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Encephalartos eugene-maraisii female cone emerging. The cone has a guest, protecting it from any undesirable bugs.

This particular one is madagascariensis, although I have the same issue with fenestralis. Funny, a couple hours after I posted this, I got a call from Jeff Markus of Floribunda palms regarding an order I'd placed. So, I asked him about it & he told me that he had the same issue for the first few years with his as well, but to be patient and they'll grow out of it. I'll take Dr. Jeff's word for it. In the meantime, we'll keep helping them along. We are getting some near mature seeds developing, so that's good. I'll take an updated picture of the tree tonight.

In clay soils 10 minutes is for grass and shallow rooted plants, not 36" box trees. This is nearly useless. drippers for 90-120 minutes every other day, never had any success with popups. It might get better if you amend the soil aggressively . I remember the landscaping guys set my auto irrigation to 10 mins and when I started by first garden there, I was having a bad time with my palms in arizona heat. The grass and flower popups were always run for 10-15 minutes but they were on a different station than trees. Trees used 4-5 hrs with a suitable arrangement of drippers. Popups for 10 mins would have killed all my trees in the heat and a few did die. Pop up heads are fine for palms in high drainage sandy soil like in florida for 30 minutes, but they are inadequate, almost useless for palms in clay. Depth of penetration is NOT determined by flow rate, its dominated by time to move vertically through the soil as slow watering continues the penetration is slow in clay regardless of flowrate. Some clay might need less time than others and I have assumed you did not have the impenetratable clay I had in AZ fromlooking at the coarse sand, and stones etc. Sloped ground is an additional complication that couples with low drainage rates to keep the depth dry. And ideally you run irrigation in the dark so post irrigation evaporation is low. Just to give you an idea I ran my irrigation in arizona clay for 5 hrs on larger palms. You waste lots of water running pop ups for a longer time on sloped ground, it mostly just runs off. Drippers are key for watering deeply and not jacking up your water bill with long irrigation schedules. Youve put too much money in to cut the corners, it makes no sense. Popups are great for grass and small plants, just about useless for deeper rooted trees in clay. You can run drippers off a hose with the right attachments(hose irrigation tubes and drippers. I would use 4-6 2 gallon/hr drippers arranged around the tree.

It looks a lot less impressive now. Its crazy that the grass seed butted up that close. Anyway this native Minor underneath a cedar tree and buried in all kinds of overgrowth is throwing some FAT straps. This is like a Where's Waldo and i basically had to do the reverse of the Jim Carrey rhino scene from Ace Ventura to just get this photo and something in there is itchy..

The “heatwave” is helping her with momentum.

There are sprinklers directly in front of it that turn on every day around 6 am for about 20 minutes. Should I start doing twice a day for 10 minutes so it absorbs better and prevents run off?

Ceiba cuts / wounds can heal like this as well.. If you look over " bonsai - ed specimens of Pseudobombax, ..almost always at least.. wounds created by constant pruning seem to seal over w/out issue, giving many of those the rounded, " Turtle Shell " look. Can't speak for Quercus ( Oaks ) but cuts and sunscald wounds the Ficus nitida / microcarpa in the yard experiences seem to heal over pretty well / at a decent pace, though it does take time ( a few years for bigger openings ).. Dry air here most of the year probably helps any exposed " heartwood " on it avoid rotting issues while the outer Cambium layer works it's way to close the gap.

If anyone was wondering, the one I threw in the woods in Mississippi last fall still has not sprouted.

More lost time stuff. Crape myrtles are blooming and I'm honestly a little disappointed that my Colocasia Redemption doesn't match. Every woman I've ever dated is like a croton. When all is right, they're happy. One thing goes wrong and they go psycho. Decapitated Golden Crocodile.. I thought i took pics of my alocasia Dark Star and Yellow Dragon. I guess not. Here's a regal shield.

TN tropics, Im happy to say thanks to the quick actions Dr Meghan G, who used H202 and copper in the spear, the sabal palmetto Bridgeport is recovering Im concerned about her long term future though, unless we can get heat Lights & a thermo cube approved by the university this winter to give it heat since the spear area has grown faraway from the protecting heat of the building and its THERMAL MASS maybe we can go solar with this and a battery?? we will do some research, best DrZnaturally

