All Activity

I’m sorry I probably didn’t word it right. I don’t doubt that the palm you posted in Pauleen Sullivans garden is correctly labeled and really is Archontophoenix purpurea. What I meant was the palm I posted up can’t be Archontophoenix purpurea because it’s 900km south of the Mt Lewis area. The purple palm I posted has no white under the leaflets, or whiskers under the mid rib. All Archontophoenix purpurea are white underneath and have those whiskers. Seed size is vastly different between the two as well as first leaf size of seedlings. Archontophoenix purpurea has large bifid leaves for ages. These ones are small from the beginning.

No, my big queen is not flowering yet. Hoping she does next year.

Any updates on the seedlings? I am working with another PT member who has a dozen (or more) mature Jubaea x butia of Patric's that are producing fertile seeds. Saw low germination numbers the first round, have about 450 seed collected and cleaned about to go into germination beds with this second round. Small seed is standard Butia odorata seed.

Was the the queen used to make your mule palms ?

Also what's your watering schedule?

Yes you will see Normanbya a bit, more up north than in my subtropical climate. Some resorts have them, whoever the landscaper was some years ago doing contracts must have known there stuff and was getting palms from up north near cairns. In my area you have to know what you’re looking at but they are around.

I’m pretty sure that the Sullivans had this palm labeled correctly . Only one is Archontophoenix and the fronds and crown shaft are not visible in the photo . The fronds that are visible are not Archontophoenix but something else. The collection was started sometime in the 1950’s Pauline and her husband have both passed on but the son and , now grandson , are maintaining the properties that have the collections . The rotted fruit could be from something else , there are a lot of palms there and I’m not sure the Archie is fruiting , it is very old and super tall. It isn’t as tall as the Ceroxilyn but close! Unfortunately I couldn’t get a pic of the fronds or the Purple Crown , the trunk seems to disappear into the sky! Small city lot with lots of mature palms. I have Purple crown Archontophoenix juveniles from my friends palm and yes they have silver undersides like Maxima and Alexandrae . Harry

So you were weaned on fosters. Just look at some of the beer in Belgium, unobtainable in Australia. One of the reasons is our alcohol content law is way below what the average Belgium beer is. But not many drink fosters in Australia.

Start tracking it down and have a good look, they are a bit cool tender. You need that right microclimate for them and good soil and moisture but once established they are a beautiful palm. Here’s a nice example of a Normanbya, one in a subtropical climate near the coast not far from me.

As you are aware of this is the colouration of the southern population of bangalows. Iam leaning on purperea that was my first thought. And as discussed with you iam sure if it was a different species they would be onto it. Keep looking you just never know what you will find. Trucking around the country side, be calling you the Leyland brothers next or is that Malcom Douglas.

Here’s big Jubutea — yowza no point in the Shoe. It’s about 25-30 feet overall with about 7-8 feet of trunk.

Really need to know trunk size, soil type, field dug/regenerated and were they hurricane cut.

Very interesting and beautiful palms, thanks for sharing. Mt Dalrymple is close to Eungella which is known as the northernmost population of A. cunninghamiana. Bangalows also would be more likely to have this coloration than alexandrae, I think. I wonder if they might be hybrids. I would love to see more in depth study of the genus, clearly there is a lot of variability within especially A. cunninghamiana.

Top one is Aechmea caudata.

Help! Our sabal palms were planted a month ago. Been watering. Looked at soil and it’s wet so stopped watering. 2 trees look like they are dying. One has two dropped leaves that are green. The other one has dropped leaves and browning. Center is also browing. I went and tried to pull center and it will not move. I did pour 1/4 cup of hydrogen proxcide down center. I am so worried.

As much as I love a good palm, I won't pay the over $300 ask for a 2G palm pot.

This can’t be Archontophoenix purpurea, what was called Archontophoenix sp Mt Lewis. Archontophoenix purpurea is white under the leaves with those little whiskers under the middle vein. These palms have neither. This area is around 900km (540 miles) further south than Mt Lewis. It’s Mt Dalrymple at about 1000m altitude. Archontophoenix purpurea has large fruit. These guys have small fruit like alexandrae. Lots of rotten seed on the ground. It’s a bit early for ripe fruit on these. Lots of pink flowers and immature fruit.

