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I would say yes, I have one in my garden and have noticed that they seem to be for support wrapping around trunks of the palms and they also seem to anchor the plant as it leans over. Giving the plant another set of roots to grow from. But I can’t see that removing them would kill the plant they are super tough. And if it’s for garden maintenance or they are intrusive to a pathway that’s the way it is, a good gardener is always removing or renovating something in there garden!

Nice picture, I never knew they got that big with a trunk, or that they even produced offsets, when I first started to grow them 30 years ago. How I have learned now how big they can actually get, imagine seeing them in habitat! Richard

That was my feeling too at the start of this week too, this was always going to come some time. My overnight lows since the start of July. -1.0, -1.6,-1.1,+1.4 I relented on the no protection this winter intention, gave just the A. Alexandrae a basic overhead cover, a single piece of frost-cloth suspended to create an artificial overhead canopy, reflect the radiation from the ground. So far damage seems minimal to none, although on Bangalow it can take weeks to show. The time below freezing was only 5 hours for the worst night and even the bananas are not completely fried yet. What I am seeing though is the spotty/blotchy effect mainly on the Nikaus , which I have seen many times without any permanent damage. I had another look and still can't find any scientific articles on why this occurs, which is weird. It's a real effect, most of us have seen it, but seems no-one has ever bothered to study it.

They most certainly do grow their roots through, and when they do it’s not easy to remove!

Hi there, not to waste your time but when I was very young and my parents and I made a trip to subtropical region in the early eighties, we went to a botanical garden. Since I for some reason always liked the tropical plant section of our local zoo, I had my attention radar tuned up a bit at that time when walking around with my parents and the travel group we were a part of. However, one plant - a palm - caught my attention because of the translator's description of the plant - palm - we looked at. He said:"This is a Chilean Elephant Palm". I looked at it and made the "connection" immediately...the trunk! The trunk looked like an elephant's leg! Of course it does, so it made sense to me right away, I kept in mind and moved on. (eleven years old at that time) When we moved down to Okinawa and finally purchased the house and the garden, the first seeds I ordered from rps were - exactly - seeds of Jubea Chilensis "The Elephant palm" It was like a dream coming true. Of course I had educated myself in the meantime about what I am dealing with here, but it didn't matter. After three years of waiting to sprout and a decade in a pot, always checked it liked the holy grail since it was were all of it started, I finally went to action and "unleashed" it a couple of weeks ago. Soon after the rain season started with tremendous amounts of water and soaking the garden more than once for weeks - I was kicking myself myself for the bad timing - but since this fella is now alive for more than ten years and has experienced every possible freak weather in the meantime, it went through it remarkably well. Here we go, this may be one of the very few publicly documented Jubea Chilensis planted out in a private garden in Japan. I would be very happy to learn of any others. Alright, enough of talking... I know, it is a strong statement for such a small garden, but why not? Happy growing, little beauty! Lars

Putting the new property machine to good use, a recent investment for landscaping my property an excavator. And I should have purchased it years ago. With so many new palms and exotic plants in the collection I have a lot of landscaping to do. Raised beds with good quality soil is the only way to go in my environment. The original garden was done in this landscaping manner. Dig the whole are and remove the rocks, and use them for landscaping. Backfill with soil and plant. Even the kookaburras have worked out that the excavator means disturbed soil and all sorts of critters to eat , iam sure I have a few exotic palms to fill this section up with!

A beautiful bit of colour on the new leaf of the ptychosperma cunneatum, and a nice dypsis lantzeana showing off again.

A very unusual looking ficus, they seem quite tough and happy to take any attention in the way of water and rich soil. And the best part is I don’t have to worry about any roots getting into any water pipes or underground plumbing!

Hi there, First of all, Happy 4th of July to all our American members here. Hope you have a safe and wonderful Independence Day! Alright, just a short update of this one - please have a look: A great source of joy! It looks quite happy and I recognized for the first time... ...two new spears at the same time! One more time a full shot... Maybe I got to think seriously about a small pond to be made....🤔 Thank you for following - Lars

This little one is a volunteer, popping up in summer. It’s more than welcome to stay were it is. They can get to be a bit of a weed in moist areas and are a problem in my greenhouses in the container plants, very difficult to prevent getting into the greenhouse being a spore, it’s my only weed concern in my containers.

A fantastic little fern for that sweet spot in the garden. Quite tough once established. And a brilliant landscaping fern that’s very predictable in growth. Just add a little water and you have a very tropical looking plant for your garden.

The five sabinara i planted in summer are taking the cool conditions well, temperatures down to 5 degrees celcius so far. And yesterday it 25 degrees celcius a huge difference in high and low temperatures. So far it’s been a very warm winter. But winter is not over yet, we will see!

Noticed this Arenga Pinnata? at a garden park in the middle of the city recently finished flowering/seeding. Does that mean it’s done for now?

Hello :) , I also really love this palm to grow in my garden, the size really just fitted the landscape. This palm seeds were actually being sale on a local e-commerce here for only $1.5 but sadly it sold out really quickly that I missed the chance to buy :( Btw, I really like the pictures, it looks super good👍

A nice suburban archontophoenix got my attention today bromeliads and all!

The only hybrid palm in my garden got my attention today, and you can’t beat a Chuniophoenix nana for understory glam!

Hello :) , I just got one juvenile bottle palm from a local e-commerce again here, I bought it for only $1 which is very worth it! I have to put this palm under some shades for a week so it wouldn't get stressed, then I'll put it outside directly in the sun :)

What amendments did you add? In my experience watering every day leads to root fungus in clay soil. If they were planted in very sandy soil you would want to water more.

My Pinanga coronata ‘Kuhlii’ which has grown to 3 ft in a year and half from an 8 in plant. It has always produced reddish new fronds.

Oh yeah, quite the collection. Tim

Something celebratory in the botanical realm in observance of the United States semiquincentennial!

I managed to get a few hapala seeds up, apparently these are red velvet crown shaft that are totally different according to @palmtreesforpleasure who gave me the seeds. But iam pretty happy either way about getting a few hapala going!

Warm and very dry summer so far. We are way down in rainfall for the year, but had some good showers this week. I’ve been hand watering the windmills a few times a week - especially when temps are 95+. The Washingtonias are loving it.

Well it had to come at some point. Our actual minimums tend to be 1-2C lower than forecasted on clear nights so I think a couple of frosts are unavoidable this coming week.

Well the climate forecast was for a dry start to winter here but what we got certainly wasn’t dry. June recorded over 150mm of rain which is just above average. Every day felt like it was raining at some point. Everything is saturated and damp. The temp range for June was 0.5C to 22.2C. Once the rain fully kicked in and all the lakes and streams filled up in mid June the mins didn’t go down as far as 0.5C again. July is looking to be a similar month but today is likely to be a rain free day before a cold front hits tomorrow night and keeps the gauge climbing. I’m hoping for a bit of sun because it’s been rare lately and a bit gloomy. I need some vitamin D.