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Not entirely true your conclusion. Length of petioles may depend also on genetics. For example the cultivar vulcano has short petioles regardless the water it receives. This here is a specimen in my garden I callit wannabe vulcano. Seed originates from vulcano, but the offspring has longer petioles than in an ideal vulcano and therefore crown spreads more horizontally than remaining upright. Otherwise it is a very appealing dwarf specimen, which receives perhaps the least water quantity here, when it does not rain.

Is it plumose? I was under the impression they weren’t so if I’m wrong with that assessment then disregard.

Mine has a plumose effect , unlike an Archontophoenix on a fixed plane . It is not as plumose as a Queen but , as Palmpedia describes ,” subtle plumose leaf. “The big difference , other than shear size , is that the fronds don’t droop at all , they stay more upright and only drop below 90 degrees to the trunk before they fall. I was told by Jungle Music that it would not survive at my house . I am 20 miles from the ocean. I have never had frost here and summer temps are about 10 degrees warmer than the coast. Harry This is Roystonia Oleracae . You can see the fronds are held more upright and the “ subtle plumose “ leaf as described. Mine isn’t near as impressive as a Regia would be , but takes up far less room and the fronds won’t do near the damage when they fall. Harry

These are very nice, trouble free palms. I may be wrong, but it seems like the more water they get the longer the petioles will be, which is a nice look. And for whatever reason, some have very white leaf undersides, some don’t.

If it’s another Roystonea I’d say Borinquena as it has similar cold hardiness to Roystonea but is a smaller palm. Those who have both like @DoomsDave say noticeably smaller with a trunk that stays brown vs gray. I have 3 Regia in my yard. Here’s 2 that are within a relatively similar age to that palm (maybe within a year or two)with the main difference being the bases on mine are bigger. Not quite as stretched out but you can see they are to an extent due to being young and growing fast.

It is interesting how we can create or alter a given climate in subtle ways . I have noticed a difference in our garden over the last 25 years. We bought our home new and there was nothing to help the younger or understory palms along. I lost quite a few palms that came from our old house because they didn’t have a canopy . I’m sure they would be fine now . That and climate change has allowed me to grow borderline species. We started , 29 years ago , in 9b . Now we are a solid 10a with my little slice of the hill about 10b ! We can’t fight Mother Nature but we can work with her to bend the rules a bit. Harry This side of the house is West and was just hot sun every afternoon during most months. Now it is just perfect for most young palms . Once they get overhead they will start getting more sun . The wee ones won’t burn here!

The reason it’s stretched out is because the owner id giving it lots of water (and fertilizer) and it’s growing fast.

It’s R.Regia it’s just young. It has plumose leaves whereas Oleracea leaves are on a fixed plane like Archontophoenix. Oleracea does not do well at all where it gets below 35 on average in winter out west. Closer to the coast in SoCal (OC for example) they do better.

Did your Rhopalostylis make it @Eric in Orlando

We’ve made good use of these palms in our landscape here in the States. I started with good ole Queens(Syagrus Romanzoffiana) but came to like the Archie’s better. Unfortunately , I like the Syagrus so I’m stuck with the mess they create. The Archontophoenix aren’t near as messy . My Alexandrae has only flowered once in 25 years . My Cunninghamiana produce viable seed about every other year. I would much rather deal with the little red fruit than the mess from the Queen Palms every year . For a care free , self cleaning common palm , the Bungalow is hard to beat. It’s very nice to see them in habitat. Harry

Bodes well that G orbignyana might be a bit hardier. I was hoping that. I have 2 surviving G weberbaueri (G undata subsp undata) from a batch about 2 years ago that keep coming back from the dead each winter. They are both around the size of a fingernail 🤣. Not sure they have much hope here long term but I’m kind of attached to the poor little things after the effort they’ve given to stay alive.

I had not seen the original post but when I was down at Kens farm in 2013(?) he had at least a dozen of them with clear trunks taller than I. They were spaced 8' or so, what a sight! They were all producing inflorescences about to pop. The purple color on his were just astounding, notably more color than mine. That day I decided I wanted one but I was not ready to take care of it being out of town at that time. I knew they were not very cold hardy so I put them either under canopy or near the house to try to take advantage of the house generated heat. I asked Ken lots of questions and used that information to site mine 6 years later when I though I had enough canopy/warm spots. I would not plant one out in the open in my yard. The lowest temp they have seen is 31-32F and the frost was at 34 so I knew it was frost burn that crisped those leaves. The frost burn was selective to a couple leaves open to the sky, just one leaf per palm was burnt. These carry a lot of leaves for me, I have counted up to 16 green leaves on a palm and as few as 10. My third little one is 10' from the house and 10' from the spa which can always be turned on if I think it will get too cold. I waited till my other palms grew tall so I would have some of that heat trapping protection near the house. The one that is not pictured is under a big royal. Once a full leaf, crownshaft and all fell on that palm and landed in the crown right near the spear. The palm caught the heavy royal leaf+crownshaft by the petiole near the crownshaft and held it up off the ground. At first I thought it was going to be damaged, but it never showed any, and kept growing. Besides keeping it warm I have kept it wet. It is ~8 feet from a pop up sprinkler and 10' from a hose bib. I never let these go dry.

