McCarty Hall Palm Garden at the University of Florida update! (2008 - 2014) Some before and after pics!

[Bigfish]

Wallichia densiflora lost the main trunk.  The Arenga micrantha looks dead (not pictured).

[Bigfish]

Dypsis decaryi and Allagoptera look good!

[Bigfish]

Fishtail keeps right on trucking! 

[bubba]

Thank you Big Fish for the update! Really amazing what can grow in that great micro-climate!

[Dave-Vero]

A Sabal uresana might be a great addition.  

[kylecawazafla]

Thank you, Big Fish, for the update! That Kerriodoxa looks amazing! Unfortunately, the Sabal you photographed was generously donated as "Sabal sp.", so I do not know the ID. I'm glad the Dypsis lutescens is still alive! 

[Bigfish]

4 hours ago, kylecawazafla said:

Thank you, Big Fish, for the update! That Kerriodoxa looks amazing! Unfortunately, the Sabal you photographed was generously donated as "Sabal sp.", so I do not know the ID. I'm glad the Dypsis lutescens is still alive! 

That Sabal is a curious one!  It blooms at a young age for a trunking species.  The inflorescences are held well within the leaves.  It has a minor scale infestation, while other Sabal species around it are unbothered by scale.  Seed size is too small for S. mexicana.  So there’s several species that you can rule out, and I suppose if one were very inclined and had a Sabal monograph handy, you could probably key it out.  

 

The Dypsis has one live stem, but yes, it is alive!  The Kerriodoxa is awesome!  I was kind of surprised about the Arenga micrantha looking completely dead.  I thought it was supposed to be even more hardy than A. engleri?!

[kylecawazafla]

Hopefully the Dypsis lutescens recovers completely into a beautiful clumping palm within a few years. Do you have a photo of the Arenga micrantha? I'm surprised too! The palm always held only one or two fronds, so I can imagine a maintenance worker accidentally chopping it when trimming the nearby hedges (in the past, they mowed over some of the palms when they were smaller!) That's interesting about the sabal! Hopefully time will tell. I was surprised to see it full of seeds as well in your photo! Did you happen to see if the Ficus elastica was growing still or the Bismarckia? I still can't get over how quickly Acrocomia grow! 

[Bigfish]

9 minutes ago, kylecawazafla said:

Hopefully the Dypsis lutescens recovers completely into a beautiful clumping palm within a few years. Do you have a photo of the Arenga micrantha? I'm surprised too! The palm always held only one or two fronds, so I can imagine a maintenance worker accidentally chopping it when trimming the nearby hedges (in the past, they mowed over some of the palms when they were smaller!) That's interesting about the sabal! Hopefully time will tell. I was surprised to see it full of seeds as well in your photo! Did you happen to see if the Ficus elastica was growing still or the Bismarckia? I still can't get over how quickly Acrocomia grow! 

The Ficus elastica is barely alive and maybe a foot tall.  The Bismarckia looks great!  I didn’t photograph the Arenga micrantha, but the trunk is still there, so they didn’t mow over it.  It’s sunken in and obviously dead.  It might come back from the roots, but you would think that it would have started doing something already if it was going to.

 

[Steve the palmreader]

On ‎5‎/‎1‎/‎2018‎ ‎1‎:‎10‎:‎44‎, kylecawazafla said:

Here are some photos of the winter damage from the 2017/18 winter. I don't know how cold it got, but I'm guessing below 27 F! 

Click here for photos

Is this dead?

 

26945860637_2e90034d3c_z.jpg

What lake is that ?

[Sandy Loam]

On 5/13/2014, 12:55:11, kylecawazafla said:

Well, the title explains it all! Here are some pictures of one of North Central Florida's newest palm gardens! It started in 2008 and many palms have survived! There are many "tropical" species growing in this Zone 8 area of Florida, since they are protected from the urban heating effect (I'm assuming) as well as being surrounded by buildings! I don't think this area has been much below 24 F since it was planted. There are a few big surprises! It was such a great experience planting all of these trees thanks to donations from members and enthusiasts from this site!! Thank you all, once again!!!

