I've seen of rupicola have always had some tilt to their fronds. Dave's big rupie in La Habra looks just like mine. And as far as whether it's pure rupicola, I honestly couldn't tell - I found it randomly at a nursery that is no longer in business, but that use to buy from growers down south - San Marcos and others. Maybe there was a wholesaler that produced a batch of these almost 10 years ago? I bought two, the other one gets less water, less sun and is less than half the size. 

11 hours ago, ahosey01 said:

You need another one.

I have several others! Two that I bought and planted together. The second one gets less sun, less water and is less than half this size. And I also have 3 seedlings I got from @Darold Petty which were grown from RPS habitat collected seed. 

[DoomsDave]

@Josue Diaz I have two nice ones, both girls. Plus some smaller ones in fivers.

Yours and mine all appear to be full-blooded rupies, not hybrids, which are very common. You can usually spot the hybrids by the way the leaves are multi-planar and a very dark green, with a much more leathery texture, like CIDPs but the plants overall aren't nearly as big or robust.

Baby rupies are actually on the tender and tempermental side, compared to the other Phoenix.

[sonoranfans]

I have read that a good practical test for a relatively pure rupie is 1) leaflets are planar(DDave), 2) thorns down where the leaflets end are flexible at their base, other phoenix are not, 3) leaves are not upright and have some bend to them, 4) no suckers, none.  I think since rupies are adapted here, and so are other phoenix, cross pollination is the expectation in most phoenix palms here.  Trust no phoenix seed from florida, LOL!

[Josue Diaz]

45 minutes ago, DoomsDave said:

@Josue Diaz I have two nice ones, both girls. Plus some smaller ones in fivers.

Yours and mine all appear to be full-blooded rupies, not hybrids, which are very common. You can usually spot the hybrids by the way the leaves are multi-planar and a very dark green, with a much more leathery texture, like CIDPs but the plants overall aren't nearly as big or robust.

Baby rupies are actually on the tender and tempermental side, compared to the other Phoenix.

Mine is a boy! This one is, at least. The others haven't revealed their identities yet.

33 minutes ago, sonoranfans said:

I have read that a good practical test for a relatively pure rupie is 1) leaflets are planar(DDave), 2) thorns down where the leaflets end are flexible at their base, other phoenix are not, 3) leaves are not upright and have some bend to them, 4) no suckers, none.  I think since rupies are adapted here, and so are other phoenix, cross pollination is the expectation in most phoenix palms here.  Trust no phoenix seed from florida, LOL!

Totally love the fact that the spines are flexible. I have yet to poke myself a single time when pruning it. 

[sonoranfans]

9 minutes ago, Josue Diaz said:

Mine is a boy! This one is, at least. The others haven't revealed their identities yet.

Totally love the fact that the spines are flexible. I have yet to poke myself a single time when pruning it. 

you can still get stuck if not careful, but if you push on the thorn sideways it will "fold" at the base of the thorn, the rest is rigid.  They are not as nasty if you run your hand down  the leaf you wont get seriosly stabbed.

[DoomsDave]

18 minutes ago, Josue Diaz said:

Mine is a boy! This one is, at least. The others haven't revealed their identities yet.

Totally love the fact that the spines are flexible. I have yet to poke myself a single time when pruning it. 

 

7 minutes ago, sonoranfans said:

you can still get stuck if not careful, but if you push on the thorn sideways it will "fold" at the base of the thorn, the rest is rigid.  They are not as nasty if you run your hand down  the leaf you wont get seriosly stabbed.

The spines aren’t nearly as long as the needle-sharp daggers on CIDP or the edible date. 

[Josue Diaz]

15 minutes ago, DoomsDave said:

 

The spines aren’t nearly as long as the needle-sharp daggers on CIDP or the edible date. 

Or the reclinata mutt I have which has drawn blood several times and has gone through my shoes. Beside sharp thorns, the leaflets themselves are sharp and rigid. 

[DoomsDave]

34 minutes ago, Josue Diaz said:

Or the reclinata mutt I have which has drawn blood several times and has gone through my shoes. Beside sharp thorns, the leaflets themselves are sharp and rigid. 

Hmm. Wonder what it's a mutt with? Reclinatas aren't that rigid themselves.

[JubaeaMan138]

5 hours ago, sonoranfans said:

Nah its not heat, I saw nice ones in chandler arizona, hotter than riverside.  These palms like their water more than most other phoenix, they are not desert palms.  You probably didnt water them enough, or they were too small to put in the ground unprotected.  Treeland in chandler arizona had a nice 12'to 14' triple in full sun, in 2009, but they had other plantings that suggested watering was consistent.  That triple handled the typical phoenix area heat, 20-30 days of 110F plus a year.

Hmm maybe I’ll try again. 

[Josue Diaz]

1 hour ago, DoomsDave said:

Hmm. Wonder what it's a mutt with? Reclinatas aren't that rigid themselves.

Wanna take a stab at the parentage? They did start to sucker early on, then gave up. So far they're single trunked. and BIG

Edited July 22, 2021 by Josue Diaz

[Josue Diaz]

1 hour ago, JubaeaMan138 said:

Hmm maybe I’ll try again. 

You definitely should! Shade it perhaps at first. And mulch heavily. 

[sonoranfans]

While the size of the CIDP thorns is most daunting, a CIDP(?) x reclinata I had in arizona was the nastiest palm I ever saw.  (5) 7-8" thicks trunks and still growing thicker, 3"+ spines were everywhere like barbed wire, even pruning the lowest branches was hazardous.  It was going to be a big multi trunked palm.  I remember reading that in habitat there are lots of hybrids so the pure reclinata is not easy to get even in habitat.  True reclinatas dont have long leaves and they dont have thick trunks.  Some of those CIDP crosses can be 40' tall multi trunk palms.  My lone phoenix is a rupicola triple, slow growing(10-12' at 10 yrs from 3 gallon) in full sun.  I has planar leaflets flexible base thorns.  Looks a bit like Joshues palm but not quite as vibrant in color.  Rupies can get mineral deficiencies in sandy soil, they tend to look better out west.  Some palms look better here in florida and some look better out west.  I think most phoenix sp I have seen look better out west in arizona or california.

[Tom in Tucson]

15 hours ago, sonoranfans said:

While the size of the CIDP thorns is most daunting, a CIDP(?) x reclinata I had in arizona was the nastiest palm I ever saw.  (5) 7-8" thicks trunks and still growing thicker, 3"+ spines were everywhere like barbed wire, even pruning the lowest branches was hazardous.  It was going to be a big multi trunked palm.  I remember reading that in habitat there are lots of hybrids so the pure reclinata is not easy to get even in habitat.  True reclinatas dont have long leaves and they dont have thick trunks.  Some of those CIDP crosses can be 40' tall multi trunk palms.  My lone phoenix is a rupicola triple, slow growing(10-12' at 10 yrs from 3 gallon) in full sun.  I has planar leaflets flexible base thorns.  Looks a bit like Joshues palm but not quite as vibrant in color.  Rupies can get mineral deficiencies in sandy soil, they tend to look better out west.  Some palms look better here in florida and some look better out west.  I think most phoenix sp I have seen look better out west in arizona or california.

What a nightmare reclinata! Glad your rupicola is tolerating the inhospitable conditions (for a typical Phoenix). Maybe I'll get lucky with mine.

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