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Howdy all kinda gloating over equipment upgrade. CLASS, here’s the assignment: Stand or sit as close to your front door and take pictures of what’s there, morning, noon, evening or night. Or afternoon. And post here! Here’s mine: ( For now!)

From my front door in my highland home. Tropical exuberance.

It's not my front door but it is my backdoor.

Here’s all of the palms I mentioned from before and pardon the layout of this message using a cellphone is rather tedious. I wouldn’t mind having some insight on all the species names so I am aware of what I currently have. I recently received 2 licuala grandis plants. My house sits next to a waterfall and is located and grandfathered in a reserve In low lying tropical jungle near the ocean Awkonradi. (I realize dictyocaryum is in high elevations in case anyone was wondering.. I am a half hour away from las cruzes Wilson’s botanical gardens) I am hoping to become more involved with choice cultivars of tropical species and helping preserve endangered species with seed collecting and distribution to other fellow collectors/reintroducing wild populations given my tropical zoning.

Ignore the rope haha

Oh can’t help myself Here’s one from yesterday before I ran off to karaoke The light of the failing golden sun focused through a Cocothrinax dussiana leaf oh praise glory! You think you’ve got problems? I’m in love with my new iPad!

Put me in coach. Palms waiting in the bullpen just hoping to be planted this spring. Not all pictured are going in of course but some will. For sure the D. Pembana (seen in 1st and 2nd pic) , D. saintelucei (Seen in third pic) and a few others including the Jubea chiliensis (Seen in last pic.) That one I’m afraid my wife might fight me on. So what do you plan on adding this spring? Pics if you have em.

robustas grow too tall too fast and have a small crown. Also if you want to trim them, you will need a bucket truck. Landscapers can charge up to 500 each to trim them. In the distance, they can look pretty good mostly against a sunset, but that will be the view of others not the owner. Your view will be straight up and precious little shade they throw. And enjoy those socal washies while you can, they are dying off and wont be replaced as a matter of public policy. More non palms are their plan in socal. Pensacola area would be good mule palm area, more tropical looking than queens, less issues with mineral deficiency and water, and eventually self shedding.

I was recently in Madrid and got to spend about an hour in the botanical garden there. They have a nice collection of palms in USDA zone 9a. I didn't take many pictures but thought I would share a few. I was especially impressed by the Trachycarpus martianus, Butia sp. gigantea and Parajubaea torallyi.

Interesting trachycarpus. Is this some form or ordinary T. fortunei? Photo taken in Yalta, Crimea.

As the Gerg demonstrated with his sunset photo, they can be attractive in the right setting. Maybe minimal grooming might work, but it takes just as much effort to do minimal as maximum grooming when they get tall. That is why one so often sees them butchered when they are professionally trimmed. If not trimmed and in a garden setting they can become a nuisance like my neighbor's. Those seeds hav e been dropping for weeks now and yet it still hardly looks like they have dropped any when looking up. They are close enough to my yard that I can touch them over the fence. When the seeds start popping up, it looks like I have distributed grass seed the sprouts are so thick. So unless you plan to keep up the continual removal of inflorescence, take it out now.

It’s northern facing exposure. I’d say it gets some direct sun in the summer but is otherwise protected. I think I got lucky with this one. Yellow croaked on me really quick. I had a maroon 4” that managed to cling to life for a few years (same location) but looked sad enough for me to pull it. This was a huge 1 gal from Floribunda. I believe it’s been in the ground since summer 2016.

This looks very pretty

As both spp Ch microspadix and Ch radicalis belong to the same subgenus Moreniella I guess hybridization might be successful.

Roebelenii/CIDP?

Everyone looking great in 1g! Looking back I’d like to do this again and begin with the deep pots and simply leave them alone.

Aloe speciosa

vielen Dank! Many thanks! They're definitely pushing the envelope zone-wise.

4 years old Areca catechu in Israel. so far so good.

A. Vestiaria

Well I guess the predictions came true. My coconut was not able to even survive half way through the winter. My best guess was that it just didn’t get enough warmth for too long to survive. Every 2 weeks a leaf would turn brown and this continued until the plant was no more. Also when I was getting rid of it, the whole plant separated from the nut. Does this sound consistent with a chilly coconut? I also wanted to keep the wooden part of the nut and see what was inside and what’s inside is pretty interesting. RIP Coco 2019-2020

Just like the title says, a healthy 5 gallon livistona saribus. This is a fast grower and will be ready for a 15g or the ground soon.

