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Dang, that looks messy. I was hoping to read something from Jason in Hilo, hope all's well at his place. I had a brief text exchange with Floribunda. I was concerned for them because there is a dry creek bed that floods when there are exceptionally heavy rains. Reportedly this was "as bad as we have seen," with damage to fences and "big palms snapped." House is fine. My neighbors have assured me that all is well at my place, no damage to property. The garden may have suffered yet more falling trees, kind of a regular thing at my place. When I see videos of the severity inflicted on the south end of the island I feel very fortunate. Power was out for a week, but that's common enough in my area after any storm. What's good to see is the local communities springing into action to help one another. People are distributing food, water, gas, and other supplies into the hardest hit areas -- no simple task with roads washed out completely in a few places. People are offering to come with their chainsaws and other equipment to help people clean up, sharing extra generators, etc. It's a big island with many small communities and people are very hands-on in these situations. I admire their true community spirit.

I have many in my garden and not all make the race. Happens with all palms. A group of palms all planted the same day you will have ones that out grow the others.

It peeled off of and now exposes bare lava, the only soil is up in the air in that side view.

I remember 1983 in Southern California, rained all Winter and thunder and lightning for a good portion of the Summer, California was tropical that year. Some of the best surfing ever, big North swells all Winter and big South swells all Summer.

Inland missed out on the heavy heavy rain today but between last night and today I added close to 2 inches.

I'm truly sorry you have had this experience... If you can resolve the drainage issue, I am nearly certain the Bacarriophoenix alfredi will perform well for you. I still need to get some pics of mine to show you.

Huge rainstorm today, it rained almost all day and added up to 3.3 inches, with a late night dumping of 0.66 last night, for a 24 hour total of over 4 inches. Thats more than hurricane milton dropped here and the most in one day since. You can't tell now, it all drains off in moments, even in the low spots. The month is actually panning out nicely after a dismal june and half of july. Hopefully el nino helps the drought ease into fall and winter, with no extreme cold or tornadoes🤞.

Ai - telling us what we already know, removing nuance and spicing it up with a bit of extra BS! In a long list of dubious human inventions, this one just about takes the cake. Steal our intellectual property, add an algorithm for commercial profit and still get half the facts wrong. Come on humanity, surely we can do better than this dross.

Got my seeds and have them all set up 😁 Now the waiting game

Thanks Marcus! I hope you are staying cool during these long hot summer days. With no rain at my house in over a month, I am certainly ready for a change in the weather pattern. Here's hoping that this wet winter everyone keeps predicting due to El Nino comes a little earlier rather than later.

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