90 minute drip every other day so it drains. AI is correct except it doesn't know how long it was in the 36" box. The leaves it had when purchased looked like it was somewhat water starved which is common when they are trying to save money. A 36" box means you need to water deeply, greater than 3' so yes 90 mins or even 120mins every other day and cover the surface around the roots larger than the box size with some kind of top mulch that prevents evaporation. Not amending soil is a big mistake in most cases, and makes watering the root zone consistently more difficult. Nothing on your gardener but doesn't sound like tht person has a green thumb to me so you will have to to that part. Small stones on top and that coarse sand is not a good scenario for a new palm in the ground. The organic garden soil mixed intot he soil column adds moisture retention and cation exchange that holds on to nutrients for later release. Pebbles and sand have zero cation exchange, clay has cation exchange but your soil looks like a lot of sand and pebbles on top. Pebbles por s,mall stone cause rapid evaporative losses from root soil on the surface. Best to get about 3" of top mulch to retain the moisture better against evaporation and drainage of soil material material that doesn't hold water. The short watering duration must have also been a big factor as it wont be wetting the soil down there at 3'. I dont have a gardener and am retired, I do it myself with advice I have obtained over the years and from growing in the desert and in florida. In the desert a big wet spot notably larger than the root area was visible after watering. The clay in my yard in AZ was fine in particle size and held water well, it would pool up a little after a watering. You might also need a temporary 3" berm around your 36" box roots to force the water on your roots until they are developed(2yrs). If you have the right clay the berm could be made of clay but if water passes the berm use a plastic 4" deep edging from a big box store and bury 3" of its height. This is a very common technique on sloped clay ground to prevent runoff. Fill the contained berm area with water, then watch it drain and time it. It should take an hour for the water to drain. Roots will not grow into dry soil on the surface or in the depth. Heavy amendment is indicated for your soil. At least 1-2 32 quart bag of rich chunky(bits of wood, not too fine) garden soil, NOT "topsoil" which is garbage at big box stores. Understand all these actions would not be necessary if the soil was ammended and the watering was at 6-8 gph rate for a couple hours. But the palm has been in the ground and water deprived. A container palm has no runoff, put the hose on the roots and the container prevents sideways runoff. Once in the ground, you have to make sure the soil around the palm is getting wet, that is automatically done in a container. I hope it works out for you. One last thought, I have used the algorithms that AI uses for 25 years. Some things AI is good for but at this time I wouldn't use it to determine what the palm ID is, let alone its treatment when sick. Image detail takes lots of data and it may require data from that species which is not going to happen for at least a decade. The AI is only as good as the data at the upper bound, it cannot be better than the information content in the data. FOr example if you have two points where a road is located a few miles apart, you cannot know if the road is curved, its impossible. AI often involves 345 or even 10 dimensions(impact variables) so you have an ockhams razor problem of exponentially increasing data requirements as the variables grow larger. As for not enough root mass: its always true that palms are planted with not enough root mass so they generally cut off a few older leaves before they sell/plant it. In your case that appeared to have already been done before planting as your palm had just a 5 leaves at 36" box size. The recent spear looks good! Keep it watered good every other day for a month and watch it grow. It will always need water every 3 days if the temps are ~95-100F and dry outside.

The bismarck palm is a very fast grower and a good trouble free choice for beginners. This one has 6 new spears at the ready, and will replace the entire existing crown over the next 2 months. aztropic Mesa, Arizona

Might even be safe from the weevil out there...

It came in the 36 inch box he planted it in the soil it already had, he did not amend it. I’ll tell him to amend it with garden soil. He did that with the smaller 15 gallon palms and they’re thriving. AI seems to believe it doesn’t have the roots to support the other fronds, so its using the energy to push a new spear. But its not dead, it just hasn’t established roots. I’ll do slow 90 minute drip, how often would you say? 3x 4x daily?

Sounds like a good chance of it being domingensis as you thought.

Promised update since I gave it a thorough watering bout 3 weeks ago (none since). Understanding I know nothing about palms: There has been little growth, new or otherwise. But nothing has further died either. Despite care, I reckon the move resulted in about 25% loss of fronds..mostly the nice, older, larger ones 😟. But hey ho, it was a freebie, and I'm just happy it has seemingly survived. So anything I might offer up to anyone faced with the same (and my palm newbie status born in mind) is likely general; transport keeping the roots moist. Complete the transplant in the minimum of time. Use appropriate soil/compost. Take advice from others on any required fertilisers. Then just simply apply your normal gardening instincts, because beyond that, it's down to nature/chance. Expect it to suffer some 'transplant shock', but don't be too hasty in chopping off the dead-looking stuff. Thanks to those that contributed!

Very interesting! My B.Afredii is several years from being near flowering. But any full palm pics of your palm? Since there aren’t too many flowering Becarriophoenix in SoCal I’d be interesting in seeing the size of your mature palm!

Horridus and Arenarius hybrids are winners in my book. They all seem to grow great. I’m sure yours will be even more fantastic looking in the future. Here’s my cross with the same parents as yours but swapped. It is a very blue plant. Encephalartos Arenarius x Horridus

The coconut palms at the old Smashburger across from Orlando Fashion Square on Colonial Drive also look really good...

What winter?! Reminds me of when we visited my wife’s relatives in Viginia one November. The fall color was beautiful and the rain was nice . Then came nightfall . I went out to help her cousin unload his pick up . I had a very warm fleece pullover on and I was freezing . Cousin Jack went to hand me something and I was standing , shivering . He asked “what’s the matter?” I said “ it’s effing cold !”He said “ no , this ain’t cold !” It was 25f out !!! No thank you! Harry

Very interesting. I hope you get enough viable seeds. Guessing that something about your climate is non-ideal for B. alfredii spathe splitting. Do you think your location is less humid and/or more cool than in B. alfredii's natural range? Have B. alfredii growers in Florida or elsewhere in the SE USA experienced similar? I hope some comment here.

I haven’t been back to Catalina Island since my sailing days . I never went ashore at Two Harbors so I never got to see those palms , they look very old indeed , almost 100! In those days , 70’s and 80’s , I would’ve never paid much attention as we lived on our sailboat , so palm enthusiasm was just secondary in my life. The narrowing of the “neck” tells a story of its stress during dry times. Harry

So funny! We are like peas in a pod , as they say. The first thing I do , after a get away , is walk about the garden to check if anything needs a drink or a trim . Sometimes , just to chill and relax. My garden is home! Your palms look like they are doing well but probably glad to have you back , fussing about as we gardeners do. Harry

Yea , sometimes you just gotta try! I dug up 10 little C. Decipiens seedlings at the Sullivan’s place and potted them up . Someone , here on the forum , commented that I had very little chance of them surviving. I put them under other palms on the side garden. I have two left , one ain’t doing so well and the other is just pushing a wee spear . I noticed it in the green house over the weekend , so maybe get one palm? The seeds were difficult for me to get sprouted , maybe 40% with the baggie method . The sprouts appear to have survived potting up but we’ll see. Harry🤞

Nice looking palm. I don’t believe I’ve seen them for sale here , in my travels. Harry