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Hi everyone and Happy New Year! We had lovely 24C/75F this morning so I went out with my youngest to a playground - closely located to a wonderful spot with almost untouched habitat. If you want to enjoy some of the images I haven taken, follow me... This Arenga caught immediately my attention... I zoomed a bit in with my phone but I think the silvery underside of the leaf speaks for itself. After letting my daughter play for a while we took a stroll through the little jungle... I was here before (it must have been a year ago) but I definitely enjoyed it being here again. Trunks of mature Livistonas appeared... ...looking up... and looking down again - taking it all in... This ones petioles were interesting... ...me as scale... Its leaves were so close together that they formed a new canopy... I could have looked at it for hours but my daughter got impatient so we moved on... The bottom of a huge Arenga. There was no opportunity to take a picture of the whole palm. Another try with the camera but the space was narrow to get it all in. There were many more of them but we were running out of time and left the spot - but it was definitely a great start into the new year. Thank you for your time - Lars

My mule palm tonight ...7 ft of trunk bought it as a 10 or 15 gallon from Raintree nursery. Silverton Or....nice place.

Desided to move this off the Happy New Year topic so as not to distract from that thought Since Midnight I've had 3.77 inches of rain. Yea not that much to some of ;you but here on the dry side it's a problem. Since much of my land is down slope from neighbors on 3 sides I get all their run off making my dry stream bed a very wet stream. The 8" or so that came at the beginning of last month caused my 3' drain pipe to clog up with leaves, branches and palm fronds. Because of this much of the lower stream bed it totally silted up. I cleared some of the clog last month but not enough. Gonna have some digging over the next few weeks. When it drys up I'll get some pictures of the blockage. Here is a short video I took about an hour ago when it stopped raining. 20220101_113912.mp4

January 1st Update on the Pygmy palms and the queens and the last pic is a majesty palm someone planeted there a few months ago. I guess whoever is in charge of planting has no palm knowledge lol.

not gonna give up on the parajubaea cross. just yet,gonna wait for the warm up.hopefully worst case scenario will be a spear pull.

I did a check mission today on some of the trees the Butia x Jubaea x Queens looked ok, Jubaea x Butia yatay- Patrick Schafers looked fine, Jubaea x Butia looked ok, Jubutia x Queen looked ok. Jubaea x Queen looked ok., Jubaea looked fine.but I hate to say my parajubea x Butia/Jubaea ( last pic ) maybe toast. won't know the final outcome till things start to grow, in the spring Mukilteo wa Z8B

Lots of typical palms in my neighborhood, but this house has a few things that stand out, especially the 20’+ oliviformis

However, Lowe’s routinely marks down plants that have been on the shelves too long. Half price and sometimes even less.

Here are the B. alfrediis I mentioned above. The smaller one is over 15 feet. The larger one is about 25 feet overall. They have the potential to be long term growers in favorable parts of 9a such as North East Florida.

In the mountains west of Catamarca

This winter I'm using aged sheep manure as an organic mulch

1-month-old baby

These are chodatii but what the heck

Happy New Year to all of you - from Okinawa! Lars

Miami, and I think that ridiculously STUPID return policy is directly responsible for the fact my local big box stores sell almost NOTHING but freakin' Majesty palms. I remember when my local NJ big boxes sold all of what I could also basically buy in MIAMI! P.S., I have NEVER returned any purchased plant, if it dies it was MY FAULT. People are ridiculous and getting freakin' ridiculouser (my word contribution for 2022)! Have a Happy btw...

@P. Hightower Yeah those were my palms absolutely gorgeous , way nicer looking then your run of the mill queens. If queens survive in your area then I would give these a try. When mine died we had freezing rain so im thinking a frost cloth and some lights they would've survived. No way would they have survived Palmageddon unless given serious freeze protection. T J

I never get tired looking at that mule palm. I think mine did ok too.

Not sure what caused its failure but the good thing is that you had three completely separate Phoenix roebelenii palms. It’s not a single plant. Now you have two so whatever happened to the one palm won’t necessarily affect the remaining two.

Happy New Year to all!

Funny thing, we have the same expression about Melbourne.

Here is my review of the pop up greenhouse. It was very good for protecting from cold winds, you could feel it was warmer inside with out heat. Easy to put up only took 5 minutes. Comes with stakes for extra strength for the sides. Bad thing is the zipper got frozen on one night. Bad thing is the top is a hoop shape and that will not stand up to rain or snow. It would invert and become a funnel of water or snow. Will I use it again yes, but will have to put a stake inside to keep the top upright. I think a wooden one (home made) would be better for heavy snow for sure. last pic is the melting snow on top pushing it down. I had heat inside and that melted the snow.

Happy New Year to all and to you "Hawaiians" out there how was the storm last night? We go about 2.5 inches between Midnight and 3 am. Havent gone out yet to see if there was any flooding as my "dry" stream was roaring during the early morning.