 

First, here are some of the original palms! I forget who planted this old butiagrus… Maybe Merrill or his friend Noel Lake.

 

 

 

Butia capitata that is pretty old!

 

 

Alleged Sabal palmetto x causiarum (I have a few seeds…. PM me!)

 

Sabal causiarum …. The original!

 

Is that an old Butia Capitata of is it a Mule Palm?  What a tall trunk for a Butia capitata!

[Sandy Loam]

Oops, I was reading the wrong caption below instead of above.  You indeed said that the tall one **IS** a mule palm.

[Bigfish]

Took a few pictures on Saturday.  The Kerriodoxa is a real show-stopper!  Everything seems to be chugging along well.

[Bigfish]

[Bigfish]

T

[Bigfish]

Dypsis is still alive, lol.

[Merlyn]

I definitely need to buy some seeds of Wallichia Oblongifolia!  My reading on the Arenga Micrantha is that some are okay to around 20F but others show serious damage around 23-24F.  But they grow sooooooo slow that one damaging freeze could just kill it.  Maybe that's what happened to the one there, which is a shame.  But the rest of it looks amazing!

[RedRabbit]

Thanks for sharing, it’s nice to see a triangle doing well there. 

[bubba]

Kyle's experiment has proven very interesting. Edge testing on steroids!

[kylecawazafla]

Thank you so much for the update! I was actually thinking about these palms earlier today, so it's quite coincidental I stumbled upon your post! I'm so happy to see that Dypsis lutescens is still alive! I will never get over how quickly Acrocomia grow! 

[Bigfish]

23 hours ago, kylecawazafla said:

Thank you so much for the update! I was actually thinking about these palms earlier today, so it's quite coincidental I stumbled upon your post! I'm so happy to see that Dypsis lutescens is still alive! I will never get over how quickly Acrocomia grow! 

Kyle, I’m in awe of that Acrocomia!  It’s strange to me that it hasn’t flowered yet.

[Gville Palms]

@kylecawazafla now that I know a little history about where all these palms came from, let me provide an update. All of these have been taken at some point within the past 12 months. One of the queens met its demise about a year ago but most everything else is healthy as can be. 

Edited February 23 by Gville Palms

[Gville Palms]

[kylecawazafla]

Wow that's amazing! Thanks so much for the updated photos! Thanks to generous donations from people in this group and the Central Florida Palm and Cycad Society, I was able to experiment with many palm trees back when I was a college student.

If you're curious about palm IDs and what was planted and didn't survive, here is the original palm map I made in 2009.

 

 

[Gville Palms]

8 hours ago, kylecawazafla said:

Wow that's amazing! Thanks so much for the updated photos! Thanks to generous donations from people in this group and the Central Florida Palm and Cycad Society, I was able to experiment with many palm trees back when I was a college student.

If you're curious about palm IDs and what was planted and didn't survive, here is the original palm map I made in 2009.

 

 

Thanks so much for passing this along. I am a professor in a completely unaffiliated department (APK) that simply enjoys plants. I have always wondered where these came from, so it is very neat to see this. Do you mind if I ask how this all came about? Did you simply ask to plant these and the university agreed to it or how did that go? They have clearly fully embraced your plants because about a year or two ago they started officially labeling many of them (picture attached). I am sure the person labeling the plants would really enjoy having this document because it seems clear to me that they are not entirely sure exactly what each palm/plant is so they are only labeling the more obvious ones.  I will also go and check to see what is still alive that I have not seen yet.

[Gville Palms]

Okay, here are the palms and plants I did not post the other day. 

W Robusta 

C Alba - I thought these were supposed to be pretty fast growing? 

 

L Australis 

 

L Decora 

 

L Mariae 

 

S Causiarum 

 

 

 

[Gville Palms]

Mule 

 

Bird of Paradise 

 

Ficus 

 

L Saribus? 

