Where are the best places to buy palms in Brownsville Texas?

[Sunny Palms]

Looking at a house to buy in Brownsville Texas and thinking about landscaping. Where are the best places to buy palms in Brownsville? 
Looking for a variety, including true coconut palms and cold-hearty beccariophoenix alfredii as well as native palms. Would like to get some that have a head start and can be planted larger to start.
Many thanks!

[Austinpalm]

Great question.  Let me know when you have the answer.  I live at SPI.  I have gone to some of the big box stores, but I generally buy most of my stuff online, so it is not as big as what you appear to be looking for.

[Fusca]

On 10/31/2023 at 1:47 AM, Sunny Palms said:

Looking at a house to buy in Brownsville Texas and thinking about landscaping. Where are the best places to buy palms in Brownsville? 
Looking for a variety, including true coconut palms and cold-hearty beccariophoenix alfredii as well as native palms. Would like to get some that have a head start and can be planted larger to start.
Many thanks!

Welcome to the area (in advance?)!  I'm just about 25 miles north of Brownsville.  Not many options for palms in Brownsville but there's a few good nurseries in San Juan off IH-2.  Muñoz and 495 nurseries have both small and large palms.  Not a big selection of unusual palms however they do have most of the more common palms (kings, royals, foxtails, bottles, etc.) but I've yet to see any coconut palms or Beccariophoenix for sale.  There are several growers in the area as well selling large field-dug palms.

[Sunny Palms]

Thanks very much.  Spent last week looking at houses, but the yard of the house that is the best is a total empty canvas with only grass, so wondering if I can make it into the tropical paradise that I dream of!

I would like to try and start with someone who will deliver and install a half dozen larger native palms that will thrive in the area, and then try my luck with some coconuts and Beccariophoenix starting small.

In Florida we got around 24 coconut palms growing by soaking the coconuts starting from our two trees, but I'm afraid Texas will be a lot harder with 1/3 the rainfall and watering restrictions, a little too hot summers and freeze concerns in the winter -- but I want to try and create another tropical oasis within the city. 

I have not been having much luck searching online -- I found some "wholesale only" farms such as https://www.borderlinkfarms.com/ -- will check out Muñoz and 495 nurseries now. Thanks very much!

[Dwarf Fan]

Southern Paradise in Corpus Christi has the best Palm selection here and is not too far from Brownsville.

Prices are not cheap but they have lots of mature hard to find Palms.

 

[Xenon]

On 11/10/2023 at 10:44 AM, Sunny Palms said:

 

I would like to try and start with someone who will deliver and install a half dozen larger native palms that will thrive in the area, and then try my luck with some coconuts and Beccariophoenix starting small.

In Florida we got around 24 coconut palms growing by soaking the coconuts starting from our two trees, but I'm afraid Texas will be a lot harder with 1/3 the rainfall and watering restrictions, a little too hot summers and freeze concerns in the winter -- but I want to try and create another tropical oasis within the city. 

Coconuts aren't super hard to grow apart from the occassional freeze, I've seen them growing on abandoned lots. Many of the coconuts in the area were grown from seed and later went on to mature and produce their own fruit. 

The only native palm is Sabal mexicana. If you want dependable palms for a tropical oasis look, I recommend royals and foxtails. They are cheap and easy to source, need less water and fertilizer than queens (suprisingly), and a majority survived the coldest freeze (by far) in the last 33 years in Brownsville. Most people have had bad experience with Beccariophoenix down there...it doesn't like the irrigation water and just suffers from general failture to thrive (the coconuts honestly looked better).