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I'm going to use this poll data to write an article for the PSSC Journal. Everyone please feel free to add whatever comments come to mind also. Please vote in the appropriate poll: Californians or All Others. Thanks for the help guys and gals. Mod Edit: I tried saving Matty's poll by adding a couple of more choices. The reason being that you need to cast a vote in both sections. So choose the last option for the section that does not apply to you.

Can you guys give me your opinion on why my new frond is having some parts browning? Overwater, underwatering, too much fert, or sun burn? Its been 90+ here but Ive been watering it daily, so the soil has been moist. Its a new frond thats only two months old on a foxtail thats about twelve feet tall. I know I might be picky about it, but I want to get to the bottom of it before it spreads to the whole thing. Any help would be appreciated. Here is a pic

Jim retired from Quail, but now he sells bamboo out of his house.... he has a ton. this used to be his email.... Jim Rehor jimrehor1946@msn.com If that doesn't work I know he's active in the bamboo society....

Jim was the bamboo curator at Quail years ago.....retired now. Aww man....retired. I only just begun. Thanks guys for the help anyways

One year and two months

How long has it been in the ground?? Bruce

Yeah it is, thats why I'm a little concerned.

is it the new leaf?if not it looks minimal,i wouldnt worry so much.

Another longer shot of it BTW the brown is all on the side of where the sun shines on that frond, which is making me think sunburn, however on some of the individual leafs its brown from the mid part of the leaf. Doesnt sun burn start at the end of the leaf?

Another longer shot of it

Jim was the bamboo curator at Quail years ago.....retired now.

Bill, I have one. Paid $50 for the damn thing and it is worthless. Come and get it. I now use the same poison others use here and find their hole, get a long spoon and dump it far back as I can, then cover the hole. Killed two this way so far this spring. I had one bury about 5 trap attempts. Poison got him.

Just use a teaspoon. I just use that for the escape tunnels. I haven't bothered to find the main tunnel in years. They love the smell of the strychnine stuff - they come looking for it.

Damn thing is still out there returning to the scene of the kroc crime! Problem is I was so mad I destroyed the well established tunnels so I'm having a hard time figuring out where to put anything. Rob, I don't have that one. Where did you get it? Found my Wilco stuff, can't find my "rod".

This is one side effect I worry about with the poison, but I've never seen a gopher on the surface holding onto his throat, gasping in it's final throws, so I assume they die sub-surface. I did kill a gopher a few weeks back with my flip flop. I was watering and found a new hole so I stuck the hose in it to see if I could flood him out. Within a few minutes I see this gopher come out of the ground and the only thing I could find handy, was the shoes on my feet, so I pulled one off and whacked him to smithereens. The neighbors probably thought I'd lost it.

one benefit of the Strychnine is that let say you dont like the neighbors dog, when he eats the dead gopher, no more barking in the morning ! same goes for Aunt Marys pesky cat

Funny you bring this up since I was lighting gopher bombs yesterday. I was told putting bubble gum down the gopher hole kills them when the eat it.

Same stuff I use. The usual box store product takes a lot to kill them, but with the Strychnine, one piece and they are dead. It's the only way to go. Make sure the active ingredient is Strychnine, as Wilco also sells a product at the box stores in a similar container that has Diphacionon as the active ingredient, which is far less effective Here's the product, Here's the applicator, very easy to use, push it in the ground, give the small handle a crank or two, then pull it out and you're done.

No, then just I'LL be out of my garden. Gophers will still be IN IT.

I use the gopher bait with Strychnine. It's awesome. You can get it at Grangettos.

The business about the broken glass sounds promising since most commercially available gopher/rodent baits contain anti-coagulant (vitamin K as antidote); I guess strychnine and arsenic are too dangerous

I see several posts on here about them not eating cycads, but they took out a small Encephelartos I had a couple years back. My yard is both large and varied, and I've found that they do their most damage around where there is grass and/or weeds. Most of them are around the perimeter of my lot (which has weeds that grow in the neighbors yards) and also around my lawn. There are large areas of my yard, however, that have never had a single gopher mound - in those areas I have proteas, cacti, and lava rock over the soil. Perhaps the dry ground and/or the lava rock above ground is a deterrent?

And they will also eat Euphorbias.

Thank you. I'll be here all...uh forever.

Must be hard to whistle with those teeth.

one thing thats funny (or not so funny about that ) is the roots on those things ! man do they have huge root system. anyway I am ready for those little bastards and there is a wild cat that is a master hunter on my property. he is totally wild and on a number of occasions I have seen him jump and pull low flying birds out of the air. he loves gophers

i hear they especially like copernicia fallensis.

I kill the little bastards with a "cinch trap" gets them every time locate the hole open up the hole at night with a soil knife let the cool air drift down the hole they hate cool air and will investigate within minutes they trip the trap and are strangled the whole process is over in 5 minutes. no other method or trap works this well (ask any pro - google it)

Bump! We hope to see everyone Sunday the 15th!

ok i will try it,but if i see any cycads...grumble grumble grumble.

Just do a search for'palmtalk'

how do i find it from my FB homepage?

Just a couple Palmtalk on Facebook intresting facts; 19 countries are represented USA 80 people Australia 7 people 4 countries had 3 people The rest had less There are 5 teenagers Males84% Females12% 6 new people per month last 5 months

That should be fine Bill, especially considering it's rain water. That's proably a welcome flush of salts and gunky stuff. Stay calm!

