All Activity

The heat may have backed off a bit last month, compared to March, ..But " Sizzle " was the theme in the sky, last month.. ** Don't forget, all images are property of yours truly.. Don't get yourself in big trouble by trying to $teal them.. ** 04 / 03: Streaks n' stuff... 04 / 04: Molasses and Gold.. 04 / 05: Sky Tones.. 04 / 07: April Lava.... Pt. 1??

Nah the tomatoes in my polytunnel are absolutely nuked. Like they are kaput. And everything I had planted out in the open, next to the polytunnel, is also completely wiped out. But strangely all the smaller pepper plants seem to have survived fine, almost undamaged. My allotment is basically situated right in the middle of a large field, right out in the rural countryside. There would have been at least two consecutive nights of -1C / 30F there in that exposed location. And I wouldn't be surprised if last night went down to -2C / 28F out there in the open. I had -1.5C here at the house, which is basically record breaking. That first cold night, I didn't even protect any of my garden tomato plants or anything and they were completely fine. Yet all the tomato plants in my polytunnel at the allotment got burnt to a crisp, just 500 yards away from my garden. The shock of it catching me out led me to protect all my house garden tomato plants for that 2nd night, just in case. Anyway last night was the coldest May night in 16 years here, since 2010. So we are talking a 1 in 15-20 year type event at least. And it may have been the coldest mid-May night in 70-80 years potentially around here. My grape vines are wrecked.

You wait and see what that shovel can do, a good operator on a machine like this can perform gardening miracles! Richard

Sounds like it’s just to cold and wet, and the varieties you have chosen are just not suitable for your climate.

Hope not. I’m not up on this tech stuff it appears I’m okay. Maybe message palm mod?

I've been trying to update/confirm my username and password at PT's insistence so I can be ready for changes to come. The Forum refuses my efforts to do so. It will not accept the Username I've used since I joined in 2008. It does not accept my (only) email address as valid and acceptable even though I've used it for years. It rejects all my attempts to change my password. (and yes, I've had my password for many years). It essentially blocks me from updating - period. Do I have to wait for these improvements/updates to take effect only to find I've been blocked from PalmTalk altogether? All these improvements to come but will I have access to them?

I have a problem with keeping Phoenix dactylifera's alive overhere in The Netherlands. Two years ago I bought young plants of dactylifera var. Iberica, a var. Medjool and a var. Deglet Nour. During summer I keep them in the most sunny position of my garden, during winter they are in my greenhouse, together with other palms and Citrus trees. At the end of the winter the plants don't look good and in the end, I can pull the spear out; rot! and hydrogenperoxide doesn't cure the problem! Is the fact that we have rather mild winters with high humidity causing this problem? Ph. canariensis doesn't have this problem. What do you think?

Yeah, that was my big concern. If it's out in the yard I wouldn't mind the risk of a sudden collapse. But ~10 feet from the corner of my roof is a much bigger issue... I guess I need to brainstorm some possible replacements for that spot. Speaking of risks, I checked my "Whole Leaf" Elaeis Guineensis and it triple spear pulled. But it seemed as though the broken spot in the spears was only about 6 or so inches down into the crown. So today I semi-trunk-cut the rest to expose the upper end of the new spears. Looking down into it before was a mess of leaves and moss and crud: I cut down part of the trunk with just a loppers and found the white tips of spears, circled below: I dosed it with hydrogen peroxide and got a LOT of bubbling, so hopefully this will help clean up any infection. This worked pretty well (so far) on a Bottle:

Toasty, but i'll take 107F right now, vs a few degs warmer at the same time yesterday.. We'll see if the increased cloud cover that may filter into town from the south / southeast over the next few hours might effect how many more degrees we add to todays' high / how quickly they start dropping as we get closer to Sunset.. As mentioned yesterday, weak disturbance wandering our way from Baja has drawn a decent fetch of moisture further north into the state today.. ..In the form of increased build up activity in those areas at least.. C.O.D. Sub - Regional True Color Sat. View; No lightning detected in any of the mountain puffs atm, but, there could be a few brief, isolated storms here and there up there later on this afternoon. Bigger storms < though still small and scattered, compared to what we'll see blow up down there soon enough > are confined to the spine of the Sierra Madre Occidental, just south of us. May be a few sprinkles and gusty breezes wandering around Tucson atm, via the current view of the Rincons from A Mountain.. http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/products/wximagery/movies/rincon_last_90_minutes.mp4 FYI, for those interested: 90min, and " Whole Day " timelapse video are accessible of both the Catalinas and Rincons, via the UA WRF page, " Sky Camera " tab / section. Need to inquire / make a suggestion about them adding a camera that faces south, into the Santa Ritas / Mt. Wrightson and Madera Canyon, and Mt. Hopkins.. anyway.. Fun stuff, again, confined to our south.. for now, ha ha. ..Some of that may make it up here later ..but don't expect anything from it ..except perhaps some breeziness at times if a blob of virga - generating clouds passes overhead. More clouds head our way overnight and through at least the first half of tomorrow ..which should help keep temps right around 100F.

Looks nice Tyrone! Holding on pretty well down here for at least another week by the looks of things. Would expect things to start cooling off pretty rapidly in the next few weeks, as Tassies small land mass loses the fight with the cooling Southern Ocean.

Thanks for all the input. Hopefully some of the suggestions so far may be included in this new Version. It is promised to have many new “features.” Some things I will be learning along with you. So, as we learn, keep posting here for everyone’s benefit. After the new Version is up and running, feel free to post any answers or tips you may find that address any of the suggestions given.

Some interesting ideas here. I never thought about killing the palm and letting it desiccate and dry up before whacking g it down. seems like a smart idea to have it do less damage.

Not a palm but cool:

One survived for a little while in Norfolk, Virginia, but died for some reason after a couple or so years.

I was surprised to see this at Leu Gardens in Orlando, Florida back in December 2025. Wonder how it handled the big freeze event?

Another thing I remember wanting when I first joined the forum, is an easy way to access images of palms, right away. For me at the time, being new to palms, I wanted a quick way to identify what I like and what I may have seen before, but had no names to identify those palms. Some sort of hashtag image gallery system to bring all the images to the front for beginners to quickly get their feet wet.

@Brad52 here's a closer detail on the two. Bifida has 2 separate attachment points, so the bifid leaf comes straight off the rachis: Micholitzii will have the middle and lower leaves coming off the rachis as a pair. It will have a fairly short stub before it splits into two bifid leaves:

It's hard to see in the photos, just because there are so many leaves going various directions. The upper leaves in the first photo look like Bifida. One of my Micholitzii looks like that too near the top of the fronds, but transitions to paired bifid leaves lower down on the frond. I took a couple of photos of mine: Cycas Micholitzii - a single attachment point to the rachis splits into a pair of bifid leaves: Cycas Bifida - each bifid leaf attaches at a different location on the rachis. They are never "paired up" like the above photo.

So close yet so very far away

My big Archies are about 15-20 years old from seed. Which they produce prodigious quantities of. I’d say tuckeri and the late Slapsie Maxie were roughly the same size.

https://www.ortobotaniconapoli.it/it/risorse/schede-botaniche/wollemia-nobilis.html

At the botanical garden of Naples, there is a beautiful specimen and it is already quite large.

I have enjoyed this friendly forum for information and community for many years. I am excited to see its update which promises to add new options while keeping what I enjoy. Thanks so much to the IPS for the monetary support to PT and especially to the many individuals who are working on our behalf.

Update May 2026..