Affiliate News - 2Q14

[mike in kurtistown]

Palm Society of Southern California

The PSSC’s March 2014 Meeting

The March 2014 PSSC meeting was held at two gardens in Orange County. One was that of Ralph Velez, one of the founding members of the Palm Society of Southern California and the other was at Palm Island located at Mile Square Park.

Ralph’s was the first stop of the day. If you're a long-time PSSC member, this garden really needs no introduction. But, in case you're not, we’ll give you one anyway. Ralph started his garden back about 1962, which makes it over 50 years old. Talk about maturity, Wow! Ralph’s garden is a treasure trove of rare and exotic palms, many of which were the first of their kinds in Southern California. I mean, what palm doesn't he have planted around his yard, parkway or one of his several green houses. Its the kind of garden you may have to experience several times to be able to see everything and take it all in. Simply an amazing garden.

When the time came to move on to the next location I found it difficult to want to leave, and I am sure I was not alone. Nevertheless, lunch was calling and we all headed over to Palm Island located only minutes away.

This tiny little island is located inside Mile Square Park accessible only by a foot bridge. The walking trail takes you from one side to the other where you see a multitude of palms along the way.

One of my favorite highlights of the day was just simply listening to Ralph tell history of Palm Island. He told the story about how he had wanted to plant palms in that park for a long time. One day, he approached the powers that be about getting palms planted in the park, but this fell on deaf ears.The person in charge at the time was just not interested. All seemed lost, till one day he found out that the person in charge was retiring. I am sure it did not take long for Ralph to introduce himself to the new guy and express to him his love for palms. As luck would have it the children’s play area that once was on the island was due to be relocated and this island would now be cleared out for something new. I am sure Ralph thought he was dreaming. His persistence finely paid off. Ralph got the green light and the island now became a blank slate for Ralphs vision. If I am not mistaken, I believe he said that he planted most of the palms himself.

The weather was quite nice but a bit breezy. The food was great as usual. The auctioneer for the day was also Ralph; he did a great job. Not a lot of plants this time on the auction block but they all found new homes.

A great time was had by all who attended, if you didn't get an opportunity to attend make sure you mark your calendars for next time.

Casey Quinn, LA Chairperson

Ralph's Front Yard

Palm Island

Chamaerops humilis in habitat, 1) along the Rhine River, 2) Brittany, France, and 3) Baja, California

[mike in kurtistown]

Central Florida Palm & Cycad Society

December Meeting Report

By Maryann Krisovitch

Over 50 members of the Society once again enjoyed fabulous holiday tours and a feast at our December 7th meeting. Our first stop was at the garden of Gina Valentino and Nicholas Georgiades. This private half acre of palms, bamboo, bromeliads, aroids, tropical and edible plants is carefully planted and maintained by the enthusiastic owners. It’s a little slice of Hawaii right there in Sarasota!

Our final stop was at the Sarasota home and garden of Rob Branch & Susie Dow. One of Florida’s finest private gardens developed over the past 20 years includes palms, bamboo, dozens of different kinds of bromeliads, and rare tropical plants. Following a guided tour, we were treated to have a demonstration by CFPACS member Ken Johnson on creating rare tropical palm bonsai.

Harry Blenker did a great job on the Cuban pig roast and many of our members brought scrumptious sides. As always our plant sale and auction were a huge success. This type of meeting makes membership in the Central Florida Palm &Cycad Society well worth it!

The feast at Rob & Susie’s in December,

palmlovers dig into Cuban pig roast and

sides.

Above, all eyes focused on Rick

Nale during the plant auction at

the December meeting.

Gina Valentino in Rob

Branch’s garden.

President's Message

I think most of us will agree that CFPACS has a “pretty face” …. meaning it provides an opportunity for members to visit lovely palm/cycad gardens throughout Central Florida and enjoy a day of camaraderie with others who share our enthusiasm. The board of directors spends hours arranging four meetings a year and our generous hosts also labor lovingly to get their gardens ready for “company.”

These meetings are an important benefit to members and great efforts are expended to ensure that each one is worth what is often a long road trip just to get there.

