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With a couple of Chams to spare why not plant a row of them along the path to the greenhouse. Germinated these few from a RPS batch of 200 seeds and lucked up in the Chamaedorea department. A nice row will make for a nice casual walk to the greenhouse sort of the driveway of driveways only to the greenhouse!

A trio of Alta to make the garden a bit special. While not planted in a group they look just as good as singles planted on their own. All are 23 years old so slow and in dry part of the garden, with irrigation having been installed 2 years ago. And there is a slight difference in growth with a little extra water. One beautiful palm well worth growing in any collection.

I would let the second one settle in on its own time.

i’m on 4.5 new fronds for the year. this is its second year in the ground too. however, my other one has stalled its growth. the trunk seems to be getting bigger but the new spear completely stopped opening. i might dig it up and move it next to the one in the pics since it seems like a very good spot

A couple of lovely caudescens ready for planting out. I have some lovely specimens in the garden already and shade growing seems to be what they like not deep shade but bright shade at least in my climate. I have two that are in sunny positions that just don’t perform as good the shade grown cousins. They do like any amount of water you give them. And they are quite cool tolerant along with being quite tough. Another lovely palm well worth growing in any garden. And iam sure there is a nice spot somewhere in the garden!

If you move it, you will most likely stunt its growth longer!

You can line up ten Mule Palms and every one will look a little different from the other. That’s the nature of hybrids. I’ve had several planted for clients here in California. A couple of them look wildly different from more typical ones.

Your lil’ Washy is waiting for signs of growth , and then it is off to you . I hope to find another one down the hill to put in the box so they will not be alone . Harry

If I run across any belmoreana, I’ll bird dog you to ‘em! Any further than a few miles from the beach and belmores fry and die in the sun. I know because I had a few up here and as soon as they got even a little sun exposure that’s what happened.

But Moon’s “Piru King” Mule palms ARE Pindo x Queen palms (Butia x Sryagrus).

What a shame. It must feel awful to lose a lovely old palm like that, not to mention the damage and clean up. Sad news indeed. We had extreme wind warnings last night but nothing happened for which I am now extra thankful. Hope you get it cleared up soon without too much drama. Peachy and the kids

Great effort @JohnAndSancho! Keep it up! Maybe try some Chamadorea radicalis in shady spots?

A couple flushes on the softer side. Cycas Platyphylla

Just an update on this dude. Growing like a champ, starting to put out pretty big fronds, maybe 2 ft across. Starting to grow vertical a bit as well

Yes , super slow here but worth the wait. My winter is not too bad but mine hates it . By Fall , it looks very nice. I believe mine is the Barbadensis. It is about 26 years old from a seedling.i got at Jungle Music. Harry ‘Planted out in full afternoon sun.

Great choice . Whenever I visit @DoomsDave I come home with a few . A great looking palm for any shady place that has a source of water . My friend just loves them so I always gift him one . They can also live happily in containers. Harry

Yes and by Friday you feel the same after a weeks work, which is a good feeling knowing you went to work, iam lucky I get to be a farmer at work and live it as a job it’s unreal to be a farmer and a nurseryman at home, plants are my life and enrichment for me! Richard

A bit windy down your way is it. Curse the wind doing damage to palms like that. Look on the bright side plenty of palm growing rain will be a good thing. They can have those cyclones up North Queensland. I will stick with the subtropical climate for now. It’s starting to get pretty windy up here. Send the rain our way. Richard

Yes time is a great way to reveal things, it all comes out in the end in time.

I can relate to your position of resistance to AI but the concept is a little beyond a giant algorithm. It is essentially modelled on a brain’s neural network and already has the ability to self learn and strengthen the weighting it places on particular inputs and stored data. Of course it’s current form like Chat GPT is very limited, but from a conceptual point of view it has massive potential. It already has advantages over humans for basic intellectual tasks and its rate of growth means it will be a big part of life for many of us very soon, for better or worse.

So you’re a Garfield man hey Harry. Or is it a Boomtown Rats man, Tell me why I dont like Mondays! Richard

Flushing earlier than expected!

My BxLytoWedd is an absolute beast , nothing like what i was expecting it grow up to be haha ! @Matt N- Dallas specimen was what i thought i was getting instead. My BxMonty has way more of the purplish coloring which looks way more Butia like as @Fusca pointed out T J

A rainy winters day here in Perth heading for a top of 22c.

Some good advice here . I am north of you , about 20 miles inland . My Roystonia Oleracae ( I know it’s different) was much smaller when I planted it and it is more cold sensitive than Regia but it took months for it to start growing well. I planted it in partial shade so it could grow into more sun as it gained height. It did well for over 20 years but never really looked that nice . Smaller fronds for its size and not really good coloring. I read on PT how Roystonia LOVE water. I gave it some organic fertilizer and just watered the heck out of it almost every day. It now is much more presentable. The fronds are at least double the size they were. Last year was the first year it got 4 new fronds . The folks here were right and I listened . Now I have a better Roystonia as a result. For a palm that is not well suited for my environment , it looks pretty darn good. Harry

I grow this hybrid in San Marcos, TX z8b. It now has 12’ of trunk and is a stunning hybrid.