This is where I moved the palm for it to stay for a while. On the east side of my addition. Well, it is dry here most of the time, so I don't think about "runoff". One of my two second floor drains drops right about here. I looked up a couple days ago and thought it might just be on the edge of the flow. (no drain gutters yet), So, just a few minutes ago I was out looking in the addition for water leaks and I peaked my head out to look at the back. THIS PALM WAS HOLDING ABOUT 10 INCHES OF RAIN WATER IN IT! I didn't take time to snap a photo, but I ran out in the rain to "dump it" and move it too. Not a palm I had intended testing, but I think I need to shoot some fungicide on it in the next few days.....

WELL, I will be testing some theories, unintentionally!! Below, you will see my most expensive palm. A trash can sized Dypsis OCWS. It got rained on. (See the next post)

I did a null vote, my info is not in the poll. I use two kinds of sprinklers: the pop up type seen in lawns for narrow planting strips along the house, and rainbird type sprinklers mounted on poles with the water exiting at a height of about 40" for my upper garden. Because my palms are still short, this means most get watered in the crown, the leaves drenched. The timer is set to go off at 5:00 am. I like this method for my small garden and have not had many problems. One smaller Hyophorbe verschaffeltii had some pink gunk in the crown the first year, but I treated it and it came through fine. The next spring it pushed one stunted frond, but has carried on fine since then. I can't draw an absolute correlation between the watering and that event; the other Hyophorbe had no trouble. There are so many plants jammed together in the upper garden that drip would be a nightmare to install and maintain, plus it would miss the hanging orchids and tilandsias. I like the overall application of humidity the sprinklers give the garden, just like a rainshower. My water bill remains quite manageable.

Great stuff guys, thanks. More pros and cons on watering the leaves and into the crowns would be great. I'll have Dean look at the poll and see if it's useable. He seemed to think only one vote got messed up before he fixed my poll options.

I've always tried to avoid it, even in the summer. This is another reason why I like drip irrigation... The only problem is that drip isn't practical for small seedlings when you have hundreds of tiny pots. So, most of my potted palms get overhead water.

I wasn't specifically trying to address palm mortality vs. water in the crown, although that's definitely an issue to keep in mind. I was also trying to get a feel for cultural practices and how they might differ from they way we do it in CA. I don't really know exactly what I was looking to find out, but I thought it was an interesing idea to persue. I remember while visiting Dean in Kona we saw several large Royals that were just planted. They had 20 feet or more of trunk and had a water hose ran right up into the crown. I was shocked to see this and Dean said, "I guess you can water into the crown if you don't have to worry about pink rot." That got me wondering about it.

I try not to water the crown, but with a mix of drip and sprinkler heads, it happens. Doesn't it come down to individual palms? 3 types come to mind: Bismarckia - water drains out of the open leaf bases. No problem. Archontophoenix - crownshaft real tight, water can't get inside Howea - loose open "collar"... water can really sit in there and get nasty

Bo, I specifically thought of you and others who might be in a similar situation. That's why I put the "don't care / not an issue" option. I guess "never thought about it" might apply also if it's never occured to you.

Who has lost palms or had bud rot (or some kind of health problem) due to watering into the crown? Two of my Howea forsterianas had spear rot last winter, which I tributed to a nearby sprinkler , but it's hard to be sure if that watering was the cause of the rot. I will be happy to test two young Ravenea rivularis palms (which I heard are prone to problems from this). Mattie, when do you need all this data by?

Wait a minute. That field wasn't there. I deleted my earlier post so no others would be confused. No worries Keith, they were both there for me. I think Deans would have made more sense to me as "the last LINE for"... But I think my highlighting it accomplishes the same thing.

Yes I water up high into the crowns, lotsa stuff going on up there. Litter trapping palms like rhopies and hedies have earthworms working under the crownshafts and the moisture helps breakdown the accumulation. Go visit palms in habitation and it will amaze you how much benificial biology goes on in the palm canopy. I think many palms can feed off this relationship.

I voted that I intentionally water the leaves and crown. I don't directly spray water on the crown but like Dean, my irrigation is mostly sprinklers so on the smaller palms I'm sure the crown gets water everyday. During the hot summer months and the Dry Dry Dry (did I say Dry) Santa Ana winds I spray the foilage on my plants which I'm sure subsequently the crowns do get wet. I don't worry however because the humidity is so low that it never has been a problem and I have yet to lose a palm due to it.

Oops. I read Keiths post before Deans made sense, so subtract 1 "don't care" from the "non" California section. As for me, I go out of my way to not "crown water", but my over night R. humidity is coastal and usually at LEAST 50-60%. BUT, if it is REALLY dry (sub 20%RH) then I don't care as much, UNLESS its cold too. But a dry, warm morning, I usually just spray anywhere. Notice all my caveats?

Matty, As you know, almost my whole garden is watered from overhead. Of course with age, the taller palms outgrow the height of the sprinklers. But everything under head high receives water from overhead. I do this intentionally because I believe it is natural and helps keeping things clean. I think it may also help keeping some of the dryer loving insects (mites) at bay. It also benefits the ferns and aroids. However, I always have the sprinklers come on just before sunrise. This is due to less evaporation (cool, humid, and calm), highest water pressure, but more importantly the chance for the plants and crown to dry for the entire day. So while I do water the crown, I make sure it has a chance to dry as quickly and as thoroughly as possible.

The poll mechanism wants me to vote in both sections. Can't vote in just the California section.