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Sure looks purdy!

I like the thought that has gone into that garden and it has a bit of age about it as well!

I finally got the mulch on the entrance garden to the house. Bit by bit makes a big job easy. It certainly does make a difference, easy on the eye water saving and feeding the soil plus a little extra warmth in soil temperature. Only another 30 cubic meters to go for the summer water savings!

Dypsis remotifolia and socratea rostrata both loving life in winter.

We had a decent 2 weeks but now everything recently shut off again also. Clear sky’s and no rains again. Exposed grass is dying despite irrigation. It’s just too hot and dry out in the open. Even after early morning irrigation, things are browning up that are exposed. I went out tonight to soak all the crotons which are wilting by early afternoon now. This will be the 3rd year in a row without a wet season to speak of. August looks to be a hot, dry bust. Hope now seems to lie with tropical systems as we approach peak hurricane months.

This is an Encephalartos cerinus male cone. It seems significantly larger than the prior cones this plant has produced. It will stretch a little more when it opens to expose all its pollen.

It has been a long time coming. A few weeks ago I gave up and was contemplating what I would plant after removing this apparent failure. A few days ago I noticed a little nub in the dirt. It is now clearly a new leaf. I need to check my photos to see exactly when these pups were removed but it must be close to three years ago. This is my last remaining Encephalartos nubimontanus pup to flush from the batch i removed.

Here’s an Encephalartos chimanimaniensis pushing out a flush in a crowded location, And here is a young Encephalartos laurentianus pushing out a tall flush. It was hard to get a good photo of it.

A few more unidentified Encephalartos flushing,

A few Encephalartos Longifolious flushing.

Thanks . A tornado destroyed what he originally planted in the mid 80’s. Most of what you see is from the 90’s and very early 2000’s.

this Chamaedorea radicalis, almost 11 years old from seed, courtesy of @doomsdave

They are real winner, iam surprised they take the cool weather well.

Lovely crownshaft of young Chrysalidiocarpus sp. mayotte. Almost looks like it should be in a pastry shop…

Those look very healthy there . I would have never thought that Fresno would be home to them. I bet he soaks them very well! Harry

My guess is the lighting. Copernicias LOVE lots of full blazing hot sun. Yours looks like its in filtered light.

Fantastique. Qu'allez-vous faire des jeunes plants ?

@Eric in Orlando Roughly the same here. Most of the deaths have been because folks removed stuff like Royals or Coconuts before giving it a shot to come back. @donalt The place looks great! Especially considering what went down in February! @Merlyn Pulling weeds, trunk cutting, and dumping daconil are scheduled events for this year's gardening decathalon. Your training should pay dividends. 😁

Plumeria in our neighborhood bloomed early this year and have been loaded with flowers ever since that early start. Here are a few in our yard which havd followed the neighborhood trend. It was a mild winter and spring and much hotter than normal along the coast of San Diego County this summer. How are the Plumeria doing in your garden or neighborhood this summer?

@Eric in Orlando I've also noted more Spindle deaths in my yard than Bottles. It might just be random chance, since both seem susceptible to bud rots. Either way, the "conventional wisdom" of Spindles being tougher doesn't seem to be true in my yard. My front porch Licuala Grandis is now showing signs of actual life! About a week ago I carefully trimmed all the dead frond bases down around the crown, trying to find if there are actually any spears. I found a double spear and cut back to expose it, and today I noticed both spears had grown about 0.25" taller and started opening with a hint of green!

I started some I got from big fish.They were not fresh, but not old. Sat in a baggie w/ moist vermiculite for at least 6 months. Nothing. I then stratified them in the crisper of my beer fridge in baggies. 2mos,then into a community pot in March with fluctuating temps. Saw sprouts in July or so. So it may be inconclusive to say that they need stratifying but my results indicated it was helpful. Reminds me I have a decent size bag of my own needle seeds I need to start Good luck

It is fig season, Socatran Island style. Actually it is in my backyard.

And in the middle of all the above, I spent a solid 6 days doing nothing but pulling weeds. It's for sure my least favorite task, especially with this new weed...er...hardy imported perennial. I've figured out how to deal with Artillery Fern (hand removal and 2,4-D), and most other weeds don't like to grow with a thick layer of mulch. Some pop up in March and die by April. Big ones like thistles or pokeweed or even potato vine are easy targets for hand pulling. However, this one popped up this year and is INCREDIBLY annoying. I'm not sure if it's Sida Acuta, Hyptis Verticillata, or something completely different. It has small white flowers and the bees love it, and it makes little green round seeds that seem to have a 500% strike rate. If you see this stuff, do NOT let it get started. The biggest problem is that it'll grow in thick mulch and loves to grow right up against the trunks of palms and cycads. So I'll miss one and then end up with 50 small seedlings growing in the middle of a spiky Dioon Edule cluster, and get stabbed many...many times trying to pull them all. The only good thing is that it doesn't seem to grow in the lawn. I guess the grass roots choke it out. I pulled 3 yard waste bags full of these beasties out of the NW corner:

@Harry’s Palms I've been doing the reciprocating saw thing for a while, but mostly for cutting up bamboos or old oak stumps. I had a "blinding flash of the obvious" this morning when prepping to move the Chamaerops. I'd used the saw to cut around the above Butia for trashing it, but it didn't occur to me that it might actually work better than just the shovel. When I sliced around the Chamaerops the slightly-damp sand stuck in place to the roots. So not only was it easy to move, but the root ball held in place instead of having all the sand fall off. If you are in dense clay and rock then a carbide-tipped blade is probably a good idea. I've been using the Diablo pruning 3tpi ones for all the stumps and bamboos. They stay sharp in sand for so many cuts that the eventual failure is snapping off at the tang instead of getting dull. I wish they weren't $10 each... I used an old Bosch RS7 for years on stumps until I finally destroyed it. I then made the mistake of buying a "counter weighted" Milwaukee saw, which was super smooth in regular cutting...until the blade gets stuck. Then the extra counterweight means extra super strong rip your arms from the sockets vibration. It was so bad that I went and bought a Bosch RS325 and tossed the Milwaukee in a cabinet as a "in case of emergencies only" saw.

Being so commonly sold as indoor plants, it's no surprise that so many Ravenea end up outdoors in people's yards in the Fresno area. I see them haphazardly thrown outdoors, usually after a poor performance as an indoor plant. Occasionally, I see them growing happily if they're near a lawn or sprinkler. I've even seen some with a few feet of trunk... but this one takes the prize. This has got to be the biggest pair of Ravenea in Fresno. Wow! You might mistake this for a neighborhood in SoCal, as opposed to the Central Valley. I feel like the anecdotal things about climate change from old-time gardeners in the Fresno area are substantive. I'm seeing lots of plumerias growing happily around town too - at first you notice one. Then the following year you notice more, and each year it seems there are more. Cassia fistula, fruiting mangoes, longan... all of these grown by adventurous gardeners, and somehow happily making it in this harsh climate. The USDA's latest zone update has a small pocket of 10a in the Fresno area to add a bit of weight to the anecdotal chatter too.