It is really confusing when sellers don’t properly identify palms . Jim is right , there is no way that is a King Palm and to call it that , even saying Piru ( a town east of me) King Palm is misleading at the very least. A reputable nursery should know better IMHO. As far as the health of the palm , I believe it is a goner . Would I try to save it? Heck yea! Harry

Moon Valley at it again. Sir send me a message and I will get a proper one shipped out to you. I supply Treeland Nurseries in AZ

Jim, I had the same confusion in the original post. Apparently Moon Valley calls their standard mule "Piru King Palm" (Butia odorata 'King' x Syagrus romanzoffiana 'Piru') and market it as an extra cold hardy hybrid but nothing special about it!

Last year, we got 17 inches of rain in June. This year, it was about 3 inches. I was about to write a tearful post about how violently, soul-suckingly dry and hot it was recently, but that last inch we got pulled us back out of it of the abyss enough that irrigation can keep up again. Hopefully we get some significant rain from this. Dry sand doesn’t hold much water.

Vanda 'Pure Wax Blue #3' is in bloom again

Progress. Slow, but progress. The cultivator is my favorite thing in the world right now. The bigger of the 2 Washies from @Fusca - I think both of these fronds are new. The rest just absolutely cooked in the sun. Looks like it adapted real quick. Lil' Droopy over here too Ok so just for reference, these bricks once upon a time were the border of this flowerbed. I'm pretty sure these bricks were from the house my grandfather grew up in, so they're easily 150 years old. I'm using his tools to dig out and reclaim my grandmother's flowerbed from years of grass. I dunno if they'd be proud or if they'd think I'm crazy for planting palms on old farm land in East Mississippi - probably a little of both. There's another line of brick under here somewhere, too. Eventually I'll clean them up and find something cool to do with them. I chased the rest of them off, but Hugh stuck around to supervise. His full name is Hugh Jass for The Simpsons fans. I'm gonna have to find some kind of fencing or plant something they hate, because I really don't want this to turn into a litterbox.

I visited Karen Piercy's place this afternoon under the pretext of picking lychee. Of course, the real reason to visit was to commune with the jaw-dropping collection of massive palms. I posted a photo of this Corypha umbraculifera a few years ago, but it was even more overwhelming on this visit. The trunk has to be over 4 ft in diameter, maybe closer to 5 ft. Growing in deep Hamakua soil at roughly 1200 ft elevation overlooking the Hilo airport. Now you know why you don't often see these growing in suburban landscapes. Certainly gives Tahina competition as the most massive palm out there. It's probably still decades away from blooming. You may remember Karen and her husband, Dean, as the organizers of the 2004 IPS Biennial to Hawaii and helping again with the tour of the former Carlsmith palm collection during the 2022 Biennial. BTW, I filled my 5 gallon bucket with delicious lychee. That didn't make a dent in the fruit still left on the trees. Oh, the hardships of living in Hawaii...

I didn't do anything today, but pictures anyway. The other day i very stupidly dug into the wisteria hole again just because I wanted to know how fast this soil actually drains. I'm used to little pots filled with bark that drains in seconds. I flooded this hole and it took a few hours. Even worse, now yellow jackets are coming in and stealing my mud. I haven't even finished killing all the grass in the front yet, I'm pretty much exhausted just from walking my dog, I sweat like a goat just standing outside, and I'm already eyeballing and imagining other spots in the yard.

Here are some of the rarer species and hybrids in my collection. Most are long overdue fresh soil/planting out, but I have limited space in our current rental. Shall give them some TLC when we relocate to our new home once it's finished (hopefully next month). Trachycarpus wagnerianus x Trachycarpus princeps F1 Trachycarpus fortunei “Tesan” Trachycarpus latisectus Trachycarpus oreophilus Trachycarpus ukhrulensis Trachycarpus geminisectus Trachycarpus nova x Trachycarpus princeps F1 Trachycarpus fortunei “Nainital” x Trachycarpus princeps F1 Trachycarpus wagnerianus x Trachycarpus nova F1

In my garden, we are now experiencing "deep summer".... overnight low temps of 50F and afternoon high of 58 F, (10-14C)

One of the worst nights I can remember last night. An extremely hot night for sleeping and it was still 26C / 78F at 1am in central London. ‘Official’ minimum of 22.2C / 72F at Heathrow last night. 31C / 88F in my bedroom when I went to sleep last night and it was still 29C / 84F in my bedroom at 8am when I woke up. All windows open and a bedside fan going all night but still woke up in a puddle of sweat this morning. And I have no UHI here like they would have in cities, hence my outdoor minimum dipping to 19C / 66F. Car said 28C / 82F on way into work at 8:45am this morning. I’m expecting 35C / 95F here later. Currently 32C / 90F at 1pm. Grass it obliterated here now… Horrendous fires in places, including the Scottish Highlands. Helicopters whizzing all over the place trying to put the fires out. I need to update the UK summer thread later…

Some more beautiful palms grown to perfection!