Just a correction Ponta do Sol is usually close to 18 (as long as I have been tracking it), give or take, Funchal observatory is the coldest station. They have also fixed Porto Moniz station (it wasn't getting good data for a few months) in the north. The lack of precipitation is bad for cocos, but to be honest the only way for cocos to thrive there, well.. they need irrigation. For people to get fruiting cocos they need to be close to each other if tall variety, they need to stop trimming them and they need to irrigate them during dry weather, soil type is also crucial, clay soil and they won't develop. I have few doubts a lot of people could get mature coco fruit, if they had the passion and followed these simple steps:)

@RyManUtah as a side note though, soil type is going to have the biggest influence on overall weight. Trachies themselves aren't very dense palms so even larger ones (~15') can be moved fairly easily with 2 or 3 people. I moved 2 that were roughly the same size as the one in question - 1 in sandy soil and 1 in clay soil. The sandy soil tree was about 7' oah and I could manhandle myself. The clay planted one (about 8' oah) was a ball buster. 36" diameter circle around the tree should be safe to get all the roots. My larger trees had 36"-42" diameter root balls when dug up.

@Laaz may be able to chime in, pretty sure he's got some hybrids of the 2

Thank you. I’m keeping it as “user friendly” as I can for now, however, slowly but surely the jungle will probably be taking over. We still like to entertain on occasion. Below is pic from Super Bowl Sunday before everyone came over. We set up a TV in backyard. But anyway.......let’s see what others are putting in ground this Spring. @GottmitAlex, I know you have limited space so let’s just hope you have another successful growing season with your cocos.

Shoot i didnt even notice lol

Where were u overwintering it?

Interesting - thanks for the video. I wanted to mention also that the spring/summer spear pulls on Sabal can happen if planted too deep. My S. riverside was planted at a good height with 1/3 of the heel above the ground.

Oh mein Gott Heil Coconuts!?

Who am I to disagree?

And class a back door view works too!

DD, it's beautiful!!!!! You have a true jungle in your yard.

Whenever you and they are ready! Shoot me a PM!

Thank you! I saw some tiny $20 ones in Lake Mary, FL Home Depot today but they looked like death.

Yes, thanks. Great firm answer!

Here’s my proposed location. It does face southeast. Would be completed blocked from a north or northwest wind and would receive radiational heat from the home. I think I mentioned in another thread that my lot grade is extreme - the home sits about 15 feet above the perimeter of the lot. This hopefully means most of the cold air flows downhill and settles at the street or at the pond.

These palms have been severely over-pruned, as well. It seems that this practice would increase the palm's vulnerability to infection.

The big box stores are the ultimate zone pushers. They sell thousands of trees and some of them will survive and eventually seed. There are tons of palms growing in Florida right now in places that I would never think they would live but somehow they do. I love what the big box stores are doing. Yes they're killing thousands of palms, but they're speeding up the genetic sorting of the ones that are just a little bit tougher.

Not a huge zone push, but I've seen more of these Dictyosperma album popping up in spots. This particular palm has been around since at least late 2010.

I love it. I was using Miraclegro shake and feed palm fertilizer before. I saw no real results. A year and a half ago several forum members recommended PalmGain. It has worked. Leaves on all my palms are green.

I just picked up a 10lb bag. Never used Palmgain, how do you like it? Plan on applying at the end of the month.

It wants to live and appears to be thriving. Call it fate.

I have had great luck with this Pritchardia pacifica, germinated from seed collected in 2013 from PR.

The stunning Rossioglossum species like it cooler rather than warmer as they come from high elevations.

update 19/02/2017

Looks really good Bret. This is a hard plant for me to grow here. I have killed all mine.

Getting it level..

Bob - It is more a matter of travel time than distance. Its not like you are traveling on a US highway. I recall our Biennel buses leaving from the town of Barahona, it was an all day excursion. Barahona is around 90-100 miles from Santa Domingo. Upon reaching our staging point, we transfered to some specially outfitted 4 wheel drive vehicles. After passing through the last village, the vehicles treked up rugged terrain on newly created "paths"(couldn't call them roads) made for our purpose. When we were leaving in small groups, one vehicle broke down on the "path". The more able bodied had to hoof it outta there. This is definitely a remote and non tourist area. Also, whatever plans are made - one must factor in that the Dominican Republic operates on "Island Time". The villages in the area are a bit lacking in facilities. Our visit consumed every bottled water and beer they had. Alan - I forgot all about the blow hole until your post reminded me. Thanks for rekindling that memory.