This house also sports one of the largest Pandanus I have seen in Encinitas.

Above ground power and phone lines can be problematic as these Caryota's and a few other palms planted underneath the lines show.

Dave Alvarez has videos on youtube Also if you haven't seen this thread you Need to: Also I think I stole this pic from someone here. Not sure any info on these Jubaeas other than they're up by Seattle somewhere.

It may be a little late, but do you have any lighting on the path or around the house? That adds a lot of instant curb appeal. Since it's a rental property I assume you won't be there on a daily basis. As such I wouldn't suggest anything super rare/expensive in the spots. Maybe a pair of Bottle palms up front in the sun? For visitors from the Frozen Tundra (anywhere much North of Florida) things like Bottles and Coconuts scream "VACATION!!!" So do the bigger Alcantarea, as Stacey suggested.

As a Californian, I'm not qualified to recommend specific plants, but here's a quick & dirty mockup of one possible layout for the front. - The area immediately in front of the house might look nice with Lady Palms & Ti? - Maybe put something tall & skinny that can take some sun (Ptychosperma elegans?) on the front right. - Then maybe a clumping palm (Dypsis lutescens?) on the far left to provide some balance (and possible screening of the garage area)? Not sure what to do with the other three planters... my gut feel is mid-size tropical plants, but there might be other nice options. For bromeliads, if sun is a major issue you could do Aechmea blanchetiana, but those require a lot of maintenance. If you can find them, Alcantarea 'Julietta' is a nice statement bromeliad that lasts a really long time, and can take some sun. I dropped a photo of a Julietta in the image next to the Areca palms. Hope there's something helpful in there from a design perspective.

It’s grim. Gotta look at the emerging spears and mark them with a sharpe to see if they are moving first. No movement after a couple days or a week max is not a good sign. -dale

You are correct, this is a real deal Filifera. For photos like this, looking up at a tall trunk, a good indicator is that the newest dead leaf bases at the top are already a light tan color. If there's red-brown present in the petioles, that will translate to these leaf bases until they slowly fade out to tan

They’re about like most Outback plants, they can be damaged in the low 20s in South Texas. Root rot keeps them from being used more often here, they love ‘em in hot dry towns in Argentina. This is one in Weslaco, one growing season after last year’s freeze:

I strongly suspect infestation of water molds (the lawn around promotes their spread), especially Rhizoctonia Among the various Sabal spp palmetto is very vulnerable to Rhizoctonia. It is followed by minor, etonia and miamiensis. I have lost numerous Sabal specimens (including to the above mentioned also bermudana, domingensis, mexicana). In all cases symptoms were shockingly uniform: first were affected the newest fully developed leaves followed by spear pull and meristem's death. Older leaves remained unaffected till their natural decline but palm was already dead. I have posted a whole topic here with many illustrations. If it is your case too fyi Rhizoctonia is vulnerable to chlorothalonil (Daconil), which is very sadly banned in Europe, and toclofos-methyl. In your shoes, I would apply a thorough disinfection schedule on your soil, as Rhizoctonia tends to persist and spread. And disinfect also ALL your digging tools!

Hi, あけましておめでとうございます！ ...and welcome to palmtalk and its great community! I think you have great options to grow some very exotic palms. As already mentioned, you may focus on those close to the tropics or those growing on higher (cooler) grounds within tropical areas. South America offers an enourmous range and you may take a look on species from New Zealand. I could go on and on... Without having travelled to all those areas where our palmtalkers are located, you can get a pretty good picture about their climatical conditions by just reading carefully the threads posted here. Al right then, happy growing! best regards from Okinawa - Lars

To bad about the parajubaea cross. All my palms look good, some of the colorful cordylines here are looking really ratty and maybe spear pull or die back. Livistona chinensis looks great. Aloes are still cover up with snow, so tomorrow I will see how they look. The ones in dry spaces are still frozen so maybe in a week I will know for sure. Glad your other mule palms look great. Nice to see the pics.

Marojejya beccariophoenix approaching the bluff: not a bad view from your backyard!

Metroxylon Amicarum! Pritchardia archontophoenix purpuraea lots of Clinostigmas:

Shortcut out of the neighborhood to go grab some smoothies at What’s Shakin’ smoothie spot. more palmy houses: past the old Pepe’ekeo sugar mill: onomea bay “scenic drive”: smoothie stop:

A couple of photos, no mysteries, just the Dypsis and more part of this thread. Tim Dypsis onilahensis Dypsis mananjarensis

.... and finally to a palmy house that the dogs know well and little puppy Klaus is happy to be home to take a nap in the sun. Anyone else go for a nice walk on the last day of the year and see a few palms they want to share?

More palmy homes up the hill from my house.

