Florida palm jungle this and that's.

[redant]

Trying out a palm journal, various thoughts and topics about my 20+ year old palm jungle. I have tried so many palms, many successes and even more failures. When I see something of interest to me I'll post it here. Questions are more then welcome. 

This is the video of the central part of the jungle, many have already seen. My front yard is way tamer, otherwise I'd be divorced 😅 I'll add a video of that soon.

 

[redant]

So while out in the jungle this morning here are todays entries 

It's been said that you can't plant a palm where  Ganoderma has been . I never believed this to be true as I have never seen it infect a juvenile plant, I put this in about 5 years ago as a seedling and it's just happy as can be.

[redant]

One of my healthiest  Archontophoenix purpurea  has hit a roadblock lol. I truly don't recommend these for FL They usually suffer forever and the few who do thrive never really get purple.  I completely forgot about this one till this morning. I need to look up more these days.

[redant]

Never ever release this into the jungle, you will be sorry. It's really hard to eradicate, it wants to climb everywhere.  

[redant]

In hindsight I wish I had planted less common palms and left more room for the unknow. The fear of palms freezing held me back but I'm over that now,

[redant]

Kentiopsis oliviformis looks better in shade and I never suspected they would get this tall so fast. On the plus side they rarely seed and I have never seen any sprouts under the trees. These are SUPER easy in FL, plant and forget.

Edited February 25, 2023 by redant

[redant]

As promised the side and front. I have planted everything in this yard, mostly from seedlings. I also do 95% of the maintenance other than when I need an experienced tree guy,

 

[redant]

Have you ever really looked at a royal palm trunk? 

[Central Floridave]

cool garden!

[kinzyjr]

You have a really neat jungle, @redant

[Kim]

Really love the pic of the royal trunk closeup! Pure art. Enjoyed your videos but wish you would pan upward more often to view what's atop the lovely trunks. ☺️ Your jungle is really tidy!

 

[NickJames]

Your place is so awesome, and basically what I want to do in bokeelia someday 😍

[redant]

13 hours ago, Kim said:

Really love the pic of the royal trunk closeup! Pure art. Enjoyed your videos but wish you would pan upward more often to view what's atop the lovely trunks. ☺️ Your jungle is really tidy!

 

20 years of growth yeah everything is up high.  I plan on some stills of stuff up high, I'll try a video when the suns right to not bleach out the picture.

[redant]

Here are 2 super easy palms that are rarely used in FL  Syagrus_amara  Syagrus amara - Pacsoa and Livistona decora Livistona decora - Palmpedia - Palm Grower's Guide . The amara is in the worst part of my property, no irrigation, terrible soil, has never been fertilized, and it's always happy. Been through the 09/10 cold with no issues and while not a crown shaft palm it's self cleaning. The decora is in another location with terrible soil. It's wet dense sand in the lower part of my property that will get flooding from king tides. Super easy, never fertilized, self cleaning at a certain point, i really like the trunks too. The amara has never seeded and the decoa has but have never had sprouts.  I think others with tons of palms understand little or no seeds popping up can be a positive. Been into palms a long time, seen all the this is the next big thing for FL but the growers really never change, it's the same 4 or 5 palms lol.

Edited February 28, 2023 by redant

[redant]

Sometimes it's just best to say go ahead and die 😅 This teddy bear when young always looked awful, I gave it everything I could think of with no positive results so "GO AHEAD AND DIE, GET IT OVER WITH", now it's stunning. I haven't given it anything in over a decade, I have noticed these seem to prefer some acid soil, the ones by pine trees seem to do better then the ones in pure FL sand.

Edited February 28, 2023 by redant

[redant]

Was a bit foggy this morning, the front jungle just looked really cool with the mist.

[realarch]

Sweet Doug. I thought I had a lot to tend to! Frond patrol must be a daily ritual at your place. Almost daily here.

Tim

[redant]

2 hours ago, realarch said:

Sweet Doug. I thought I had a lot to tend to! Frond patrol must be a daily ritual at your place. Almost daily here.

Tim

It's non stop. I had over 100 royals at one point, it was to much, might be down to 70 now, more to go down. Then there's all the rest lol. 

[redant]

Palm of the day, good old flame throwers, Chambeyronia macrocarpa. I have an abundance of these due to one that seeded several times. Why these are not used more in FL is beyond me, stunning, super easy, fairly slow growing, reasonable cold tolerant, just a bit better then a Coconut from my experience in FL and not heavy seeders. Seeds on mine took close to 2 years to mature. The mother to all my present ones did die from Ganoderma, thankfully she gave me many new ones.

[realarch]

Good on you Doug, I agree nice palms. Mine are heavy seeders and have a small forest at the base of the mother plants. Like weeds really, always chopping them out. Keep on truckin.

Tim

[redant]

Todays adventure in the jungle, disposing of palm fronds.

