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Saw lots of established queen palms today from Kemah to Bacliff and Texas City. I won't take them for granted this time. They definitely are the benchmark for a strong zone 9. The USDA zone map actually has this part of the bayfront on the cusp and/or just inside zone 10a. It still deeply pains me to see this area look like the Carolinas lol. This one is a few blocks from the boardwalk behind the fish and chips place (not bad btw)

Thank you, Dale I may have gotten the cross mixed up - I don’t recall the mother, and didn’t think to make note of that. I’m hoping that it doesn’t get cooked my heat island with all of the DG. Your’s looks fantastic. Steve

wow, i dont know if the university would approve thermal mass bricks, but we could certainly put more black stone around the palm in winter; its planted near a dark brick wall, which up till now was OK to keep it alive; I think we will have to do more layers of insulating bubble wrap if we dont get approval for the lights. any ideas on how to protect the palm esp the spear leaf area,without outside lght bulbs and thermocubes using the suns energy?? any suggestions would be great, DrZnaturally

This is a big boy. Thick, heavy trunk 25 feet from the soil line to the top of the tallest branches. Dead knock off for a cocos, if it wasn’t so thick at the trunk!

I have three together here in this spot and I have one all by its lonesome somewhere else, it needs to move, and I’ve been trying to figure out where to place the bloke…

Draining the water is not a problem. I have a Cyrtostachys in a bucket with no holes in it, and it grows very well. most of the time the bucket is with some water up to the top. They like to grow in a swamp. (if it is a hot swamp.)

They’re pretty rare over here too.

Great looking palm. Definitely one to plant for future generations. The one at Perth zoo that they cut down to put a set of children’s swings in for a new restaurant area was about that size and planted in the 1920s. It was one of only two mature Jubaea in Western Australia. The other one is at the zoo about 50m away luckily in a garden bed - for now anyway. I remember as a kid looking at it and thinking how big it was. Luckily I germinated a seed from it before they destroyed it.

Dioon edule x argenteum

I have had received some interest in this elegant Malagasy species that I have been growing, and I'll take a little time to present some pictures and comments. Seeds from RPS were sown in July 2008. Good germination, four plants were planted out in April 2014. Here is a pic of the quartet taken a few days ago: I took another pic (in rare full sun) from a different angle with a lawn chair for scale: The pinnate portions of dead leaves tend to break off, leaving numerous very thick leaf bases that exceed in toughness any other genus I can think of at the moment. Here is the largest one. Smaller palms next to the left are Dypsis (still Dypsis) rivularis. For a while, plants of the two species were of identical height. Two larger palms in the distance are Clinostigma exorrhizums. Inflors are two or more feet long, very straight and vertical, emerging from those tough leaf bases. Three of mine have produced them - I'm not sure which sex they are. Here are two that fell off after dying. This species is among my favorites. They do trunk after sufficient time, as I have seen in published photos. But I am in no hurry for that.

Lepidozamia hopei, some good size with trunk is wanted. Thanks

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...