All Activity

I need help finding the best method to germinate a whole lot of seeds. I recently stumbled across someone throwing away 2 infructescences and took them home with me. I have a minimum of 150 ripe seeds. Total seeds maybe 400. Just looking for an effective way to get them going without doing a crazy amount of work. I don’t want to wait too long to avoid them going bad.

I just got done doing a soil drench with Banrot on all 3 Coconuts. They aren't looking that great, gotta say, so we'll see. I got the shortest one' bud spayed with Copper fungicide but couldn't get the spray high enough for the other two so will get those done tomorrow somehow. I also got all the potted material OUT of the house so can now sleep in my bed and take a shower...lol... Cheers to all - Baz

I am having digestive issues and they do not seem to be getting better. If anyone has been wanting to do this trip that is sold out please let me know. (seven six zero) four two zero-5982 Help or suggestions welcome. Mark

In my area of Central Florida we're far more likely to lose publicly planted palms to lightning, palm weevil, lethal bronzing, fusarium, or ganoderma than from a 20 year freeze. I'd much rather see the city plant something marginally cold sensitive than more Phoenix palms that rarely make it 5 years before needing to be replanted. Even native Sabal palms are susceptible to Lethal Bronzing.

Red Ladies potted up into 5g with a variety behind them. I guess I need to go take more pics, I've been doing everything on Instagram and YouTube lately. For the big storage tote, I built a super ghetto humidity tent for it - I bent an old curtain rod for support and laid plastic sheeting over it - the plastic sheeting is actually the shipping bag from a pillow. A few of those have sprouted and I'm trying to get them through the delicate baby stage, and a few of the Rainbow have sprouted too and same deal - getting them through the delicate baby stage absolutely sucks. Just try and keep them hot and humid but not too humid and not too hot and it's absolutely hell trying to figure out the exact process and it seems like every variety is just a little different, and germination doesn't mean survival so if I end up with 2 of each one I think I'm doing good.

Oh man, these look great. I would love to get my hands on a handful of some of these seeds.... J This is purely anecdotal, but I grew a couple dozen from seed and in that stage they took off really fast. I just put one in the ground last spring after it was insanely rootbound in a solo cup. I sold a few and people were bumping them straight from the solo cups to 3 or 5 gallons. I'll be able to give you a better answer in another year or so. But in my personal experience, from seed, they seemed fast - for a Sabal.

Lovely little palm Tim, I can'tremember noticing it in your garden. Just did a quick google search, critically endangered apparently, restricted to a small peninsular on Sulawesi, might be worth collecting those seeds for distribution, or maybe there are plenty already in cultivation?

Awfully

planting distance 20cm I see; running out of space eh?

I couldn't chance it (the thermo-cube) not being accurate since I was using it in my Ensete ventricosum enclosure. There's scarcely been any cold weather anyway to this point, and the plant is already growing to a point were I will likely have to cut it back before removing the shelter. Yes, all electrical connection points are kept dry.

Another common one, but somewhat rare nowadays for sale! They make a great place for epithyts! The phoenix robelleni is here to stay especially in the cool climates.

The Aliens 👾 did it when they landed!

Took Sancho for a hike through the woods today and we saw some interesting tree growth --- I have no idea what would cause them to grow like this. Maybe they were wrapped around something years and years ago? Anyway, cool stuff.

