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Thought the original thread was getting a little long in the tooth. Here is the L. saribus 3 months after transplanting. More photos to come. Here is a link to the original thread. http://www.palmtalk.org/forum/index.php?/topic/34415-alicehunter2000s-beach-party-by-ken-johnson/

A few weeks back I stopped at Len's place to buy a nice trachy nova, and Len showed me around a bit. He's a modest guy, but I feel his garden deserves to be featured on PalmTalk, it is simply stunning. If you wonder how his palms end up so dark green, try dolomite lime, that's Len's secret sauce. (It's mine too, along with good ol' urine.) His Vista garden is inland far enough to supposedly be 10a, but looks more like a 10b zone to me. He would be better able to comment on the hardiness zone. His bismarckia is just in the perfect spot, towering over a magnificent lagoon-style pool. Notice the kentia on the right, not much frost damage from last Winter, shows you how mild of a spot Len has. I am going to put down what I remember from taking these pictures, but he will have to correct any of my comments. One of the next two photos is the old dypsis betafaka, which is not the real betafaka, but was referred to some as the "ugly betafaka" but it doesn't look ugly to me. He says it puts on a lot of growth in Winter.

For those on Facebook, just a reminder that it is out there. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Palm-Talk/449928175242?hc_location=stream

Have you ever acquired a palm or palms, that after seeing them in other gardens or even in habitat, you pretty much knew what you were getting? Then after a few years for whatever reason, growing conditions, species variation, the palm you have just outshines the type you were expecting. I planted these two Calyptrogyne ghiesbreghtiana from one gallons back in the summer of '09 fully expecting them to go fully pinnate in a year or two, but they never did. They just keep sending up larger almost entire leaves that are spectacular. They've been flowering for over a year now, but no seed yet. Where are those Hawaiian bats when you need them. Geeze, looking at the picture I never realized they were that large either. Post your 'exceeding expectation' palms too. Tim

A two-handed Bismarckia

Long answer: As soon as I double my investment in X, I plan to have some trunking coconuts helicoptered in. What, 3 or 4 more trading days? What do the charts say? Short answer: no.

Jeff, the crosses are teddy tris. The first is killer. My friend Tri got it from Australlia. It is cold sensitive and brown tips. The other one is one I got from you. It never brown tips and is cold tolerant. Go figure. I still have a few of your crotons. Non-palm people that visit the garden always comment on those plants more than any others. They don't grow like they do for you but i am very happy to have them. Here is Purity (has to be cut back all the time), Eleanor Roosevelt (grows like champ), Mamey (grows like champ), Stop Light (my favorite), charmer (super slow) and General Patton? (Slow also). <edit> pics loaded in reverse order from what I typed.

Oh my god guys, stop being negative so much. I come to palmtalk to relax, not to get angry....

Axel, Here is another mistake...you hired someone else to plant it! I would never let anyone plant my stuff with out me drilling them on what to do. after all the irrigation, mulching, hardscape ETC that i do, planting is my reward. Palm roots are sensitive-especially to an already stressed palm. When I bring a palm home from a totally different climate or if it takes me a while to get it home (Days) I will sometimes wait a year just to make sure its ok. I have done this with many FB palms and they do fine. If you can hire someone to plant a palm, just hire someone to get your irrigation going ( filters and drip tube ) so you dont have to worry about clogging and things not being watering properly. And remember what I said about planting high, so even if you get a palm in a mix that has too much organics and decides to shrink on you it will still be above the soil line

Yeh, Pope Leonard Geiger the 2nd has a great garden!

This is one of Len's copernicia, I am drawing a blank on which one, looks actually like a rigida or baileyana. He says this is one of the only ones that survived from all the copernicia he brought back from Florida. This is a real beauty. Don't say you can't grow copernicia in Southern California, this is a fantastic specimen. That's all I had time to photograph, but there was so much more to see. I was a bit in a hurry as I had another stop to make at Joe's place. The picture below is Joe's brahea edulis forest, showing how amazing something as common as brahea edulis can look.

Sochi, Russia

Ok, back to the common (boring) palms. First we have a bevy of beauty queens Then we have a nice fat Canary Then we have a whole series of canary's that have been trimmed very formally