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Man, don't you think that this is too much? He is giving only friendly advice...

My beautiful Areca Vestiaria purchased this weekend in Brisbane, thoughts please?

Husband MIke and I got a big laugh out of your comment! Describes our garden perfectly! Lee

The mind set that dictates that you must keep your home in such a way that you maximize the resale value is what creates the sea of bland suburbia. If you want to provide a home that has high resell value, don't plant anything of significant botanical value, because no one else will see the value. Put in a lawn and a few shrubs and you are done. Our cities and towns would be so much more interesting if people stopped to operate according to the "how do I maximize house resell value" motto. In our town, you will see a lot of people who rip out their lawns and put veggie gardens in their place. Do they care about the resale value? Nope. If you are a collector or an amateur botanist or horticulturalist, or you're into ethnobotany, whatever it is, set yourself free from the shackles of society and express yourself. You can always rip it all out and put the lawn back when it comes to selling your house. There will be plenty of IPS members who will line up at the door to volunteer to dig your palms and give them a new home.

Burle Marx is the man for tropical landscapes...genius unrivaled. A true plantsman with an artists head for design. Trioderob can take his priciples for bland suburban pastiche and file them away under easy listening. Check out the Sitio Roberto Burle Marx and my favorite Vargem Grande Fazenda. http://www.mraggett.co.uk/rbm/index.htm Cheers, Jonathan

Is the school open? Being a landscape designer since 30 years and reading this thread and trying to plant a tropical garden (the first one was behind walls !!!!) I think I have to start to learn as soon as I can in order to avoid making more mistakes... Is it a nice hotel close to school where I can have nice food and drinks too? My favorite hotel is Intercontinental in GENEVA, of which I did the landscaping, inspired by G.Bawa's work. So I have to start to learn the proper placement of palms and trees!

Massive Roystonea oleracea trunk:

Euterpe precatoria - variegated Fantastic! Looking at this from two stories up on the lanai is mesmerizing.

Socratea exorrhiza I love how they make trunks and stilt roots even as seedlings:

One species that is doing a bit too well for him is Hyophorbe indica. It self-sows so readily in his garden that he worries it could become invasive on the Big Island. His specimens are top-notch.

Donald specializes in species with primitive-looking foliage. Among palms this means he grows lots of the undivided-leaf species like Licuala orbicularis, Johannesteijsmannia, Chamaedorea brachypoda, and Pelagodoxa henryana. Donald will have to correct my species names. I mixed up his Pelagodoxa and Salacca but can't figure out where.

One of Donald's most stunning palms is Mauritiella. I took tons of photos.