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It's nice that they are leaving the volunteers in place. Landa is a great park. The robustas will only add to its beauty.

Small but cute: Aechmea recurvata pink form.

The kitty Kat was 19 and had a life of a princess, pets give so much love and ask for nothing in return only our companionship. Good stuff you got a few sales going it helps pay gor the collection and is a great hobby that’s good for the mind. Palmtalk is my only social media I use, theres still the ovals on here, plus now I see a lot of newcomers or old timers coming back for a look. And why does a certain site need my drivers license to join them, it’s not like iam driving around the corner to use that site, to me they are just data collection sites to sell your information and make money from your information. Keep the faith and look after sancho!

Still managing to dodge it. Min of 2.4C last night then fog and drizzle rolled in again pushing temperatures to 4-5C before sunrise. Just checked and we’re actually back down to 3.5C at 8:30am. A bit unusual for here when clear skies were initially forecasted to have these temperatures rises throughout the night. Still haven’t had a single frost settle on grass or leaves which is a pretty good result for this time of year. Looks like tonight is our last immediate risk of frost. If we get light frost and temps stay above freezing I’d be pretty happy, I thought for sure this stretch would give us multiple frosts and a night or 2 below freezing. Day time temps warming slightly too now.

That's a great specimen... Thought there were some chunkers on the west side of the mountains out there too ( L.A. / O.C. area / San Diego.. ) Anyway.. Yea, " What gets these to bloom ..prolifically... each and every year, " is one of those tougher to solve questions, IMO at least.. A " dry rest during the cooler months / it's typical dormant season " is the supposed rule, but i've seen at least a couple locally that will retain some of their foliage and still bloom well, later. Streetlight proximity .supposedly effecting how they flower / don't flower.. " is another assumption, yet my neighbor's ..and the specimen located near the Police Station in Scottsdale will bloom each year, regardless of how much artificial light they recieve.. Size matters... Well...... Here's our monster. Easy to tell it is huge, at least by Phoenix -area standards.. Flowers?, yes yet to see it fully lit up though. Compare it to my neighbors.. Much smaller. Been tracking it since we moved here 10 years ago and ..while it has grown, it's total size has been pretty steady. Others in the neighborhood are about the same size, yet no flowers on them, yet.. Year to year degree of flowering may vary a bit, but, My neighbors flowers every year ..and sets viable seed. Wide and closer - up shots of a " short and fatty " R.P., found in Todo Santos.. Seen numerous examples of others from Baja that are even shorter / look more like tall bushes rather than trees, yet most noted were full of pods. ** Note the street light nearby in the wide shot ** ...So, what gives? ..what is it that sets these off / hold them back?? Others might have their thoughts but, to me, that answer remains elusive, for now anyway.. Regardless, I will add that if adding one is part of your garden goals, < Have noted a couple small ones in yards there in El Centro btw >, start small... DON'T waste money on starting off with anything bigger than say a 15 gal.. 5 or 7gal, ..depending on how challenging it might be to find one at that size out there, is even better. This is one i stuck in the ground last year, after starting from seed a year earlier.. Everything above the blue line = this years' growth since it woke up from a brief winter nap ( late March ) Everything below the blue line = how much it grew between planting last May ..if my memory is correct... and New Years Eve. Stick to it's right is approx 5' ( = the remains of a Tipuana i'd tried in this spot, lol ) Keep in mind, ..i also have Gophers and buried chunks of old concrete pavers / bricks below it to stop them from eating it when i'd planted it.. Only thing i've done so far this year is provide a deep soak when the Marigolds that came up around it look half dead ( roughly once every 6 days right now here ) ..to get it through the driest part of it's first, full summer, ...and dump 2 gals of " Sweet Water " ( 1 tsp of Molasses to 1 gal of water ) on it back in April ..to give it a " wake up " boost. ( Will be doing another dump shortly, since we're supposed to start getting rain soon. ) Don't use chemical ferts in this yard, -at -all. Because i want the bottom of the canopy to be high enough to walk under right from the start, i've also pinched out any / all side branching attempts until the top has reached about 7ft.. As much growth as it put on ..last year.. ..and has so far this year, it will be interesting to see what is added between now and the end of Dec., esp. if the rest of the summer / fall is wet, Let alone where it may be after adding on similar amounts of growth in another 2 or 3 years.

