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Yeah, I can hear your frustration...I've been battling hydrophobic sand in a cold desert for 20 years, lol. My honest advice though is that you pool your resources and use them efficiently. If you plant in close groups, you can water with a single $5 lawn sprinkler, also the plants will protect each other as they grow up, the strong support the weak, etc. I've found that in my climate the best bang for getting more tender plants established is under some sort of canopy. I use all sorts of fast growing, cheap trees, Acacias, Alders, whatever works in your climate and is available locally. Plant them at the same time as the palms, or bananas or whatever and put a shadecloth shelter around the palms till the canopy trees give them a bit of shelter. In five years time you'll have a cool, self mulching forest full of bananas 🍌

Here in my neck of the woods, we would chop it in half and let the corm establish itself! The new suckers will be a lot stronger.

I just was really wanting to just vent it out! my lack of money and resources makes succeeding with these really difficult. I don't have the funds or knowledge to build a drip irrigation system, and while I might get pine straw mulch eventually, it’s frustrating to grow Musa basjoo for five years without any success.

Hey all, this is a native beetle here in Southern California. As the name implies, they love figs and other fruits. But they’re pretty benign little guys, noticeable by their metallic green color and their loud buzzing as they fly. But they have really found something they like on this flowering P. hillibrandii. The bees seem to tolerate them as well. Curious to see how well they act as pollinators..

Nice one! I wasn't aware of this plant until relatively recently, looks super cool. Where did you find it??

That's unfortunate. Were they protected at all? I recall you had Lanonia calciphila and L. magalonii. Any other species? I have several different flavours of L. dasyantha germinating right now from RPS seed. My Chuniophoenix nana only went in the ground this summer, so they have a way to go to reach that size.

Shift your mindset and you'll get better results. You could do any or all of the following: Remove the weeds Mulch heavily Install a watering system Add fertiliser Provide shelter We're all trying to grow plants where they wouldn't grow naturally...I've had more failures than I care to remember...but it's not the plants fault, it's never the plant that sucks.

That reminds me I gotta send you some chamaedorea adscendens seeds☝️a beautiful quad of chamaedoreas..

Hmmm, I have Radicalis tree form that is much bigger. Probably 10’. Wonder why this is so stunted (?).

Did you say bio security laws, that’s a nasty word. I would post to you anyway! It’s such a shame you have such strict rules the same as a few other states do. I don’t see them stopping the bird flu as it fly’s across the border!

Obviously a discount is awarded for IPS members, and a free chamaedorea elegans just for visiting.

Chamaedorea radicalis, a nice Cham to have in the garden very tough and a lot good looks for little effort.

Any ideas on what Chamaedorea species this is? Probably 20+ years old. Seeds rather prolifically as well. Thank you! JW

I remember someone at some point found this stand near me on Google maps. This is the Dying town of Hornsby Tennessee located in Hardeman County on the Border of McNairy County. It's very mysterious with mature sabal minor everywhere along the swampy part of the town. I'm willing to bet if there's this many Naturalized sabal minor in the town they most likely have spread down stream into the Hatchie River flood plain. I have no idea if these are the result of someone planting sabal minor a long time ago or if they have always been present in this location. There's a few scattered around that look ancient. Most of the houses in this town where these palms are growing look like they were built before utilities were an option, and they're so old that nature is finally just swallowing them.

At the beginning of spring, I found some Musa basjoo at a box store and planted three of them. They've done poorly compared to my Orinoco, which I barely water and don't fertilize on a schedule. It's frustrating because I always hear how great they are, but these seem very high-maintenance, especially without amazing soil. I've fertilized them and cleared the grass multiple times, but the growth is unimpressive. They keep getting sunburned unless I give them weekly fertilizer and keep up with high water levels-which is impossible for me since I have so many plants and hand-watering them all is hell. I’ve amended the best I could where they are but they are useless and most likely will freeze and die. Orinoco Pitu Musa Basjoo

Great thanks for the info Merlyn. The palms I have bought were already planted in pots. The next one, hopefully the last one I buy, lol I will check it over and maybe repot it if needed. Thanks for the links I will have a read. Appreciate the info.

Guys, meet my Daltons😎. In this case not the Dalton brothers, but the sisters!

I’m old enough to have lived through the El Niño of 1983 when I was a late teen. That was the first time that that term actually entered the lexicon of the English language. We had been in a drought for a number of years and we were being told that it would take 10 years of above average rainfall to replenish our supplies in California. One winter took care of that. So maybe a repeat, maybe not. It definitely does shift the weather patterns around, which is great for some areas and terrible for others. Had a buddy just get back from an eight day fishing trip down to Central Baja, they were targeting a fish called wahoo. Ono in Hawaiian. The water temp in the area they were looking was 85°, which was deemed too warm for wahoo. Crazy.

Hoping ours someday looks like this, grown by you know who in our 8.8 suitability climate.

Yea it must be some issue. But I guess I can keep it scare people away for Halloween. It certainly looks creepy. I gotta joke because this is very disheartening.

It must have been a combination of windage , due to the size of the clump , and saturation from the rain. Pretty amazed that damage was confined to. Harry

I had this happen and it was the only bamboo I have allowed to form a big, tall clump and only one damaged. Lesson understood. The bamboo will be fine but there is real damage to all understory plants - palms, anthurium, aroids now scorching in full sun and burned up.

Jeff’s place is all Palms no trees so I’m pretty sure he’s fine. Some roads flooded in Hawaiian acres during the storm. The rainfall at my place is in record territory for 2026. Before the storm we were already north of 200 inches for the year with still four months to go. The real danger for the Palms on the Big Island is the dreaded winter drought promised by El Niño. Rainfall will drop off significantly by October and we may look at very dry months all the way into February. But the El Niño is so strong it might be different. This El Niño is so strong that it has pushed the tropical convergences on literally to the doorsteps of Hawaii. This song is the cradle of hurricanes in the Pacific. Hawaii used to be a good thousand miles north of it. But the waters are so warm that the zoom now extends all the way to 500 miles south of Hawaii.

Honestly, I don’t see a lot of activity in our local Palm society and I don’t see very many people from Big Island posting here. I’d say the palm scene on the big island is kind of in a very dormant phase. Also Palm damage from the hurricane is rather limited heading into the Hilo area. Most of the damages from fallen trees. Palms are clearly more resilient to the hurricanes than the junk trees that grow all over the place here.

We had some roof leaks during the storm. Probably will need to get the roof inspected. The house did not suffer more damage because I preemptively cut down trees before the storm, knowing how bad it was going to be. The southern end of the island got hit hard and is completely closed off. Roads down there are washed out and homes are damaged. It will take them months to recover.