Highly doubt an accumulation of May /June / Chafer beetles would cause what your seeing.. If so, they would cause similar issues ...practically everywhere... they occur ..And that is A LOT of places, lol.. Having lived in both Ohio and Kansas, < ...especially... ..where accumulations of these little dudes are so thick when they emerge, you can sit out by a streetlight and watch Frogs / Toads try to put a dent in the ......100's.... of them that land ...in just that particular spot.. ..on any given night between late May and mid - August.. Never once heard of them causing roof / gutter - related issues. While in KS, in the morning after a big night, i could easily fill a 3gal bucket w/ the dead bodies of all that the beetle eaters couldn't get to, that had been attracted to the back patio at the time. From the picture looking into the gutter, it looks like water may be sitting in that area??. If so, and there was some sort of pre- installation manufacturing issue w/ the material in that particular spot, that could have caused what you're seeing. As far away as the angle is, tough to tell if the black stuff is just organic material that had stuck to the underside of the gutter after a spill over event, or is proof that water has indeed rusted thru the spot overed in it. Regardless, Totally agree that ...Since the gutter way installed just a few months ago, it shouldn't be having such issues this soon. Time for a refund, or new, doesn't - cost -you- anything, replacement.

You can grow “10A” palms here but they really need to be fast growers to have a chance long term because of all the freezes/frosts and hurricanes. They need to grow fast, recover and be ready for the next calamity. C.macrocarpa might be a little too slow for them climate here unfortunately…

Those are fine examples! Didn’t folks used to refer to this palm as Mt. Lewis or something? The Sullivans here have a beauty , unfortunately too tall to see the crownshaft. Harry This has been there a super long time. I believe the palm on the left is the Archontophoenix. The garden is very old. Not sure what the large one on the right is. These were taken a while ago when I was gathering seeds.

A little warm ( 95 -102F ) ..and humid (57 -61deg Dew Point ) out there atm ( 2:33PM ), thanks in large part to clouds overhead ..but not a bad way to end the week. Unfortunately, come next week, we're gonna pay for this weeks' break in the heat.. Yepp, Like it or not, looks like we're going to burn thru another round of 110 /110+'s by Monday ..Per the current forecast, ..and they may hang around thru next weekend. As you can see, rain chances head back down, ...for the valley at least... at the same time as well. That said, the forecast beyond Wednesday or Thursday isn't totally set in stone at this moment, so, We could see rain chances return / heat get knocked down again by the weekend, if some of the less ridge-y forecasts pan out ..compared to those that want to keep the 4c ridge strong and over AZ a bit longer. Dash of salt for the day, as we look into the end of the month /..and Summer.. and the first 11 days of Meteorological Autumn / September. Discussion: The way things have been going with the extended forecasts = NO guarantees ...Which equals: We shall see.. With that said, <* ....and still not a guarantee *> ..keep an eye on the forecasts.. While it will get hot again next week, ..for a few days at least... things could start to get a lil' more interesting around here the closer we get to the final days of the month / start of September. Even beyond next week, while we might have a few more 109 /109F+ days left in the tank, we are closer to the end than the beginning of " Nuke season ".. Cross 'emm fingers.

My macrocarpa got damaged and mostly defoliated by frost during the big freeze. I don’t think it went much below 30F during all that but my back yard is very sheltered from north winds. So you’d think that is great, right? But, wind sheltering leads to frost. So I had tons of frost and frozen dew damage. None of my palms died but lots of frond damage and slow recovery for palms like C. macrocarpa, Cocos and others. Fast palms like what is sold at your big box store like Wodyetia, C. lutescens etc do well and keep getting sold because they do better here after damage from cold or hurricanes because they grow back fast if they aren’t dead

Not to mention hurricane force winds ! Last year we had too many Santa Ana events. It seemed like every week they were howling . I live on a south facing hill and I’ve had 90mph winds before up here. Keeping the gardens safe is a chore. Every gust I hear at night gives me pause. The palms get shredded sometimes if not burned to a crisp. Harry

Hope all goes well out on the Big Island.

5 percent humidity omg, that would be like living in an oven in those temperatures. No wonder they don’t live, the only relief from that sort of heat is sitting in the river!