It looks like you dodged a bullet. I think you got what we got in mid June. Single digits for most of the day that might have popped up to around 12C briefly. We had small hail on and off during the cold times. Around 5pm it’s back down to 8C and dropping. We are in a warmish spot for July now. We just made 20C yesterday and not really cold at night. They’re forecasting 22C for town next wed which might mean a 23 or even more for my place. That will feel like spring is here. The afternoons are getting a tiny bit longer now as we leave winter solstice behind. Soon I’ll be able to do a little after work.

Not much to look at but I think this is the first movement since planting out last year+. Got it as a two leafer from Jeff @ Aloes and it was unmarked. I don’t honestly know what it is but I’ve done a little research and my best guess is Arewood. New leaf petiole is way larger than the last so that kinda indicates it has some “large” genes in the mix. Who knows -dale

Oh man. I'm really sorry to hear that brother. Sancho has hypothyroidism now so that's more meds he's on. He's catching up to me fast. I'm really sorry again. I still occasionally post in my thread on here but mostly on the evil sites where the rest of the palmtalkers went to. Growing lots of alocasias now and some foo foo houseplant crap since I'm gonna be supplying a local plant boutique. Still got my banana plantation. This one is actually about ehhh i dunno, 75 miles or so as opposed to the closer one. The closer one it's usually pygmy dates, the occasional chamerops, and about 3 billion sun scorched majesties in those stupid pots with no drain holes and they're flooded if it rains and bone dry if it doesn't. I've wanted one forever and this puts me years ahead of growing from a seedling or even a one gallon. I've got a corner spot picked out. Hope it likes the heat. Oh and it came with one of those flimsy worthless decorative pots so I guess i get another free bathroom trashcan since that's all they're good for. At least this one has drainage.

They are cool tolerant so that’s a good place to start with!

I don’t mind it Tim! 👍🏻 Hope all is good over there and you are keeping up with the gardens between vacations!! 🤣🤣 -dale

Yeah, I was under the impression it was just a luck of the draw if they would multiply. No rhyme or reason. That being said, I did actually think that this example was two separate trees planted as a double cuz they were essentially equal size. Good to know. Thanks for the clarification. Here’s mine. Slow going and living the single life. -dale

Dale, I might be wrong but it sounds like you are thinking that those are two separate palms. C. decipiens often grow naturally as doubles and sometimes triples. That’s actually more common than solitary growth.

Nice. I hope it does well for you!

@Merlyn A lot of work ahead, but you're a decathlete Looking forward to seeing it take shape.

Ceroxylon Palm (Ceroxylon Sasaimae) - Botanical MonographHow to grow Ceroxylon Palm (Ceroxylon Sasaimae): light, water, soil, cold hardiness and germination — a clear, sourced care guide from PalmsHub.

My two R hildebrandtii suffered for years from no overstory, but now the bamboo and palms have come to the rescue. Plus, one guy whose name I always forget has apparently a red leaf that I didn’t recall….and T parviflora (supposedly)

My poorly sited, rarely vibrant C ophiopellis and geckos warming.

California should be a no brainer for big boxes to expand their palmy selections. Even here in Arizona, orange and blue big boxes occasionally bring in bottles,spindles,coconuts, Chinese fountain palms and foxtails... aztropic Mesa, Arizona

Bambusa lako shoot on the right center, emerging from the vines - two lighting versions, I prefer the warmer.

Daily storms. Two palms next to each other. No herbicides lately. Sounds like a probable lighting strike; especially in Florida - lightning capital of the world.🌩️⚡⛈️ aztropic Mesa, Arizona

Coincidentally, my own one just arrived this morning, seed and all, after a week in transit! Looks OK despite that. It will spend a lot of time potted before I attempt to plant it out. The first one I got was chewed in half by the damn squirrels! They didn't damage any of my other palms; guess they have good taste?

