All Activity

That’s interesting Vic. As you note, I’ve seen this happen in Trachycarpus sp and heard report of the same from elsewhere. Your T oreophilus is a beauty!

Hey PalmTalk! Earlier this year, I purchased and planted this young Coccothrinax argentata. After a few months growing in, new growth looks stunted. Whats going on? And do I have to replace? Thanks!

It’s often hot and dry in my coastal valley location in the summer but Hedescepe do exceptionally well despite that. Not sure how AI would rate my area but, as long as the palm is in shade or partial sun and watered often it will be happy.

we were spit on this morning with no measurable accumulation but at least clouds to dim the hot sun. I was running errands 16-18 miles away and getting rained on, enough to slow the traffic on I75 due to visibility. I get back at 1pm, no accumulation here, roads were damp. Then over the next 5 hrs we had a light rain on and off, mostly on. By 7pm I check the gage and its over 1 inch. Everything looks wet, no puddling but its all wet. It was a good rain slow enough to have no runoff and consistent enough to get one inch. Just to the north it surely got more if I can believe the weather radar. I cant complain but yesterday I did complain to myself as there was no rain or irrigation for 5 days and the sun was cooking things.

Update for conclusion. Unfortunately we lost them. Local arborist believes it was a latent infection from the nursery, and multiple stressors took them down this year. They died within weeks of each other, so inoculation from one to the other is unlikely. Both the same age, planted from 25 gallon bucket from the same nursery 3 years ago. Palm diseases, especially fungal, are rare in our area because its so dry. The center spear eventually rotted and pulled. Took it a long time to get that far. No other signs of infection the entire decline. My focus is now just on watching the health of the rest of the property. Hopefully its truly nothing localized and all other specimens have strong CODIT if needed.

I was outside weeding when the rain started. We added a little better than half an inch to the total. It came just in time to stop the grass from going dormant in the full sun areas. <sarcasm>We're only about 6 inches short of normal for August with a week left in this month.</sarcasm>

Oh my gosh, this is where the reports are. Jason, I was looking for a report from you, so good to hear damages were minimal. Mike, do you have a measurement of the inches of rain you got during Lala? Those videos look pretty fierce. I really dislike strong winds. 😬 Rick, good to hear you also fared pretty well. Brad52, sorry to see the downed bamboo and the trouble it's caused. I've been very skittish about planting any, despite the obvious beauties I see in other people's gardens. I wasn't present for all the excitement and neighbors report all is well at my place. The power was out for 7 days, but my fridge was mostly empty anyway.

Dang, that looks messy. I was hoping to read something from Hilo Jason, hope all's well at his place. I had a brief text exchange with Floribunda. I was concerned for them because there is a dry creek bed that floods when there are exceptionally heavy rains. Reportedly this was "as bad as we have seen," with damage to fences and "big palms snapped." House is fine. My neighbors have assured me that all is well at my place, no damage to property. The garden may have suffered yet more falling trees, kind of a regular thing at my place. When I see videos of the severity inflicted on the south end of the island I feel very fortunate. Power was out for a week, but that's common enough in my area after any storm. What's good to see is the local communities springing into action to help one another. People are distributing food, water, gas, and other supplies into the hardest hit areas -- no simple task with roads washed out completely in a few places. People are offering to come with their chainsaws and other equipment to help people clean up, sharing extra generators, etc. It's a big island with many small communities and people are very hands-on in these situations. I admire their true community spirit.

I have many in my garden and not all make the race. Happens with all palms. A group of palms all planted the same day you will have ones that out grow the others.

It peeled off of and now exposes bare lava, the only soil is up in the air in that side view.

I remember 1983 in Southern California, rained all Winter and thunder and lightning for a good portion of the Summer, California was tropical that year. Some of the best surfing ever, big North swells all Winter and big South swells all Summer.

Inland missed out on the heavy heavy rain today but between last night and today I added close to 2 inches.

I'm truly sorry you have had this experience... If you can resolve the drainage issue, I am nearly certain the Bacarriophoenix alfredi will perform well for you. I still need to get some pics of mine to show you.

Huge rainstorm today, it rained almost all day and added up to 3.3 inches, with a late night dumping of 0.66 last night, for a 24 hour total of over 4 inches. Thats more than hurricane milton dropped here and the most in one day since. You can't tell now, it all drains off in moments, even in the low spots. The month is actually panning out nicely after a dismal june and half of july. Hopefully el nino helps the drought ease into fall and winter, with no extreme cold or tornadoes🤞.

Ai - telling us what we already know, removing nuance and spicing it up with a bit of extra BS! In a long list of dubious human inventions, this one just about takes the cake. Steal our intellectual property, add an algorithm for commercial profit and still get half the facts wrong. Come on humanity, surely we can do better than this dross.

Got my seeds and have them all set up 😁 Now the waiting game

Thanks Marcus! I hope you are staying cool during these long hot summer days. With no rain at my house in over a month, I am certainly ready for a change in the weather pattern. Here's hoping that this wet winter everyone keeps predicting due to El Nino comes a little earlier rather than later.

Yeah, I can hear your frustration...I've been battling hydrophobic sand in a cold desert for 20 years, lol. My honest advice though is that you pool your resources and use them efficiently. If you plant in close groups, you can water with a single $5 lawn sprinkler, also the plants will protect each other as they grow up, the strong support the weak, etc. I've found that in my climate the best bang for getting more tender plants established is under some sort of canopy. I use all sorts of fast growing, cheap trees, Acacias, Alders, whatever works in your climate and is available locally. Plant them at the same time as the palms, or bananas or whatever and put a shadecloth shelter around the palms till the canopy trees give them a bit of shelter. In five years time you'll have a cool, self mulching forest full of bananas 🍌

Here in my neck of the woods, we would chop it in half and let the corm establish itself! The new suckers will be a lot stronger.

I just was really wanting to just vent it out! my lack of money and resources makes succeeding with these really difficult. I don't have the funds or knowledge to build a drip irrigation system, and while I might get pine straw mulch eventually, it’s frustrating to grow Musa basjoo for five years without any success.

Hey all, this is a native beetle here in Southern California. As the name implies, they love figs and other fruits. But they’re pretty benign little guys, noticeable by their metallic green color and their loud buzzing as they fly. But they have really found something they like on this flowering P. hillibrandii. The bees seem to tolerate them as well. Curious to see how well they act as pollinators..

Nice one! I wasn't aware of this plant until relatively recently, looks super cool. Where did you find it??

That's unfortunate. Were they protected at all? I recall you had Lanonia calciphila and L. magalonii. Any other species? I have several different flavours of L. dasyantha germinating right now from RPS seed. My Chuniophoenix nana only went in the ground this summer, so they have a way to go to reach that size.

Shift your mindset and you'll get better results. You could do any or all of the following: Remove the weeds Mulch heavily Install a watering system Add fertiliser Provide shelter We're all trying to grow plants where they wouldn't grow naturally...I've had more failures than I care to remember...but it's not the plants fault, it's never the plant that sucks.