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A short two hour drive north to the town of Lismore for a weekend getaway. And well as we all know you have to visit the nurseries. A lovely nursery with a beautiful garden centre. A great assortment of plants with some common and some rare plants down to a great selection of exotics. So a hoffmania plant along with a sandra Gordon grevillia, plus a couple of rainforest trees later iam out of there one happy gardener. A great nursery clean and tidy along with no weeds. And as usual being a nursery man myself you get into that race about plants that can go on for hours or a yarn as we would say in Australia. Oh and I did mention I had a few exotic palms for sale, wherever I see a nursery I always stop in and do a sales pitch. And nine times out of ten I get a sale. An old sales trick you basically sell yourself with the product after we all have a bit of sales rep in us.

First picture is the front area with a Adonia merrillii and a bentickia nicobarica planted in 2023 2nd picture are 2 coconuts the biggest one planted in 2015 and the smaller one grown from seed from hurricane irma in 2017 3rd picture is a small dypsis decaryi 4th picture is "palm row" with a bottle palm spindle palm and a foxtail all planted in 2013 5th picture is a robelini and the back part of palm row 6th picture is a robelini planted in 1997 with a spindle planted in 2012 7th picture is the side with a coconut and Chinese fan palm both planted in 2012 with a satakenita planted in 2024 to replace a huge Sylvester palm killed from hurricane ian The last 2 pictures are the patio with some butias sabals , licuala grandis and some king palms all ready for whatever I come up with next lol.

Got this view last week of some of my Lord Howe Island 🏝 Palms from the upper deck.

Chamaedorea hooperiana

there was a foxtail in a shopping center near Sacramento that has been there for about 4 years and it seems to be doing well

Here is my young Sabal palmetto in central Virginia, I germinated this in 2019/2020 from seed I collected in Virginia Beach and planted it last spring. It’s doing pretty well and survived the winter with some damage, I did not protect it. I put it against the house to try to give it some more winter heat.

YES hooperiana

Couple of Pachypodium brevicaule plants I've been growing for about 12 years now. These buttery blooms come before the leaves early each spring.

There were 7 of these tarantula wasps on this one latifrons juvenile. It had just put out this nice flush which, apparently, they found irresistible. There were 3 other latifrons juveniles within two feet of this plant, but only this one was suitable for their intentions 🤔

Chrysalidocarpus Hovomantsina showing off

Some nice old baronii in the garden doing well. The new golden cane is my sales push on this palm far more attractive to me than lutescens, but each to there own on that one. I do get the odd seed or two from them.

very beautiful, large specimens.

I've seen this map a few times, I'm sure its not 100% accurate but it gives a general idea of the amounts of Sunshine in the two regions.

Dale i have found Howea belmoreana to be a little slower. I don't have any Howea forsteriana here in Leucadia but my neighbor has several along our fence line. I have 3 belmoreana in Carlsbad and about a dozen forsteriana and the forsteriana are much taller after a couple of decades. The belmoreana do great but they are definitely a little slower for me. I planted this Howea belmoreana around 2011, and had to transplant it in 2013 to a different spot due to a house remodel. It never faltered. Hedyscepe canterburyana has been very finicky for me. I have planted 4 or 5 and only one has been a long term survivor. It is probably 15 years old and a fraction of the size of any of my Howeas.

Since I've moved to this house 2017 I've been taking branches with seeds on them from my Sabal minor (across the back of the property) to try to extend their range along both property lines on the left and right. I'm happy to say it has been successful. Here's a shot of crape myrtle 'Sioux', which I just planted last year along the driveway (a fragment of which is visible in lower left hand corner of photo) with naturalized sabals below. It will eventually get to the point where I have too many and will have to begin pulling them, but I haven't reached that point yet. In fact, I'm thrilled with the results. Having Sabal minor as filler gives the landscaping a graceful, tropical appearance. And I have hibiscus (syriacus) too!

This is about palm seeds from close up, i will be updating this with photos of seeds i make over time. Let me know if you think i could improve in any way or of what species would you like me to make some photos of this style. 1. Brahea armata, cross-sections of a mature seed

For all of my American palm growers happy Independence Day I hope you have an amazing day we live in such a great country!!!

Happy 10th anniversary to this post! @Jmil check out the year.

Some palms when they get damaged trunks will grow limbs. I have seen this on Hedyscepe as well. It can happen after lightning srike nearby for example. I would sell the triple and replace it for less with an advanced single trunk one Regards Colin

Here's a few pics of the undersides of the the fronds. Heavy tomentum and silvery under sides.

Welp, this morning I learned that for every foot of canopy their roots spread 4 feet out and I also learned they can be propegated by cuttings. I've literally trimmed 15 foot branches off some of these, and I'm having to dig deep enough to get my pruners in to trim roots for this flowerbed.

20250704_211533.mp4

It’s a fantastic palm. The orange colour in the background is the winter sunset colour the far red spectrum for flowering. I expect to see one coming to your garden soon. Richard

The true species will be easy to identify by the presence of a ligule. Read this older thread.

According to the experts it is not possible to cross them. But Mother Nature when manipulated will do strange things, the crossing was done simply because I had the pollen of adscendens and the female flower next to the genoformis so i just went for it purely out something to do, not to play Mother Nature. Sort of a social experiment out of curiosity!