Back across the Coast Highway and my side of the tracks, I walked by what should be a very familiar garden on this website. I've been tempted to ask if I can have one of those Persimmons, but we are loaded up with the other softer variety right now. I love the Dypsis basilonga, which is coming along fantastically. The Ficus adjacent to it is hanging in there doing better than the one I killed a few years back. Had to get one shot peaking through the gate, and show off the tall Roystonea and fruit laden Howa belmoreana.

John, I hope you succeed on your quest, your have many years to make it happen. Hmmm…it’s about time for a Licuala thread. Tim

sept 2021 pic of my alba, its been setting seed for 3-4 years now. In this pic it is holding extra leaves, they will drop pretty quickly this spring. The leaves are self shedding now to a fairly smooth trunk. Overall height is a tad under 20'.

I like this species so much I put it in my wedding vows, "Insignis and in health".

Would that be a new coconut behind, and to the left, of the lady next to the truck?

Washington park in Seattle has some big Jubaeas as well.

A VERY rare sight ...Not the Sunrise, ...Me being awake to capture it, lol #Not an early morning person -at all - ( Except when headed out on an adventure / road trip ) Rolled over and noticed the bright red orange glow entering the room through the blinds.. Worth getting out of bed, ..for a minute or two.. haha. Wider view.. Pulled in a bit..

On January 17th, the high was only 35F with a low of 17F two nights in a row in Mobile, AL. Snow made it all the way to the coast with weather stations even at the beaches collected a Trace. I am using Mobile's numbers over Pensacola's numbers because Pensacola has its own little microclimate around the airport, which is where highs/lows were sampled. I can also imagine that with this planting being at a river bank, it was probably a little more of a "humid" cold than other areas. I would also like to point out something that is a little more surprising, however i am willing to bet that these were far more established than the I-10 Mules. There is a planting of Mules at the AL/FL line along Hwy 189 in Okaloosa County. The Mules were damaged, and as you can see from streetview they survived. More evidence of survival is newer satellite images from 2020 showing all 6 Mules still alive and well. https://www.google.com/maps/@30.9949147,-86.6277739,3a,75y,199.9h,84.55t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sS2vURuT_npnt1T_EhdSh9w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 The more recent satellite images (they are actually quite tall): https://www.google.com/maps/@30.9946796,-86.6277793,79m/data=!3m1!1e3

Humans have a problem in that they tend to look at history in the space of at most a few lifetimes...a blip in terms of the history of our world, and even our relatively recent species. I was told by a "master gardener" type at the Key West Botanical Garden (I was buying "native" plants from her) that a native is anything that was in the Keys before the arrival of the English. I didn't want to get into a meaty argument with her (she being the type of snowbird that relocates permanently and suddenly and unbendingly knows all about their new home), but I had to shake my head at this attitude, which also bleeds into ongoing government attitudes about the arguably native/non-native green iguanas, which, like coconuts, have a very blurry origin in the Keys. One odd thing I have noticed in the Keys, where there is a really obsessive attitude in government about the control over planting and removal of plants...as an example, the silver buttonwood is a highly touted native in that it occurs naturally only in one tiny population, I believe in the Long Beach area of Big Pine Key or somewhere adjacent...and though of course this is a popular ornamental used for hedging and other purposes on a vast scale in South Florida due to man's intervention via the nursery industry, if I go to the nursery and purchase one, and plant it on my land, I am required to seek (and pay for) a permit to remove that "native" plant should I desire to do so in the future, even though I bought it, planted it, and it has never grown naturally on my area of Big Pine Key. There is such hysteria over plant removal permitting that the result now is counterproductive: when homeowners see a native plant sprouting or growing as a young plant or sapling, even in an area they might desire such a plant, they invariably rip them out before they are a few feet tall, with the logic that they would rather go to the nursery and buy something non-native, as they will never have to get a permit to remove something that is an "invasive exotic" (those two words apparently now permanently fused in Florida). As regards the destroyed coconut trees, I think a call to the Miami Herald along with those photos might be a step in the right direction. People by and large love coconuts and they are a defining element in south Florida. I remember that at least one city (might have been Miami) was going to ban all coconuts from municipal plantings due to the current hysteria, but a public campaign put a stop to the policy. A newspaper can make a big difference in alerting the public to such activities.

Germination process has started. Trying different methods: a baggie and community pot (a sealed food container) filled with soiless medium (rehydrated and squeezed pure coco coir). I don't know if there's any technical difference between these two methods since both create sealed environment or if baggie has any advantage over community pots, but I never tried baggie so giving it a try. Also, I sowed some seeds in individual containers (disposable cups) filled with soil based medium (garden soil+vermicompost mixed with soil conditioners perlite+vermiculte+coco coir, and treated with Previcur a professional fungicide). Some seeds are still soaking as I too want to repeat Jon's experiment and see if they're going to sprout right in the water or not! Keeping everything at around 93-98F during the day and 70-77F during the nigh time.

I have seen the different colors in the flowers. Just not like the one you posted on Palmpedia where it had two different colors. One of our mules puts of a quite nice inflorescence. Almost pink