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An extremely slow palm in my climate, a slow growing palm regardless of my climate. It’s been getting some extra attention lately and with all the rain it’s starting to get past that seedling stage and holding mores leaves as it develops more, still a long way to go before it sets seeds in a hurry!

Nice little dypsis lantzeana got my attention this morning.

My saintlucei has flowered gor the first time and is holding its seeds, so iam confident the bees have done there job and with a bit of luck we will have some saintlucei seeds. I took some palm talk advice and cable tied the spath to the crown to ensure it doesn’t snap off, I was told they get rather heavy. Definitely looking forward to harvest a few of these seeds and propagating them, but don’t count your chickens before they hatch!

Hi there, it is time for a short update - so, here we go: This year's June. After a while when being into palms, you just know when something is wrong with one of your "babies" by just glancing at them. It's like they are talking to you. Despite the wind damage something didnt't fit, so I lifted it out of the pot... Ups, this fella was already yelling at me - "Do something!" Again I looked around and roamed the garden for something bigger... Here it is now, sitting in its new "home" and looking happy. Since this one looks to be on steroids, I am going to go the extra mile next time and will make a small pond - why not - and try to make it really happy. It is probably on the edge what you should be done for a palm but that's what we are here for, right?😉 Lars

Encephalartos again

Six acres! Enceohalartos altensteinii

What a helluva day it’s been; took a tour of the infamous Virginia Robinson garden in Beverly Hills. Some things have been on tv so much it’s like you know them.

The difference in tropical climates to subtropical climates is amazing gor palm growth. 25 years old these two and they are not breaking any records in the growing department. Still there tough cool tolerant palms thay endure all sorts of conditions and bounce back after Mother Nature gives them a touch up!

Hi Everyone. Spring is in full swing here in the Free State. My Trachycarpus fortunei and Trachycarpus wagnerianus are in full bloom. It’s the first time that their flowers really catch the eye. One of my Butia odorata is flowering for the first time this spring. Let’s post pictures of showy palm inflorescences. T fortunei female T fortunei maleT fortunei male Trachycarpus wagnerianus

At the Parc De Grande Fougeres (Giant Tree Fern Park) in central New Caledonia in cultivation.

I think what really irritates me is we definitely need quarantine services in Australia, that is a given, but when you do everything right, you label them correctly, get the phyto sorted, jump through all the hoops they require you to jump through, then they take their sweet time to basically do nothing with them, pick your shipment for having perlite in the package (which helps prevent a fungal outbreak), then because they’ve taken too long to inspect them fungus may break out. They then reject your parcel and charge you for their failure to do their job in a timely manner. Rant over.

It actually was perlite I spoke with the seller and prior to shipping they commented about the perlite, the test results said differently, one thing I know don’t muck with customs. But on the good side I got my sabinara through even though they rejected them on the first inspection and billed me $67 bucks for looking up the bicon list of permitted species, all I know when it comes to customs is yes sir no sir you have a wonderful day!

yes Harry I know, a few years ago I gave 2 of them to the botanical garden in Naples. here's one

Cruising on the Amazon. All.kinds of watercraft were out.

Ptychococcus (Not sure if it’s Lepidotus or Paradoxus) has been incredibly fast for me and is now setting seed.

Here’s a few nice seedlings that come off the happypalms propagation bench! Sometimes you do win a few rare ones, it’s not all gloom and doom!

A bit of Sunday morning watering the garden admiring the palms, and this tepijilote certainly has made it a worthwhile venture into the garden!

At the Shell service station in Noumea. Hopefully it’s still there after all the problems they had over there. They had the best garden I’d ever seen at a service station.

At the palm nursery in NC.

In habitat! Fronting by the great Jeff Marcus of Floribunda.

I've had entire packages of seeds destroyed at Chilean customs, including a box of dates purchased in Israel. When that happens, you have to be strong.

View of the Amazon as we walked from our boat to our hotel room. Gorgeous!

Relaxing at the pool, at ceiba tops resort on the Amazon river.

W. Filiferas and S. Mexicanas seeding. It was 12F in February of this year. Winter low temp.

That looks more like a pyroformis! Oliviformis are a lot greener. I recall selling you both.

This summer (summer in the Northern Hemisphere) I have germinated more than 30 Chamaedorea tepejilote

This year my Pritchardia gained some height. Now I don’t have to trim it so close . For a few years the fronds would be overhanging a pathway right at face level . It is now overhead. Looking up at the new , opening fronds caught my eye. Harry ‘This was so very small when I planted it next to my house in about 2000 or so. Nice to look up and know I won’t have to trim healthy fronds in order to walk down my pathway. It is starting to form a full canopy , blending with a large C. Lutescens on the other side of the path.

