What is naturalized

[PalmGuyWC]

When I first moved to Walnut Creek there were 3 huge Oaks growing on the property. On April 1st, (April Fools Day) the first year on the property, one of the trees came crashing down. My garden was undeveloped then and I couldn't have pointed the tree to have fallen in a better direction. It fell into the open part of the property, and caused no damage, but if it had fallen in a different direction, it could have wiped out half of my house.

It was discovered that an old irrigation pipe has sprung a leak under the tree and the tree was rotten on the inside. The bulk of the tree was removed, but the trunk and a few sawed off limbs were left. The absence of this tree changed my garden design as the native Oaks can't be watered in the warmer months as they will get Oak Root fungus and die.

I grew ornimental goards on the skeleton of the tree for several years, and planted a vegitable garden in an area that was once shaded by the tree. Soon the vegitable garden was moved to another spot and the old spot just sat there waiting for some palms to be planted.

The point of this story is....Soon about a dozen CIDP's germinated and started to grow very fast in the nice rich soil. There were no female CIDP's growing near me, so I figgured birds had dropped the seeds from the old Oak tree and there is no telling how long those seeds had been there waiting for proper conditions to germinate.

My partner kept bugging me to eliminate the CIDP's before they got out of hand. Well, I procrastinated for about 3 years, and soon there was a jungle of CIDP's, as they grew incredably fast. I could have saved myself a lot of work if I had removed them when they were seedlings.

Some years later Paul Drummond was visiting me, and as a house gift, he gave me a 25 gal CIDP, and it was planted in the very spot where the Oak had once been. That CIDP is now one of the largest palms in my garden and must have about 30 feet of clean trunk. As the palm has grown up, it provides just the right of mid day shade to a Rhapidophyllum growing near it. There are also many other palms growing where I never could have planted them had the Oak remained. Sometimes our glass is half full and we don't know it.

Dick

[Carlo Morici]

At the Palmetum de Santa Cruz, there are about 320 palm species in the collection. 109 are represented by flowering adults in the ground, and about 65 produce viable seeds. Most of them sprout freely and grow effortlessly in  irrigated patches by the mother palms : Pseudophoenix, Bismarckia, Latania, Veitchia, Wodyetia, Copernicia, to name a few.

But really few of them are able to survive without irrigation and fewer can "travel" away from the mother plants.

The real weed that is freely dispersed and needs heavy control is Washingtonia robusta, followed by Phoenix canariensis and Sabal palmetto. Livistona decora does well too. Latania loddigesii strongly regenerates around the old specimens, but lacks a dispersor, so it does not spread.

So far, we only see Washingtonia robusta and Phoenix hybrids spreading in wild environments and none of them is taking over the island.

Carlo, Tenerife

[Brian Bruning]

I'm in Northern California.  For us W. robusta, Phoenix canariensis, Brahea edulis are naturalizing.  I see some groves of W. filifera near Dos Palos in a seasonally wet wash and as well on the road from Tehachapi to the Mohave Desert.  SoCal has Phoenix canariensis and Washingtonia robusta all over the place esp. in ravines.  

Finally those in Palm Springs are planting Brahea armata all over the place and a few Bizzies too.  I would really expect that B. armata and Nannerrhops will be naturalizing there in time.  I've camped just five miles south of Mexicali MX at the hot springs in Guadalupe Valley.  There Brahea armata and W. filifera are native and thriving and one P. dactylifera that arrived I'm sure from a tourist dropping a seed in a suitable spot.  Along the Yaqui River in Sonora MX there are P. dactyliferas for days.  Same as the oasises all along Baja California.  

Coconuts are supposedly present in Stoney Pt. aka Punta Peñasco Sonora MX and I've seen them from Bahia Kino and Guaymas south in spades.