 

[Looking Glass]

11 minutes ago, redant said:

Todays adventure in the jungle, disposing of palm fronds.

 

Do you ever chop up the light parts to use as mulch?   I’ve been doing some of that lately.  I imagine if I set a pile on fire here, eight fire trucks wound drive up on to the front lawn within 30 seconds, purposely crushing as many plants as possible.  

[redant]

51 minutes ago, Looking Glass said:

Do you ever chop up the light parts to use as mulch?   I’ve been doing some of that lately.  I imagine if I set a pile on fire here, eight fire trucks wound drive up on to the front lawn within 30 seconds, purposely crushing as many plants as possible.  

I have been using the coconut fronds as much in several areas as they lay flat. Others are a bit more unruly. I'm on 2.5 acres as are my neighbors, we are all a bit redneck lol, we leave each other alone but watch out for each other, nobody bothers me when I burn stuff. I'm zoned AG so I get away with lots of things most in FL would not.

[redant]

Down in the lower part of the property where I have the highest concentrations of royals to suck up standing water, this is what it looks like looking up. 

 

[redant]

My "soil" lol. Pretty much this is what all my soil/sand looked like when I started my jungle. Over 20 years I have spread a huge amount of horse poo to amend this talcum powder sand.

[Looking Glass]

3 hours ago, redant said:

My "soil" lol. Pretty much this is what all my soil/sand looked like when I started my jungle. Over 20 years I have spread a huge amount of horse poo to amend this talcum powder sand.

Gotta love those Florida “soils”.   

Ours is more of a yellow beach sand, but of similar nutritional value I’m sure.   I don’t know how many pick-up truck loads of manure, peat, and garden soil I laid down in the garden beds when we fist bought the house, but it was “many”.  Top coated the lawn too.  I also mulch heavily 2x per year and cut up whatever leaves I can and toss those back into the mix too.   

Makes a huge difference.  

I always wonder if biochar/charcoal would help too?   

[redant]

2 hours ago, Looking Glass said:

Gotta love those Florida “soils”.   

Ours is more of a yellow beach sand, but of similar nutritional value I’m sure.   I don’t know how many pick-up truck loads of manure, peat, and garden soil I laid down in the garden beds when we fist bought the house, but it was “many”.  Top coated the lawn too.  I also mulch heavily 2x per year and cut up whatever leaves I can and toss those back into the mix too.   

Makes a huge difference.  

I always wonder if biochar/charcoal would help too?   

I had stopped using bagged fertilizer for the most part as it just washes away, moved on to organic material but with such a large amount of property it's insanely time consuming, but the palms enjoy it way more than the bagged stuff.

[shminbabe]

On 2/27/2023 at 9:25 AM, redant said:

Have you ever really looked at a royal palm trunk? 

I would buy this as a painting. Isn't nature something?

[shminbabe]

On 3/14/2023 at 6:34 PM, redant said:

Palm of the day, good old flame throwers, Chambeyronia macrocarpa. I have an abundance of these due to one that seeded several times. Why these are not used more in FL is beyond me, stunning, super easy, fairly slow growing, reasonable cold tolerant, just a bit better then a Coconut from my experience in FL and not heavy seeders. Seeds on mine took close to 2 years to mature. The mother to all my present ones did die from Ganoderma, thankfully she gave me many new ones.

If you want to sell me a seedling or several, I'd buy them. I lost my flamethrower in the epic Christmas freeze of late '22 here in NE Florida. I purchased the Chambreyonia Macrocarpa from a grower on Pine Island, Fl. 

[shminbabe]

I'm watching all your jungle/yard videos. You have a stunning property. I'm absolutely loving it. I appreciate the level of upkeep you've got going on there too. WOW. Put it's so lovely being outside in your domain, and your place is a magnificent oasis on the water. 

[redant]

16 minutes ago, shminbabe said:

I'm watching all your jungle/yard videos. You have a stunning property. I'm absolutely loving it. I appreciate the level of upkeep you've got going on there too. WOW. Put it's so lovely being outside in your domain, and your place is a magnificent oasis on the water. 

Thank you.  I don't really have any for sale, popped mostly all in the ground.  These are just a bit more cold tolerant then coconuts in my experience so they would definitely need protection there.

[redant]

Palm spotlight of the day,  Dictyosperma album var. conjugatum.  A super easy but slow palm for FL. While it seeds frequently seedlings are not an issue, if they do germinate they take decades to grow. I have several in the ground, this one is about 15 years old from a 3gal pot, exposed location in full sun. Has seeded many times and have sent the seeds off many times. Hopefully some offspring exist.  I'ts one of my favorite palms.

[redant]

My love hate relationship with giant solitary Caryota's I had a magnificent C. No that came down in hurricane Irma. Was truly a spectacular palm, split right off at the base. These things are crazy hard to slice up even with a good chainsaw.  My only nice one now a huge Caryota obtusa.  I will not plant another, just to much to deal with when they croak.