Very. Wouldn't dream of it... Although I have a feeling that the big nurseries legally 'smuggle' thousands of plants a week into Tas. Not convinced that every single plant shipped in by Bunnings for instance goes through the quarantine hoops expected of Joe Citizen...imagine the paperwork and the inspection fees!

I could imagine them in habitat!

Palms are like fishing lures, they catch more fishermen than fish, and palm collectors are no different only we are catching palms!

Kerriodoxas are one of my absolute all time favourites!

Those were the days hey peachy, you calked someone and if they weren’t home you called back later on. And a letter was old school way of communicating, that worked now just a second or two your in contact with someone gals way around the world. And I could only imagine the the other side of peachy that for obvious reasons you would it want to meet. I guess the good old days shall remain as that, the good old days. Richard

We are allowed to import just germinated seeds, but I don’t push that envelope. The world lost its common sense a while ago. Seed size doesn’t matter if imported into Australia.

Aren't you glad we have never smuggled any plants ? Peachy

Remember back in the days of Landline telephones ? When to call another state cost a small fortune ? I had some seeds seized by Quarantine and had the letter to say they were on the prohibited list. They were wrong. I made a very expensive phone call to Sydney argued my case, was getting nowhere until 'the other Peachy' took control of the conversation, demanding this idiots full name and insisting to speak with his supervisor. That was enough to make him get off his lazy arse and actually read the bloody list. No apology of course. They refused to reimburse me for the phone call too. How rude when it their laziness that made me call them. I did get my seeds eventually. (and my revenge, but that is a story for a less public forum) Peachy

I remember from my nursery manager days how people came to California wanting to plant apple trees in their gardens like in Ohio, PA, NY etc. The huge trouble was that apples don’t do well without enough winter chill, and either fail to bear fruit or grow well at all in most of Southern California outside the mountain areas. The Beverly Hills apple cultivar is an exception. Here’s an espaliered specimen at the RG, with fruit; my hand for scale.

The seeds I want a rarely available locally, actually pretty well much non existent, and the top quality rare top of the shelf seeds may be available but the palm mafia control that market well, so choose to import my own. They will pop up iam confident they looked healthy enough.

They know the rules and they change them to suit themselves, it’s totally up to them if they get through or not. You just dont have a say with the government,, I respect our bio security laws for good reasons. But there’s no commonsense in the matter!

They’ve always needed your permission to bin them. They are not quarantines property to make that decision. You may want them reexported (at your expense of course). If a shipment is rejected it is your option (not theirs) to destroy them or reexport them. If they do either without asking they’ve broken the law.

No. I tell them that they’re wrong and why. I got an apology from Canberra over a shipment they totally stuffed up. It did take them ages to release my seed of which most came up luckily. I then just took my sweet time to pay their hopeless service charge. They’re totally understaffed, under trained, and don’t care. They are not fit for purpose. If it was an appliance under Australian law you could take it back and get a refund.

Was it actually mould or was it that they didn’t understand what perlite or vermiculite is. I had that issue with them years ago. Plus the fact many can’t spell, so when they put a permitted species into BICON spelt wrong it’s rejected and you have to fight tooth and nail that’s it’s already on BICON therefore permitted and doesn’t require a permit etc etc etc. Worst service ever for a department that has no incentive to get it right.

In the botanical garden of Naples there are many Encephalartos species so large

I could open a jewellery shop with the amount of seeds that havent germinated, wouldn’t have to sell palms then, be making a mottza from jewellery!

Very cool , I look forward to the pics . Those Encephalartos are amazing . Beats the heck outa my day ….hacking away at a couple of palms while trying to stand on a 45 degree angle! ( the hill) . Harry

I think this is my fav today. Nice little 3 leaf flush progressing nicely.

Still a ways off, and perhaps I am counting my eggs before they hatch. These cones on my Encephalartos horridus x woodii which got woodii pollen this go round are getting close to breaking up with the harvesting and cleaning of seeds soon to come.

Interesting architecture in one of the most landlocked cities in the world. No road from Lima. Half million people. Plenty of Portuguese tiles, the yellow church on the main plaza and a super rare building by G. Eiffel ( yes as in the Eiffel Tower)!

32 IPSers on one airplane, that must be a new record! On our way from Lima to Iquitos to meet up with the rest of the group.

Iam up for that, the prison pocket that is. Yep and there not cheap craftwork beads, so if they don’t germinate they will get made into a necklace!

This is another instance where it's almost cheaper to fly there and buy and stuff them in the old prison pocket for the flight home. Jesus, y'all are serious down there. Those are some expensive craft beads..