Everything in the Etsy store for Independence Day week is 25% off!!!

Similar thing here.. " official " temperature readings only come from weather stations our weather service uses.. While they can be accurate, accuracy is only good for that specific location.. Where the main official Wx station is located in Phoenix for example, it can be 2 - 4degs warmer ..or cooler.. than a mile or two away, let alone in my own neighborhood 15 miles away.. Most offical weather stations are located at airports.. I don't live on ...or next to an airport. Even the closest regional WX stations the weather service uses, 5 - 8 miles away, readings from them can read differently than a neighborhood Wx station a block or two away from the house.. Is why i use the neighborhood readings for hot hot or cold it actually got, let alone any rainfall received. Official station in Phoenix, 15 miles away, might see sprinkles that add up to nothing, while my neighborhood sees 2" of rain fall from a single storm. Which data will i trust the most? ..One that says " we saw nothing ", ..or the soaking i'm enjoying watch drench everything outside in the back yard? ....You'd have to be extremely brain dead to trust the " we got nothing " data from the " official " wx station 8 or 15 miles away when water is pouring off your roof at the same time.

The low temperatures probably damaged or maybe killed it. Airline cargo holds are not prioritized for heating and they can have less insulation so they can be considerably colder than the cabin. You can try a heating pad which might stimulate some root growth if it isn’t rotten. Which is easy to identify by the smell.

UPDATE The arborist took 3 weeks to get here, but in the meantime I've been doing peroxide and copper fungicide every 2 or 3 days. I can definitely hear fizzing. They pulled on the middle spear and it came out, and they said its dead and won't survive. We picked out a new palm and had to buy the warranty. I think that's how they make their money.They don't care if your Palm tree dies.You just have to keep purchasing that warranty.Which covers the cost of the tree. The arborist seemed more interested in trying to get us to let them trim our big trees for $1800, HARD NOOO.!!! So here is what it looked like when they showed up last week, and what it looks like now, what do you all think is it a gonner or does it have a chance? Do I keep treating it, is there anything else I can do...

Interesting to hear Dale. I'm a couple blocks from the beach in SF. I'll share my observations in like, 20 years! I planted three that Darold brought up here during a couple of his palm runs. Mine are growing new leaves at a respectable pace.

One of those palms folks can’t help but stare at in amazement, Neoveitchia storckii.

If my Chrysalidocarpus prestonianus hybrids turn out half a nice as Philip’s, I’ll be chuffed. This looks to have some C. pembanus in the mix I think.

Very common problem. Give them the first year to adjust, and then they’ll be on their way!

We have had high amounts of rain spread over 4 tropical storms so far and another (95E) is forecast to bring more rain next week. It’s been a good start to the rainy season. When TS Erick hit I put a 5 gallon bucket in the middle of the driveway to see how much rain we would get. The next morning it had 9 inches of water. I’m not sure how accurate a measurement that is but I was surprised to see it.

We have been getting quite a bit of rain in June which the plants really love. It’s a good relief from the high alkaline irrigation water that they get for most of the year. The only down side of the rains are they can burn a new flush once the sun breaks though after being wet for an extended period of time and new flushes can be devoured by the insects that hatch from the rains. Some of the new flushes around the garden.

I rank my "most wished for" plants by how many times I've stubbornly tried to grow them—despite knowing they’re almost guaranteed to fail. Here are my top three: 1) Verschaffeltia splendida My "white whale". I met a giant one in person at Rancho Soledad (brought in from Hawaii) and it has haunted me ever since. And once I learned they can survive indoors with perfect humidity and conditions, I became determined to grow one. I’ve tried everything—1-gallon plants, seedlings, even seeds. Each has died, but with every failure, I learn something new. I've sworn them off for a while, but after a short break, I'm sure I will kill again. ☠️ --- 2) Areca Vestaria One of my indoor 1G ones were looking glorious for over a year... and I've heard they can survive in CA in a PERFECT outdoor spot. So I'll likely try again. But no luck as of yet. 🤞 --- 3) Chrysalidocarpus leucomallus (Dypsis) One of the few Chrysalidocarpus I have NOT success with. I love the white trunk, but they are slow growers so wouldn't grow to maturity in my lifetime anyway... so I won't be trying this one again. 🌱

Other zone 10 palms in the yard to confirm it wasn’t that cold this winter: