Leaderboard

@Manalto That would be a male flower. The females look like 3 balls... Here are two pictures from mine today: MALE: FEMALE:

Palms, palms, palms, everywhere. A few more shots. Having a two story house helps with the view immensely. Tim

This is really appreciated now after 2 weeks of quarantine and possibly another month more to go

rare C. renda rainbow spadix... only seen a few but this was the best one, only lasts hours

For anyone interested, this is as much low temperature data as I could derive from the executive airport out on the barrier island. I've also attached it in spreadsheet form. The notes allude to the missing lows in some years (noted by 0's in the low column when they weren't recorded) or obviously invalid data like -63 for a low. I noted the month the low was recorded just so we could see the distribution by month - with no surprise that it was usually in January. @Estlander stepped forward for those of us in Florida and took screen shots of the Weather Underground maps for the various regions of Florida during our short cold spell this winter. This data compilation is my way of returning the favor. 202003312220_DestinExecutiveAirport.xlsx

First flower spathe on one of my Areca Macrocalyx.

Hurricane season is fast approaching! Now is the time to prepare! This hurricane season could be a big one, Colorado State is releasing an official outlook this week, Thursday, April 2nd 2020. I will post more information about current storms basin-wide. The first name is Arthur! Hurricane season starts in 60 days!

Just when I though winter was done with, the first 10 days of spring have been very cool. Lows in the 10C, highs at 17-19C... Last week we had a hail storm. No. No freeze, frost or snow. However it did last about 3 minutes. All of my cocos were exposed. Even the little one (haari papua). Well, its been a week after, and all of them are pushing on! (Cue Col. Bogey march)

Hello everyone! I am new to the forum. I had a royal palm planted a few weeks ago and wanted to make sure that it was okay to plant it in a depression so the water can catch. The soil is 100 percent fast draining soil. I also want to make sure the way it was planted won't grow any Ariel roots. Thank you for your time!

Photobombed by that pesky Tahina

First chris, good to hear from you! Here is an update: I lost a bizzie to the dreaded palm weevil last fall. On the positive side, the surviving female palm is among the whitest I have seen. I took some pics mid day for you chris. Here is the palm in bright sun showing its high wax leaves. First looking up at the massive spears preparing to open and second the overall pic in bright sun. best, Tom

Relatively new guy here. Garden is a little younger than everyone else’s. Views from the patio since that’s where we spend most of our time. and don’t be too jealous of my freshly laid St. Augustine Seville sod (wife’s insistence, not mine).

Looks fine, smother it with water, you can not drown these.

Piggybacking onto this thread to show this strange yellow growth on my wee Med Fan. I guess I should douse it with antibiotics! But seriously, do we know if it's a boy or a girl?

Here is our's which is around 9 years old.. .

Yeah not a lot of love from March. Not many days into the 70s. I’m a bit lucky I guess that I’m 18 miles from the coast. I got a handful of 70s while my shop in Encinitas broke 70 I think once this month with plenty days in the low 60s. Hopefully April will bring some steady warmth. It’s 72 right now at 6pm so that’s not bad but the forecast looks like more cool weather.

Hear, hear!

It’s finally home. Now that I’ve been able to examine it more thoroughly and I know what to look for thanks to @akamu, I’m convinced it’s a regia. It does have the black specs on the crownshaft.

Nice. I got this one for $110 dollars from a guy in Florida that pulled it up and was going to throw it away. I got to him just in time. It's about 8' tall. They're underrated palms, imo. They take forever to grow, too. So that might be part of it.

It's about 6 years old, growing slower in the Azores, and is wobbling. Probably because the planter has a tall rock bottom inside on one side occupying more than half of it and then it slides down to a deeper ground which has got no bottom and it was planted a bit on the high side, exposing the roots for 1/2 inch or so, so perhaps the palm pushed itself up a bit and never released its full potential roots into the soil. I added sand under it and I hope the roots will be released or I may have to stake it. Would staking it potentially damage the sensitive roots?

i know, i know... it's not a coconut , but i thought a few people would be interested to know that the Basselinia vestita here at Floribunda is opening its male flowers. This is the same plant that is in the Encyclopedia of Cultivated Palms 2nd edition, doing much much better now that it was un-planted from the ground and moved to a 55G pot. I am also convinced that this plant is vying for the record of most orders of branching in the trunk of a palm (it is branching to five orders) Not the best photo, but i was shaking with excitement trying to capture these tiny flowers on my memory card. Thrilled to have this opportunity to observe such a rare event, thank you again Jeff and Suchin for being the best mentors a palm nerd could dream of.

Good amount diversity among Cacti here, especially the Hedgehogs, Genus Echinocereus.. Would bet there are other Genera/ sp. i didn't observe there also. While keeping your distance, from other humans, is a bit important for the moment, keeping your distance from other desert hazards can be just as important anytime you're out exploring.. even if they're worth hanging out near to observe. Cholla ( Cylindropuntia sp. and Opuntias ( Prickly Pears ) Think the Opuntia is Englemann's O. englemannii Graham's Pincushion, Mammillaria grahamii Some Saguaros, Carnigea gigantea A few BIG Barrels ( Ferrocactus )

Planted this today Sold as Butia Ordata Seller Claims it is around 2 years old. Something i Find kind of strange since I have allways heard that Butias where slow as snails and this palm is around 180cm tall. It does come from a place with a great climate for growing it all year around but still. (Veracruz, Mexico). I dont think the leafs look like butia leafs i have seen in pictures. what do you think?

Saw this on a FB group devoted to our old neighborhood

My wife hates that the fronds hang over into our walkway, but she’s agreed to be nice to them. I love this palm. The leaves open blue but wash out to green over time. This one is from Kevin Weaver. Planted this out 4 1/2 years ago from a 5 gallon. In

Blooms on my Handroanthus heptaphyllus today, April 1st, 2020. No fooling! It had two blooming sessions last year at my place (9a/b?), spring and fall. Plus, it flowers when younger than Hydroanthus (Tabebuia) impetiginosa. More info: https://www.rareflora.com/tabebuiahep.html

Thank you for the helpful information :).

I have to say that because the temps don't normally get really hot this time of year right on the coast that for the most part the deviations have been pretty mild except for the amount of rainfall. Orchids and Aloes are pretty much right on time in flowering and palms are pushing new leaves right on schedule. This is normally a little early for most of my Encephalartos genus cycads to be pushing new flushes so the fact that some are perched and waiting for a little more heat isn't out of line with normal. I'm sure with the abundance of rain in my microclimate this winter and early spring that I'll continue seeing good growth when temps do start to increase. I'm actually a little closer to the coast than your office Steve and I definitely got at least a handful of days in March exceeding 70 in my backyard where the thermometers are located. The rain has been thhe bigger deviation from norm versus average temps both at home and in Chula Vista where we track it closely in our solar evaporation operations producing salt.

Thank you for that. Much appreciated:)

as you see the new growth is a lot greener in one of the pics. The paleness is just the fact that i took the photo at a bad angle in the sun. The other Butia i Bought from him was more Blueish than this one. It has been packed up in a package for 2-3 days so that might also give some color change?

I bought this yesterday. I know royals are iffy here but for $200 I couldn’t say no. Especially since my wife’s birthday is Tuesday and this is what she wanted. They have done pretty well in Galveston over the last 30 years a lot of them, including this one survived the hard freeze of Jan 2018. Living on Galveston bay my temperatures on the cold winter nights is typically only a degree or two colder than Galveston but with more day time heating, so again. Worth a shot. The guy that sold it to me referred to it as a Cuban royal (roystonea regia). I’m not sure if that’s accurate. I don’t have a lot of experience with roystoneas, but the regias I’ve seen even in smaller pots had fatter trunks and longer leaves. I guess this could be stunted from being in the pot for too long. He said he’s had it there for 3 years. But I’ve read that regias have black specs on the petioles which this doesn’t. Any ideas?

@Xenon @Jeff985 @Estlander What the hell. Just what the hell. I still cant understand why all this damn arguing even started, and i dont want an answer. STOP THIS MADNESS, WHAT THE HELL HAS QUARANTINE DONE TO ALL OF YOU!?! YALL HAVE BEEN BACK AND FORTH FOR THE PAST 24 HOURS ABOUT THIS AND IT NEEDS TO STOP, ACT LIKE ADULTS AND MOVE ON WITH YOURSELVES!!!! GET OUT AND ENJOY THESE PALMS YALL SPEAK OF AND STOP THIS PATHETIC CRAP SHOW!!!!!! IM SURE TIRED OF IT AND I THINK OTHERS ARE ASWELL. Which by the way @Estlander, how is your new queen holding on? Mine went through some leaf shredding today with all the high winds.

For the weather at Destin Executive Airport, this link may help: https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/fl/destin/KDTS

How long did the aforementioned freeze last?

In the back left.............

My beautiful hybrid latan palm new frond mixed with blue and red color

They are slow growing. They should hardy as ordinary Chamaerops.

First palm in the ground this year, really like this one. Grew strong all winter so into the soil.

Try Jungle Music. They ship.

Hydriastele dransfieldii Subtle color to new leaf Verschaffeltia splendida Calyptrocalyx pachystachys mottled seedling begins to brighten.

About 10 years in the ground

Here are mine. Perfect palms for my area except susceptible to lethal bronzing and palm weevils.

North myrtle

I'm not usually a contrarian but today I guess I am. When I saw that nice-looking Med palm, I thought, "wouldn't it be even more striking in a cluster of three or so crowns." Well, I guess that's what keeps the nurseries in business! Their slow-growing habit can also be a plus. I tend to like them with 4-6 feet of trunk and the foliage at or above eye level. I've got some waiting to do for mine to reach that height. When I bought my Chamaerops, I chose the bluest one out of those that were available. (It wasn't very blue at all.) Since I've brought it home the new growth has been a pleasant surprise; it's quite silvery. Could the reason be that previously it was in some shade and now it gets a full day of sun? I do agree that they're underrated. They're tough palms and have a delicacy that is compatible with a lot of different types of gardens.

The oak trunks were great the first two winters, I probably cut and split a full cord of wood and it did great in the living room fireplace. It took a while to figure out my wife's allergies, and by then it was too rotten to even consider burning it in the fireplace. The West side of the house is somewhat exposed to NW winds, and the only time I see that side of the house is really when I'm mowing the yard. So I wanted stuff that would be fairly cheap, grow by itself, and provide some shade to the West wall. In April I ran across a couple of 2-3' trunk Livistona Chinensis at a HD near me. They had been wrapped in plastic and sat out in front of the store over the winter, and no one wanted them. I think I paid $100 each and set them to "frame" the side wall. I picked up 4 kinda ratty looking queens from Green's Nursery for about $30 each and added a couple of small Chinensis on each side of the larger ones. I picked up a Phoenix Reclinata from Green's for about $50 and put it in the center behind the oak. My theory was that the Queens would grow quickly for shade and the Reclinata would grow up behind it. I was already planning on removing the two water oaks, and I figured that I could cut down one or more of the Queens if they became a problem in storms. The 4th photo is in early July 2018 just after the tree removal, you can see how bright it is there in the afternoon, and how horrible the paint is on that wall! I picked up a couple more queens from Lakeshore Tree Farm in the Lake Nona area for $45 each, they were in much better shape and 12-15' tall in the ground. The red banana on the S side of the line of palms is growing rapidly, and I also added a couple of variegated yellow-green gingers for some filler in the middle. You can also see one of my three my dripline setups next to the AC compressor.

OMG, one little palm I have coveted everytime I go to Jeff's on the way to the office. Pretty sure that's the one you’re talking about. That coconut comment is spot on. Tim

And they grow pretty rapidly. We planted them to be understory palms thinking that the Clinostigma samoense would be larger and more dominant, but they have kept up. Both species were planted in 2009 - The Clinostigma from 25 gal and the P. caesia from 5 gal. Suspect we had the same source as Tim. - gmp