They’re everywhere here on the south coast of WA which suits them. A few alexandrae too. Howea also look beautiful down here. A nice grove of bangalows are sweet.

I only started to really notice my garden ten years into it growing, that’s the big picture moment you see your garden forming. Now close to 30 years old my garden you really start to see it with time, and then the fun begins filling up all that understory it’s a whole new garden growing again in a garden, it’s a fantastic feeling watching it grow. The only thing is the older we get the better our palms get!

Well this weekend has been trialsome. -1.2C yesterday morning complete with blown away frost cloth, then 75kmh westerly winds took down a tree onto my shadehouse destroying my Dypsis onilahensis collection. 😔 I will rebuild though. Black shadecloth goes in. One less tree to bother me again.

Pioneer palms Cunninghamiana palms, the first palms I planted on my property. There’s plenty of them to see around this side of Australia. They look there best when group plantings are done I reckon. A single specimen is a sight to see, but a grove is even better. Winter photography is different than summer photography, in winter you capture more detail of the season, summer is different but the season details you capture in winter set the scene better.

All the best mate. A forecast like that would have me leaving for at least the sub tropics. 0C at 10pm!!! Wow. I’ve never experienced that before. You’ve done your best. Just don’t do what I did the other day and not check to see if your frost cloth is still attached and working. You could get an outdoors gas heater set up near your most tropical palms. That works. I’ve done it. If you do do it make sure the gas tank gets some of the heat from the heater because it will freeze up solid and stop the gas supply to the heater. I’ve learnt from experience.

Wow, that must have been cold to knock out baronii and ambositrae. Years back I had things freeze under canopy when the canopy wasn’t as thick and the plants were more sparse. My Hedyscepe did burn which was surprising. My baronii wasn’t touched. My Pritchardia hillebrandii and maideniana looked awful but grew back. Since things have grown I’ve not had such damage again. I do use lots of hardy gingers in the garden to be the sacrificial plant when things get bad. They grow back so quick. If they look ugly in spring cut them to the ground, chuck good soil or rotted chicken manure on them and water well and a few months later they’re all perfect.

Gorgeous photos. I’m looking forward to seeing scenes like that very soon. Archontophoenix cunninghamiana is the building block, canopy plant of much of my landscape. It’s common, but a well grown one is beautiful. A landscape full of healthy ones is stunning.

Microclimate and time is correct. It takes time to create a microclimate, as well as grow the garden. I’ve been here 12 years and I feel like I’m just starting. However 12 years ago, the place was so open that I could see the neighbours and when it was cold everything was in the firing line. Not now. The microclimate is growing.

A very scary forecast for tonight onwards first appeared at the end of last week, and kept getting worse. It hit a three nights run of -3C, -4C, -3C at its worst. If accurate was/are facing worst in about 10 years. This is the offical forecast comming from our equivalent of the B.O.M so had to take it seriously. However, puzzlingly, the main models EC/GFS etc all along have not/are not showing anything too crazy. The irony is that the forecast temperaures are pretty close to what has already been recorded at the met site eailer this month and my garden coped just fine and there are bannnas around town that look barely affected. The concern that is that the forecasts were only for -1C when that occured, it seems like the forecast tries to predict what urban residents will see, what gets recorded in a low lying open field out of town is much colder. Have they suddently decided to start forecasting for what the met site will record as the low? Spooked, I've done some serious erection of temporary artificial canopy, took most of the afternoon. The sky cleared before dusk and it is calm but the temp has not absolutely crashed, down to 3.2 at 10pm, only dropping slowly. I've seen it hit 0 by 10pm before. If this is going to be coldest night in ~10 years it's not stating as I would expect. Can't do anything more than have done can only watch it play out from here.

Those melt in summer here and my garden has never seen 30c!

I thought the same thing. I wish I had seen the original post. On a side note to anyone in the Orlando area - Lukas Nursery in Oviedo had a couple of these in huge containers when we were there in the spring. They had just arrived and had several feet of trunk. To say I was surprised is an understatement. They are generally not cold hardy enough for the area. The timing was bizarre too since we just had the worst cold snap in years. We haven’t been there since but I would assume that they still have them.

A vine that was scrambling along the ground.

Beautiful! What's this plant...I can't place it??