Along the front porch was (and still is) a mess. But it's somewhat less messy than this: I yanked the dead clumps of Cat palm and Elegans here and distributed some of the taller green/purple gingers. The two Peace Lily clumps are very slowly growing back. The dead stumps of Philodendron "Xanadu" seem to be regrowing too. Unfortunately the weeds are growing back faster...again. I desperately need to mulch this area and the other side of the walkway. Maybe by the end of the year this will grow out and not look so bad: Speaking of looking bad and weeds...this agave bed was completely clean of weeds on 5/12. It took a full day of hand weeding to go from this: To this: And the other rear agave bed took a whole day to go from this: To this: Most likely this agave bed will get demolished, as the freeze killed about 2/3 of the plants in this bed. I'm probably going to consolidate the agaves into the left arc and plant palms and cycads in front of the Bismarck.

There’s probably nothing you can do. Sudden collapse is usually fatal. I had a Veitchia Joannis do something like that. One day it looked beautiful and the next day I went outside the crown was on the ground. It was rotten inside but you never would have known.

Just to the left of the above photos I redid the main entrance walkway. On one side I decided that I really disliked the Bambusa Multiplex "Rosa." It was infested with aphids and sooty mold, and attracting large numbers of aphid wasps (ok) and yellowjackets (not nice!). It was just kind of "meh" looking and had to go. The clumps of lilies just below it became the new row on either side of the walkway. They were from my great-grandmother's place in Texas, planted sometime in the 50s. I've tentatively ID'd them as Crinum Lily "Regale," but will have to wait until they bloom again to be sure. From further back at the entryway the two clumps of Orange Bird of Paradise went to a more shady area (they don't seem to want full sun here), and I split up the 3 big lily clusters in a row on each side. On the left I moved a Zamia Nesophila from the sun (next to the pot) over to the other side of the Encephalartos Whitelockii where it's in AM sun/PM shade. It turned back green almost immediately. The purple cannas to the left of the pot went out into the front yard island, replaced with some Bordelon bananas. The pot is my last Attalea Brejinhoensis from Neil in Cocoa Beach. The bottom right corner Licuala Grandis might be d-e-d, but I'm waiting for a while longer to see if it'll push a new spear. And this is the "after" shot, with a row of lilies along the path. Just behind from L to R is a Ptychosperma Salomonense double, a Philodendron "Evansii," Bordelon bananas behind them, Attalea Brejinhoensis, d-e-d stump of the Beccariophoenix Fenestralis, another Salomonense double, a concrete dragon's head, and pre-existing Dioon Tomasellii. You can see the massive dead Jesse Durko culms in the right background.

Over the past month I've made a LOT of changes. The majority of the plants that died are actually agaves and cacti...strange. In the front yard most of the palms and cycads are growing back. The only ones that died were generally small seedlings or known not-hardy palms like Bottles and Spindles. A couple of them (like a few Gaussia Princeps and Satakentia) I should have left in place and waited to see if they'd actually recover from spear pull. In the front bed on the house side of the driveway I had about 73% burn and lost 28 out of 175 plantings or 16%. Deaths were: Dypsis Basilonga x2, Dypsis Cabadae, Ravenea Hildebrandtii x2, Pytchosperma Elegans, Archonto Cunninghamiana triple, Cham. Elegans 3 clumps, Cham. Cataractarum 1 clump, Arenga Hookeriana, a 6-7' trunk Spindle, a Lanonia Dasyantha, Arch. Alexandrae, a small Alfredii, Reinhardtia Latisecta, Burretiokentia Vieillardii, Kerriodoxa Elegans, Actinokentia Divaricata, a small Spindle, Satakentia Liukiuensis, Cyphophoenix Nucele x2, Chamberyonia Watermelon and 2 Hookeri, Arch. Maxima, Arch. Cunningham double, B. Fenestralis, agave Blue Flame, and agave Blue Glow "Mediopicta Aurea." Along the driveway I decided that I'd had enough of hassling with the "Jesse Durko" bamboo. It routinely defoliated and at 22.5F lost 100% of the culms...and started growing back again as a big shrubbery. Instead of fighting with pruning it back from the driveway for the next year I took 3 days and dug it out. I cut down the dead culms first, leaving this: And then a 9" carbide reciprocating saw took a day to slice and dice and clean up the rest: And I replaced it with a division of Gigantochloa Luteostriata #4776 and a couple of Philodendron "Little Hope" transplanted from the backyard. The new bamboo sits about where the old Archontophoenix were planted. Hopefully it'll be far enough from the driveway to not be a daily annoyance! You can see the Ficus Auriculata quickly growing back on the left...and a bunch of weeds starting to take over again...sigh...