All Activity

Thanks one can only try. I have found far more palms tolerant of the cool conditions, just by giving it a try. Research I guess into cool tolerant new varieties available now. With unknown varieties of pslms being tested for cool tolerant conditions. The odds for giving it a try are pretty good and in the growers favour. Finding new varieties for the garden pushing boundaries!

A nice young carpoxylon macrospermum!

Even the kiwis have them, nice one across the ditch!

That’s the best approach, well maintained, you’re one is a great example of it could go wrong. Except it’s in the hands of a skilled gardener who is fully aware of the monster within, taming the beast with his skills as a gardener! Richard

The trick is don’t plant them anywhere near anything, a bit like bamboo, when they get out of hand it’s disaster. Mitis is no different just keep them out of the main garden, imagine A million dollar property and having them side by side at the main entrance to the house, totally out of control, it would certainly look unsightly. Those trays of seedlings I have are from a variegated mitis seed purchase, with not one variegated in the whole batch. So it’s compost heap for them or giving them away to a nursery for a few bucks. I just don’t want that many in my garden!

Definitely good drainage is the key to growing plants and palms especially so. A few extra holes will help in drainage, thus more oxygen in your hence better growth, a win win situation for all especially the grower.

It can all go wrong easily, and also turn out to be costly if you have to remove a palm that becomes a nuisance, through planting in the wrong situation. Thinking it was something else.

It can be also costlier than just the price of the mislabeled plant, if one has selected a species based on certain properties like shade or sun, wind, cold, drought tolerance etc, which unfortunately are not present in purchased specimen.

Overlooked to answer this with all the discussion, July saw about 50mm. Not dry in that the ground is at all dry, but it being the wettest month of the year on average, that is about 40% of normal. Looking around town this weekend, larger bangalows with 2-3m plus of clear trunk have no visible damage at all.

No, I've never had that issue. Has the weather been stinking hot since you planted it out? They seem happiest in cooler conditions usually, so it might be a bit of heat stress potentially? The more I look at your pictures, the more I think it needs a deep drink!

Thought we could wake you up drag you into this one ☝️ Rivhard

That can be quite frustrating, generally it is a honest grower mistake. Even I have 4 varieties of of chamaedoreas in about 6 trays and yes due to moving them and relying on memory, there is one tag in a nevpot of each varietie but now they been mixed up I can’t sell them to a collector. Perhaps at the markets i could saying that they are a Chameadorea if they just want a chamaedorea for patio or something in there garden. Not labeling is a big rookie mistake a lot of experienced growers make! Never rely on memory. When they mature a bit more I will or should be able to identify them.

Gigantochloa so.

You little match maker you, call you Cupid 💘Cold weather and light conditions (photoperiod day length) will produce more males!

Welp no rain since the storm 9/10 days ago so I spent 2.5 hours hand-watering in Katy tonight. Brings the total hand-watering count for the year to: 2. Didn't really see any signs of water stress yet on the established stuff. 10-12 days seems to be the interval for me for needing to water if there's no significant rainfall in this high summer weather. I plant very densely, lots of mulch, and have varying levels of shade and canopy. But please, please rain lol No natives or anything remotely xeric looking for me. Just shiny verdant tropicals and subtropicals

A nice garden in Kaikoura, about 2 hours north of Christchurch, taken on holiday recently. Is the second pic a standard Butia odorata, looked a but different to me?

Besides even purchased seedlings frequently do not turn out the real McCoy. Like this one plant bought as plumosa but it has turned out a beautiful and seemingly quite pure glaucifolia.

do they ever lean like that ? the trunk is almost fully straight. never had this issue before

Tim I have a Pritchardia hillebrandii in my Carlsbad garden and there are differences with this palm. I am open to suggestions still.

Red Latania

The month finishes with measures between 7.3in. and 8.5in after a small trace of rain yesterday. Now we'll see what August brings.

I would want a place for the water to drain , not stay in the pot . Harry

Water! And lots of it if your soil drains pretty well...if not, let it dry out a bit before soaking again. I've dug and transplanted quite a few of these and they're generally pretty tough, so hopefully it pulls through.

That would make my three all males unfortunately. I thought for a brief moment this year that one of them was possibly female, but no such luck. Put me on the seed list please Richard if you have good luck, would like to getsome partners for my lads.