Bokashi is actually Korean. It's an anaerobic form of compost where you seal your food scraps up and sprinkle this "bran" on top of it that contains molasses and brown sugar and the active bacteria from yogurt to break everything down. It doesn't rot, it ferments - then you either dig a trench and bury it 2 feet deep or make a "soil factory" like I'm doing, I added a bag of cheap compost and a bag of cheap potting soil and some worm castings and the active bacteria in the soil further break it all down. I like it because you can put anything in it - meat, fat, chicken bones, pasta, whatever - the bones obviously take much longer to break down but it def breaks down in a few months. You'll see a lot of white mold (which is actually good in the soil) and as long as you keep stirring it regularly and don't let it get too wet, the stink isn't too overpowering. It actually just smells like dirt until I go to stir it. Sometimes it generates a liquid from the chemical breakdown, and if you dilute the liquid like 1:100 it's a powerful fertilizer and if you don't dilute it, it's gonna kill whatever you pour it on. Since it's all airtight and anaerobic it doesn't stink like traditional compost. Great for household kitchen scraps and the bran isn't too expensive, you can actually make your own but I paid like $25 for a 5 pound bag and that bag lasts a good while, even with my heavy hand. My first batch smelled like banana bread until I put it in the soil bin and sealed it up. Leave some airflow for the humidity to escape and you're good. I'm gonna have some very very happy plants in a couple months. Anyway, the Sabals I got these seeds from have seen snow and ice. The palmettos? I probably left them in the freezer for way too long but if I only get 20 or 30 more that's fine. The minors should be cool, I need to take them out of the freezer tonight. They've all seen single digits.

Sharing the lowest temps my home station recorded. Just SE of Raleigh. 12.9F maximum low A few nights right at 15F (probably 3 in 2026)? And the December 15th low of 14.8 - I would argue to say this did more damage than anything. that low started burning Washingtonias, and they just have gone downhill since. My windmills, butias, chamaerops, and most all sabals are fine. I had a few small ones get burned up (I think) S. palmetto pictured on Feb 4th - 48 hours after 13F. The matches the lowest temp seen last year as well.

Three

I ain't gonna lose any sleep over it then. Here's pics. The Filifera. It's always looked like this, so I really don't know if it's damaged or not lol. It is NOT happy here. Oh, this Filibusta is cooked. Confirmed squished in my hand, it's very much dead. Birmingham. I honestly wish I had done more research and read how slow these are, and I woulda put it someplace other than front and center. But like 30 years after the apocalypse it'll be a nice tree. Bermudana did fine. Granted this is all facing east and it's all surrounded by bricks so it was all protected from the north and west winds, but still - just a little Styrofoam box with a brick on top of it and it's coolsies. This is the big Washie that I covered. It spear pulled and already had some frost damage. I'll cover it up again. The cold didn't seem to phase the grass or the weeds and I've been so busy running the grow room.... Anyway there is in fact a Sabal Etonia in here and it's totally unbothered despite its size. Trachy fortunei. Covered with a heavy plastic pot... Trachy Princeps x Waggie - totally unphased. And just an update - if anybody was wondering if a coconut can germinate in the ground in Mississippi in winter, so far it has not - but it's only been here for 3 months so don't give up hope. Sancho even peed on it for good luck. According to r/composting that makes everything grow.

Here is a 2021 survivor bottle on port Isabel.

In September 2018, about 7.5 years ago I planted these palm hybrids from Patric S. Here they are in February 2026 Dallas zone 8a. Both survived 3°F with only a tarp over them. The palm by the AC is the trigeneric: butia X Jubea X syagrus. The palm by Miss Holly is ( Butia x Jubea) X Jubea.

Been recovering ever since. Nobody believes me when I tell them what it is anymore 😂 but it ain't dead.

I got the chance to peek at the Butia since it was the only one not to be piled with snow, and it looks "fine" so far with a bit of cold damage on some of the fronds more exposed at the top. I'll be more careful with this one to not letnit end up like the other one 😂

Another camellia fan here. I mean, what's not to like apart from the fact they need acidic soil. Nice one @Mazat! I love my Camellia japonica 'curly lady'; the branches are indeed wavy/curly and that makes it look so unusual. It is now about to bloom for the first time, I'll post photos!

Never been to America as of yet, but if it’s like anything that is done in America I could only imagine the scale and beauty of such an event!

For me this was the worst damage I have seen while here in Merritt Island. The cold was bad but the wind was worse. I watered well a few days prior but the combo was too much. The tall stuff got it worse than the low. Fried Jamaicans Thrinax Radiata TR seedlings look ok Seagrape KO tall only the spear is green KO small slightly better Tomatoes that looked fantastic days prior

Kind of a nifty diminutive palm, although I don’t think it’s particularly cold hardy. Nice deep red crown shaft and colorful seeds. The mother plant is posing with the shovel, while the offspring are growing nearby. Tim