I started this addiction of mine during covid and I'm hooked, still planting away even though I dont have the space so I cut away concrete to make more land. My wife thinks I'm nuts but supports my alot better habit compared to others out there.

The best bit will be it doesn’t sucker! Enter the peachy sales pitch! Richard

This is also latifrons just showing that not all latifrons are curly with big spines. This was created at Kirstenbosch 30 years ago from their many, many huge latifrons specimens. I got it as a two-inch seedling. Glad I kept it to mature like this!

theres also a groupingn of very healthy king palms in Elk Grove California

When you’re obsessed with palms, short on space, and totally ignore the ‘space them out’ rule… Fast forward a few years, and boom!

Belmores do great here 10 miles from the beach North county Bonsall

Took these earlier today, Thought I'd post a new photo heres since it's been a while but it's moving along also the hibiscus next to it because they look so pretty.

Yes, it is a Peruvian Apple Cactus. Cereus repandus

Not really anything exotic but here are some nice pink crepe myrtles in Berkeley Springs WV (Sorry about the bad pictures I was in the car)

Lake Travis this morning. Up 10 feet so far in 24 hours as of 9 am

It's certainly a possibility, but I don't have much experience with Sabal seed hybridization or germination. With my mules fruit size is pretty standard, but seed size itself can vary once the pulp is removed. Do the three varieties of sabal naturally have different size seed? It'd certainly be worth the effort to grow them out to find out...

It seems that your area is lacking in a rare palm nursery. It could be that the cool weather has stopped many growers venturing into the market. But growers do get sidetracked with other palms when there is a potential market there. I will say though the collectors market is a thin market for buyers. From what I have learned you have to sell the rare ones with good sales marketing, hence the flea markets or such other community run markets are the target market area for me giving me the true value of what rare palms are ultimately worth. A lot of that comes from the crackdown on imported seeds the price rise!

Oh my goodness they are beautiful! pink crape myrtles are my favorite.

Here you go @PAPalmtrees - they're freaking huge, they're well over the roof of the house. I dunno how many there are, I didn't count - but these are the ones against the house blooming.

After looking like 19.6 would be the peak as it pleateaued then dipped, a second wind took it up to 20.3 just before 2pm. A number of July maximum records around the upper North Island apparently fell today.

Here’s my Dioon Edule “Queretaro Blue” flushing a set. Nothing last year so I’m excited. Definite difference between this variety new leaf color and the standard Edule. -dale

Looking down at my accommodationin Batu Patong on the Kelibat Highlands. At Bario waiting for my flight to Miri now.

I agree with everything said. Fairy tales/marketing gimmicks/hopeful wishes, whatever you want to call it. I tested these all out last year. I had a "Silver Queen/littoralis", Santa Catarina and regular queens all plantedout. All the queens died with one brief dip to 19F, one night at 23F and a couple of nights at 30F, with all daytime highs above freezing and had only one survivor. A Lowes clearance special $10 queen palm. No one has been able to show any real repeatable evidence that queens from these locales are any hardier than a standard big box queen palm. Just like Trachycarpus fortunei "Bulgaria". The type species in both cases have routinely outperformed the so call "Cold hardy" variants. I really hate to see misinformation continuing on through the years.

Flushing earlier than expected!

I agree i’ve seen quite a few in 9b. Honestly very nice palms i’m not sure why more people haven’t planted them. Maybe because they’re expensive, that’s why I don’t have one either 😂. Also @idontknowhatnametuse S. yapa looks strikingly similar to Livistona decora, very nice.

Wallachia densifolia looks pretty good looking west into the sunset

Hi, two of my rarer species in the garden enjoying abundant rain during the rain season... Not the fastest ones but I am glad to have them - Neoveitchia brunnea. Lars

This species, while fairly common, seems not to receive much attention. I want to illustrate how well it actually grows, even here in a warmth-deprived microclimate. I was gifted some seeds from Perry Glenn, (SLO Palms) in 2009. The plants have now produced mature seed in just eight years, seed to seed. When I first recognized how well they grew I asked Perry for additional seeds. Sadly, he told me that one gender of his palms had died, and thus he could not produce more seed. Therefore these seeds from the sparse first crop will be sent back to Perry ! It is also noteworthy to show the increased vigor of the new stems after the palms are released from pots and planted into rich, moist soil. In this photo the original pot stem is narrow and dark green, while the new stems are large and light green. A feature of this species is the small, papery appendage at the top of the leafbase. This is a 'ligule' or sometimes called an 'auricle' and it is diagnostic for the species within the genus. A true C. costaricana will always have this detail, as do many hybrids with C. costaricana as a parent. No ligule, no C. costaricana blood.

Hi @Darold Petty. Hoping for your input as a Chamaedorea guru. I’ve had this palm for about 5 years now, originally purchased as Chamaedorea microspadix. I haven’t questioned the ID until now (although I did think it was quite robust for a microspadix) but it has now produced some fruit which is black (microspadix known to be red). So I thought I’d take a closer look at all of the key differentiating features, thinking it might actually be costaricana or potchutlensis. And I’ve found that this palm has ligules/auricles as you’ve described above. Questions Does this mean it must be C costaricana (noting that quezalteca is now considered a synonym)? It is a female with no nearby male. Would this impact the fruit colour if not fertilised? There actually are formed seeds inside, but I have yet tried to germinate (there are male C klotzschianas nearby so might be worth a go). The seed has interesting curved ring marking, almost like a basketball or tennis ball.