However, we also have a higher mission, that of creating or enhancing opportunities for others to enjoy palms and cycads now and for years to come. You will find the CFPACS name linked to many causes, most recently the campaign to move the U.A. Young garden in Tampa to St Petersburg’s Gizella Kopsick Palm Arboretum and Sunken Gardens. Dr. and Mrs. Young spent their lifetime collecting rare palms and cycads from around the world and amassed one of the finest private collections anywhere. Now, instead of going under a developer’s bulldozer, the valuable plants will be placed in public gardens where they can be cared for properly, studied and appreciated by future generations. This project is ongoing and you will be hearing more about it as the months go by.

There will be other opportunities to “do good.” Your board is looking now at the Florida Institute of Technology Botanical Garden in Melbourne. This lovely 15 acre spread was originally designed by Dent Smith, founder of the International Palm Society many years ago, but neglect, lack of knowledge and other factors took their toll and the original 600 or so palms dwindled down to a relative handful. We think the FIT garden might be an appropriate place for our society to focus some attention – and perhaps a few plants. Keep tuned as discussions with FIT officials continue.

As a palm fancier, you might also look around your home community for public gardens that could benefit from CFPACS’ collective expertise and possible donations. Our region reaches from north of Gainesville to Sarasota and from Daytona Beach to Port St. Lucie—27 counties--so there should be many opportunities to spread our palm magic. Please let me know if you have a place in mind. Palm.president7@gmail.com

Meanwhile, be assured that CFPACS will continue to offer exciting, interesting and noteworthy gardens to visit. And we hope you’ll join us at every single one.

—Lucinda McCartney

U.A. Young Collection

By Phil Stager

The St. Pete City Council unanimously approved the expenditure of $300K in Weeki Wachee funds to purchase and relocate the

U. A. Young cycad collection to St. Pete from Tampa. We will also be taking some palms and landscape boulders and rocks. The

really rare stuff goes to Sunken Gardens: Encephalartos latifrons, E. cupidus, E. horridus, and Cycas scratchleyana, along with

Lodoicea maldivica and some others. About 10 larger palms will to Gizella Kopsick Palm Arboretum (GKPA), along with some smaller ones.

The City of St. Petersburg will take title to the collection on April 3rd when the Council approves the sole source purchase of the

collection for $125K as a consent agenda item.

Our contractor, Morelli Landscaping, will start digging the following Monday, April 7th. Tom Broome will be our consultant for the project. We estimate 2-4 weeks to move everything. The City has started preliminary work at GKPA—defining the outlines of the new planting beds, killing and stripping of old turf grass, removing old plant materials to make way for the new. Concrete curbing around the new beds will go in after the cycads and palms have been installed.

Most, but not all the cycads will go directly from the Young estate to GKPA or to Sunken Gardens. The rest will go into temporary

storage at the contractor’s facility. I will bring some plot plans with me to the March 29th meeting that will show what’s new and what goes where.

On behalf of all of us here in St. Pete who are involved in this project, I wish to re-iterate our appreciation for the

$5K that CFPACS committed to the project. This certainly helped close the deal with City Council here.

[mike in kurtistown]

Palm and Cycad Society of Australia

2014 PACSOA Show, March 8-9

How about these beauties...

It was also a great opportunity for everyone to catch up and talk palms...here's a few Palmtalkers that were present on the day...unfortunately we couldn't tie down Colin (Palmtreeforpleasure) long enough to get him in our group shot...

L-R Palmtalkers AndyG, Newcal, Mark Wuschke, Daryl, Walter John, NApalm, Comic097, Kennybenjamin

A couple of other Palmtalkers were also in attendance...Neil C came and said hello...NthEastpalms and Steve99....this must be the largest gathering of Aussie Palmtalkers ever...12 if calculations are correct.

A couple more photos from the show.

Aussie way of selling palms and sharing palm tree advice, relaxed, don't worry, be happy.

Down at the "Booth of Truth", once again proving to be an outstanding feature to the show weekend.