 

C Australis 

 

R Rivularis 

 

[Gville Palms]

dypsis lutescens

Kerriodoxa

 

Wallichia densiflora

 

 

[kylecawazafla]

Wow! Thanks so much for posting these photos! You're saving me a trip to Gainesville, FL, as I enjoy checking up on them every once in a while. 

When I was in high school, I volunteered at the herbarium with Marc Frank and Kent Perkins (who still works there, I believe). Kent Perkins set me up with the grounds department, and I wrote a proposal once I was enrolled at UF and got it approved, and then had to have all the planting sites marked with someone from the grounds department (to make sure it wasn't on any pipes/fiber optic cables) and then once the spots were marked off, I was able to plant! Unfortunately, palm trees are not the most visually appealing as seedlings, so many were mowed down or weed whacked to death as seedlings 😪 but I'm glad to see there are some surviving and thriving! Are you curious about planting more palms? It's a great microclimate. I believe the original palms planted there (I don't know if all of them are still alive, but there were/are some very old Syagrus, the original Sabal causiarum, and a very old Butiagrus) that were planted by the late Merrill Wilcox, a palm legend and former UF professsor, who first discovered this place as a great microclimate. 

 

The Dypsis lutescens was my house plant in my apartment that I planted when I moved. I can't believe it's still alive! I also can't believe the Cyathea is finally trunking. Yes, that is the Livistona saribus.  I also cannot believe the Ficus elastica is still alive, as it has frozen to the ground so many times! 

 

Do they still have an avocado tree there? There used to be a famous "hardy avocado" next to the Acrocomia totai, however it was removed due to laurel wilt disease, however they did plant a replacement, so I am wondering if it is still alive. 

[Gville Palms]

7 hours ago, kylecawazafla said:

Wow! Thanks so much for posting these photos! You're saving me a trip to Gainesville, FL, as I enjoy checking up on them every once in a while. 

When I was in high school, I volunteered at the herbarium with Marc Frank and Kent Perkins (who still works there, I believe). Kent Perkins set me up with the grounds department, and I wrote a proposal once I was enrolled at UF and got it approved, and then had to have all the planting sites marked with someone from the grounds department (to make sure it wasn't on any pipes/fiber optic cables) and then once the spots were marked off, I was able to plant! Unfortunately, palm trees are not the most visually appealing as seedlings, so many were mowed down or weed whacked to death as seedlings 😪 but I'm glad to see there are some surviving and thriving! Are you curious about planting more palms? It's a great microclimate. I believe the original palms planted there (I don't know if all of them are still alive, but there were/are some very old Syagrus, the original Sabal causiarum, and a very old Butiagrus) that were planted by the late , a palm legend and former UF professsor, who first discovered this place as a great microclimate. 

 

The Dypsis lutescens was my house plant in my apartment that I planted when I moved. I can't believe it's still alive! I also can't believe the Cyathea is finally trunking. Yes, that is the Livistona saribus.  I also cannot believe the Ficus elastica is still alive, as it has frozen to the ground so many times! 

 

Do they still have an avocado tree there? There used to be a famous "hardy avocado" next to the Acrocomia totai, however it was removed due to laurel wilt disease, however they did plant a replacement, so I am wondering if it is still alive. 

Thanks for the background information. It is all so interesting to hear. The old Syagrus plams are still alive but the butiagrus died. I think planting more palms there would be great. It’s obvious that very few plants, if any, have been planted since you left. I think trying to see if some sort of crownshaft palm could grow in the right location within that area would be worth the time. I have never seen one growing anywhere outside in Gainesville and if there’s anywhere it would stand a chance, I have to assume it would be in that location. I just don’t know enough about what would have the highest probability of success, where it would be best fit to be planted, or how to even go about getting one planted in the first place. 
 

as far as the avocados go, there are two very large trees in full bloom right now which I will put pictures of below. They are labeled as Mexicola variety. 
 

here is the taller one. It’s a solid 30 feet. 
 

here is the other.