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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.

Hi! I visited Orlando this weekend and oh my lord! I found lots of palms it was cool the place I stayed at had lots of palms and natives like Saw palmetto and Sabal Palmetto. There was also some pretty Naturalized Queens that weren’t planted here’s a few of the place I took today! Ima post more including Leu Gardens which is crazy! It has Palms that shouldn’t be in that 10a/9b place in Winter Park. I think the heavy tree cover helps some of those things survive. They also might take other measures.

That blueish - silver Mediterranean fan is gorgeous 😱🤩. I was able to get 3 seeds from central Tx last week hopefully they grow for me in Florida.

What size are they? I am not close to you but I found some large ones lately that smelled very much like citrus but they are very large in size and very round in shape

@Rojell welcome to PalmTalk! I'll start by saying I don't grow palms inside, because I'm in Zone 9b/9a borderline in Florida. From the description you may be having problems with the soil mix being too dense or organic. There's a whole section of Palmtalk's forum dedicated to pot growing, and you might find better answers there: https://www.palmtalk.org/forum/forum/45-palms-in-pots/ There's a lot of discussions on palm soil mixes, but generally a "loose and chunky mix" of something like topsoil + perlite/turface MVP/lava rock with at least 50% inorganics seems to work for a lot of people. For example, this is a big thread on it: Another possibility is incorrect planting depth. If you get the base too deep (i.e. soil too high) then the RIZ (Root Initiation Zone) has a higher chance of rot. The rule of thumb is if the palm is too high (soil too low) it might "girdle" or grow slower, but if it's too low (soil too high) it might rot. One of the PT Directors wrote this great article on it: http://www.marriedtoplants.com/palms/palm-tree-growing-tips-mounding/

Hi Ben, happy belated birthday !! Looks like you and your family enjoyed the time exploring some more palms in the SA area.

fruits of Causiarum are small, 7-8 mm, Domingensis fruits are 12-15mm. Further Zona describles in his sabal monograph that the causiarum has 3 orders of branching and domingensis has 4. I was sold a palm that was labelled domingensis, and I found out it was causiarum after the inflorescences arrived and it fruited. There was a huge mix up in seed 15-20 years ago at RPS and other normally reliable seed sources. The orders of branching is described as the branching off the main inflorescence spike. I consider all those dominagensis that are unusually cold hardy are more likely misidentified causiarum. I also expect that near a building is good for at least +5 degrees if it is a heated building. Temps near heated buildings or even large concrete structures are warmer than the reported ambient temps especially when it gets really cold. Out west under canopy I have measured over 5F warmer advantage under canopy in a radiational(low wind) event. I had some phoenix roebelinii out in the open and under canopy in arizona when it hit 21F. Those under 6 closely spaced healthy queen palms were not touched, no leaf damage. The ones in the open had no green matter left, even leafbases fried. Consider that canopy best works for heat retention when there is no wind and when the cold events are shorter. As the wind kicks up(advective cold is more common in the east) that advantage shrinks drastically. To fight winds you need windbreak and a fire pit in the wind break area would help a lot.

Here's my Licuala Fordiana (I think this one is Fordiana, who needs tags, right?) and Chuniophoenix Nana getting engulfed in a shitshow bed from my last Floribunda order a year or 2 ago. I did protect last winter with a pot flipped over them and a string of lights balled up inside the pot. As they get bigger I'll start pushing them farther with low temps and see how it goes. My in-ground Lanonia collection all croaked at 20 last winter.

I'm in coastal cold Z9 Florida Panhandle. My experience with the 2 species has been mixed. My huge causiarum gets leaf burn almost yearly. My big but much smaller domingensus sometimes don't burn from these same cold events.

Scott Zonas monograph is the seminal paper on differentiating Caribbean sabals: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/aliso/vol12/iss4/2/ First pic looks like palmetto on the right contrasted with sabal in question on the left. The fruits and inflorescences are more informative than leaves. Drooping leaflet tips could be climate influenced. They are costpalmate it appears and some are pencil pointed at the bud so they are not happy. Those sabals have seen some drought and look over trimmed so its hard to see what they would look like if happy. Not sure blackburniuana is even a recognized species but I had (2) supposedly blackburniana when I was in arizona. I saw the mother "bl;ackburniana" tree too and it was a medium thick trunked sabal, around 2 ft+ thick with leaf bases on, certainly not palmetto as the petioles were 3" thick across near the trunk.

I would happily pay those prices, though the only way they would make it to Western Australia is through a concierge service, the only reliable one I’ve found is Bob and Bev up in North Queensland. The plants would end up doing a round trip of Australia, triple the price and that’s also assuming they arrive healthy enough.. It drives me crazy our bio security laws.

It's a shame we're so far away, otherwise I would have bought the chamaedoreas, obviously you would have given me a little discount, jokes aside, people don't know what's behind a plant, finding good seeds and how much it costs everything else

Good morning I am new here and wanted to ask for a little guidance. I live in Southern Ontario, I think we are 6b. I have tried to have a bottle palm, in a 5 gallon pot, for our by my pool and then bring it inside for the fall winter seasons. It does well for the summer but when I bring it inside I think I am killing it with kindness. I have read most things I can find as to how to take care for it indoors, it sort of goes dormant for the winter I guess? I make sure it drains well only small amount of water every 3 to 4 weeks and in a room with a fair amount of sun through the day. When I take it outside once the temp stays warm enough it starts to lean a fair amount and the base starts letting go at the soil and I notice it is rotting on the inside and letting go of the roots. This has happened to me with 2 different bottle palms. Just wondering if someone here could give me any kind of indoor winter care tips. Like I said I think I killed it with to much water? Thanks in advance for any tips. Rojell

What bugged me again was this sap sucking life taking creature they call an insect on my freshly potted ceroxylon parvifrons, the cheek of him!

Nice one hope they all germinate! This ones for you @tim_brissy_13 we need seeds!