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I managed to get a few hapala seeds up, apparently these are red velvet crown shaft that are totally different according to @palmtreesforpleasure who gave me the seeds. But iam pretty happy either way about getting a few hapala going!

Warm and very dry summer so far. We are way down in rainfall for the year, but had some good showers this week. I’ve been hand watering the windmills a few times a week - especially when temps are 95+. The Washingtonias are loving it.

Well it had to come at some point. Our actual minimums tend to be 1-2C lower than forecasted on clear nights so I think a couple of frosts are unavoidable this coming week.

Well the climate forecast was for a dry start to winter here but what we got certainly wasn’t dry. June recorded over 150mm of rain which is just above average. Every day felt like it was raining at some point. Everything is saturated and damp. The temp range for June was 0.5C to 22.2C. Once the rain fully kicked in and all the lakes and streams filled up in mid June the mins didn’t go down as far as 0.5C again. July is looking to be a similar month but today is likely to be a rain free day before a cold front hits tomorrow night and keeps the gauge climbing. I’m hoping for a bit of sun because it’s been rare lately and a bit gloomy. I need some vitamin D.

Hi Jayce. They will laugh off 2C. What they want is water water water especially on sand. They are nutrient hogs too. Young plants on sand seem to have a real need for luxury amounts of magnesium. My one in Perth was addicted to epsom salts and I just loaded it up on NPK and epsom salts plus water. I had it hooked up to the bore so that whenever the pump was on it got a drink. What you do have is clay down deeper which is great. My old place was 17m of sand then limestone so it was hungry and needed constant feeding or it yellowed especially on the older fronds (classic magnesium deficiency). Once it hits your clay its needs will diminish and it will be truly happy.

A lot of work , for sure. Harry

I also have some real special palms at home, that where given to me as seedlings that need to grown before they can go in, plus theres the rare stuff I have in my collection give it another 5 years and then the garden will really be underway. They also want to go around the whole garden and identify all the palms they have just as a revised checklist. As things die or get misidentified. Even yesterday there was two palms with lost tags, I had some sort of an idea but when it comes to a botanical garden it’s a lot more important than just guessing. I was with Colin Wilson in Sydney botanical gardens and even there palms were mislabeled it mostly happens when staff are cleaning up or renovating around the palms the label gets moved and just put back on any palm in the case of found signs accidentally moved during gardening activities. Richard

Mid winter in Melbourne and it’s the Ceroxylon sp. opening new fronds catching my eye. C echinulatum C alpinum C quindiuense C amazonicum C vogelianum

I have a seedling, but it's not in a hurry...

A toasty, ..but not awful ( ..except when breeziness stops, lol ) 103 -108F around town at 2:51PM under passing, but slowly increasing high clouds.. Clouds, courtesy of ..what is left of Douglas.. will continue to increase thru the rest of the afternoon / evening, and stick around thru the day tomorrow, helping to limit what could've been another open oven door kinda 4th, to something a bit more manageable. While it isn't listed in the current forecasts, keep a close eye on the UA WRF HRRR runs tomorrow.. While it may not add up to more than a few sprinkles, locally at least, reasonably consistent thinking from the HRRR runs over the last few days suggest " spit ", ...here or there tonight thru Sunday morning.... can't be totally ruled out as thicker moisture ( still confined to the mid high levels ) passes through town. 2 fer 1 special Sat imagery today lays out why.... What is left of Douglas, sending a decent plume of high and mid level moisture our way.. Low level circulation entertains fish out over the Pacific. At the same time, bit more of an increase in activity / N.W.-ward flow down across Sonora today that might trigger gravity wave - induced disturbances that could provide enough lift in the mid levels to spark another round of widely isolated late night / morning sprinkles / bolt or two as such a disturbance gets caught up in some weak " out of the south " flow and pushes through Cen. AZ. if that even occurs at all.. If some of the more aggressive HRRR runs pan out, might even be a chance for a little more activity tomorrow evening.. We'll see... As decent of a job as the HRRR can do picking up on near -term precip chances, it can also overhype it's thinking/ a given outcome, just like any other WX model ...so, I'll be watching, regardless.. Never pass on even remote opportunities for surprise bolts " Better " chances for storms < mainly dry, even up there, however > up in the mountains, esp. east and south of town thru the weekend. Oven Door opens again down here, starting on Monday, while Dew Points start a slow climb back to where they should be atm thru the week. Hot in T- Town too, but with more clouds ( and a storm or two perhaps??? ) around As the 4C High starts building back over the area, first ...good... signs of an uptick in Monsoonal activity return to the mountains, and S. AZ starting sometime next week, ..Slowly < ...ever so slowly... > inching their way closer to the valley as we head toward next weekend.. ..Per the current thinking ..which of course, is subject to change. As usual, this idea shows up best the closer you get to the border... Today's 14 day and 3 week thoughts..... Fingers crossed......

It appears I have a lot more leaves to grow before my ones look like that beauty in sunny Hawaii!

half inch last night and just a little spray today. The clouds are appreciated, there was no bright sun for the garden to deal with.

Thanks Guys. I will discard it.

Looks very tropical, I don't think it would grow well.

Can't remember how closely related Hura is to Manchaneel but like it, ..green fruits / seeds, and milky sap produces toxic compounds that can burn skin. Could be one reason why you don't see them sold in nurseries there. Folks growing them may have obtained them by passing seed around / collecting off wild trees. Wonder how Sterculia apetala ( Panama Tree ) would do there..

Have always liked these medium sized palms and fast growers in my location. Produce seed regularly, providing offspring for other locations in the garden. The pair of taller palms in the one photo are the mother plants for the smaller plants. Tim

This Thai palm has been in the ground awhile now and the large, attractive,segmented leaves are pliable and relaxed rather than stiff and thick. Well behaved and good scale. Me likes this one. Tim

It spouts here in South Florida every day. I just reached down in my yard and pulled out a dozen in one hand and I don't even have a royal palm on my property.

Anybody having issues uploading pics? I keep getting error 200. I remember way back in the day I had to text photos to myself to reduce the file size but it works with some big files and doesn't work with some smaller files.

Ehhhhhh like 5 of the grocery store seeds made it. None of the cool stuff @WaianaeCrider sent me survived. They're such divas and not easy at all to balance moisture and airflow. I did buy a couple Red Ladies and a Hovey from Wellspring. They're all in 5g now, the Red Ladies are in full sun and the Hovey is still on the carport. The Red Ladies are really taking off but it's probably too hot for them and time to feed them. I'm trying to upload pics of the elephant ear bulbs @N8ALLRIGHT sent me but I'm not getting cooperation. I finally sold the last 2 and I have a volunteer from my soil dump pile. At some point some Pink Dragon alocasias will pop up from there. Anyway, as always, more stuff on the evil sites.

Beautiful Jim! Tim

@STEMI That's awesome. Congrats! What's the plan for winter? I have the first couple of H. latispatha starting to flower here, a little earlier than I expected for some given they all froze to the ground in January. I need to get my H. rostrata rhizome I started in the ground.

I am also worried I planted them too deep. I was rushing planting them because I was on a time crunch. They are planted lower than the traditional soil level that surrounds them. I may have planted the root ball too deep that could cause suffocation. (It’s probably about 1-2 inches too deep) How major are these problems? There doesn’t seem to be a good way to fix it other than pulling them up and re planting.

I remember collecting seed of one of these in the Yucatan peninsula back when I thought that this was a Ceiba or something from Bombacoideae, the pod that looks like a pumpkin didn't explode but it had been eaten and was non viable.

Drove by the filifera in Clayton, NC today. It’s looking really good