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@Hilo Jason and i have had an annual tradition three years running to visit a palm that makes my eyes water, a specimen of Tahina spectabilis in Hawaii that has thrived in its planted location 2023: 2024: 2025: seems to have fully grown out of those rough leaf pushes Jason has some great photos of years prior to this that they might post, thankful for the opportunity, the owner for letting us nerd out in their yard, and @bgl for the plant origin

When you have a nursery the size of what I have, and as many plants that I have in containers. There’s always behind the scenes stuff that they don’t let you see, it goes with any industry the waste. Either unwanted plants, dead plants or just complete failures due to no fault of the grower. Some is grower fault through learning about new varieties or plants that just won’t grow in your climate. Well iam no different than any other grower. Every now and then you have to go through the nursery and clean the dead or dying stock. Especially after winter it has its toll on most growers. So the next time you see that instagram shot that’s absolutely perfect peek behind the scenes!

Chrysalidocarpus Prestonianus dropped a leaf to reveal some color

The older I get, the more ruthless I have become about discarding non-performing plants.

This palm was planted prior to the Dec 2022 freeze. I can't recall if it was summer 2021 or 2022. The stiff cupping of the leaves was obvious at the time. This survived just as well as the average fortunei here. A nice looking palm.

Yes there is a lot I can do about the situation, but at the end of the day they will get to big and have to face the elements. My way of thinking if it lives it lives and if it dies so be it. Time is wasted on stuff that won’t grow and money.

A nice little batch of palmuncula from imported seeds. Definitely looking forward to seeing these ones grow. 63 out of 107 seeds not to bad for imported seed stock.

Water is the key element in my garden that holds back growth. I have everything else great soil warmth and a unique microclimate.

Canarys!

September 27, 2025 This big coconut will now officially be two years old around now. Im on my ladder today. So a different view. I chopped and dropped a ton of passion fruit vines for mulch. 2 nice new leafs coming in. Sorry about the mess lol This one is kind of harder to see but it has some nice big leafs now

Three spears on this Rhopalysyis caught me eye.

My distichia just refuses to give up, flowering again for the 5th time. It just keeps on hanging on. Still a beautiful flower and over the last 4 years or so it’s becoming a nice little flower to spot in the garden. The bees absolutely love it. No seeds yet so iam assuming a boy and girl need to meet up. And that’s not going to happen with just one in the garden.

A recent planting that’s doing quite well. It laughed at winter, and it’s just starting to tuck itself ready for summer growth. It will be a nice one to have in the garden giving many years joy!

It’s always a pleasure to visit another private garden, it brings great joy to see another gardener’s passion. It makes you want plant more plants in own garden.

The first time I saw this palm was Dec. 31, 2021. We were staying at an AirBnb in the neighborhood that our land was in and a neighbor invited us over to see their house and garden. We were in the early stages of designing our house and I wanted to get ideas from other homes in the neighborhood. This neighbor told me he had a lot of plants so I was also curious to see the garden. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the Tahina in his yard! The planting location seems about as ideal as possible for a palm like this. There is a river / stream that runs year round through the property and the Tahina was planted fairly close to that. So it’s getting year round water in a warm climate. This neighborhood is about 11 miles north of Hilo, right on the ocean in a sunbelt area. So it gets quite a bit more sun than other areas of windward Hawaii. Here are the pictures from Dec 2021 of that first visit: As a side note: 2025 has been an abnormally dry year here with less than half of our annual rainfall. The river behind the Tahina (not visible in any of these pictures) is almost completely dried up. The current owner has lived at the home for the past 10 years and has never seen the river so low. Really hoping our rains return soon.

I just recently discovered how nice a palm the Hookeri is . The crème colored crown shaft and the overall appearance is quite different than the Macrocarpa in my garden. The one I saw had seeds and as soon as they are ripe I will get some , but I’m afraid I won’t have time to see it to glory. I had to ask what it was when I saw it , it was so robust. Harry

Well I figured I would join the conversation. Better late than never. My hookeri has more of a yellow green petiole and rachis rather than the chocolate color some others have. The crownshaft also shows some marbling like the watermelon variety, but still yellow. A definite hookeri variety. Has 6 foot of woody trunk before the crownshaft. The pictures are from this morning showing the fading leaf that opened last week. Opens very deep red. Note the petiole and rachis color and the crownshaft color and marbling. Two days ago I planted my houailou palm from a 7 gallon. It's opening split leaves now. The petiole is definitely a yellow and leaves are stiff. Rachis has a kind of peachlike color. Very stiff. Forgive the sunburn. At first I put her in too much sun. Now she should grow into it, hopefully without the burning. Leaves not as " puckering" like the hookeri. The last leaf to open showed it's first small bit of peach color. Just a bit. I expect more color as it matures. Grew at a steady pace in the pot, opening more leaves than my hookeri. Feel free to rejoin the conversation and share your thoughts.

Count me in of your going to mars. I got a few seeds I can bring along. Together we plant out mars. We will leave @JohnAndSancho to look after the palms once we germinate them, he’s got the grow lights so he will come in handy.

It’s amazing how things change in the garden and the greenhouse when I look back on some old pictures, it makes you glad you took the pictures.

I do the same with the photos of my house and garden, the old saying oh how they grow up! But the best bit is your daughter is grown up and still remembers those days running around as much as you do. Richard

I can’t believe I’ve never been to the Sydney Botanical Gardens and call myself a palm enthusiast. I’m living overseas at the moment but next chance I’m back in Aus this is number 1 on the list! I lived in Cairns for a while and spent a lot of time in the Fletcher Botanical Gardens but given the climatic differences it’s amazing what they’ve got growing in Sydney.

Iam even digging out ones in the ground that aren’t growing, not wasting my time on something that will always be struggling. Wasting valuable real estate that something else can grow in.

If you get as cold as you say it gets. I can save you a lot energy, time and money, there are a lot of palm varieties that won’t grow no matter what you do. I know from my own experience with killing a lot of palm variety’s. I also have found great palm varieties that will live once thought of impossible to grow in a cool climate winter.

My experience is that they are not prolific seed producers . I have nine large ones and I keep them close together in pots . I get a few seeds occasionally, this year I got one! Nice looking palms though . They should be trouble free for you. Harry

Bill Baker (Kew) descending the Bosque de palmeras Ocol. This is where we saw hundreds of ceroxylons. Norm from Hawaii having a grand time hiking in the forest. Notice the boots on each of them. It was muddy and slippery. I learned the value of using a walking stick.

Picture of the gocta falls

Last time checked it was in my dreams! You won’t find them.

the trunks of my reclinata are very thin, maybe it's a pure reclinata?

I don't suffer the pains that y'all deal with. All my potted palms germinated on their own. Trachycarpus fortunei and Sabal minor. Rhapidophyllum seems to germinate between the needles. It's too cold here to invest in anything else.

yes my friend

Couple of palm nuts like kids in a candy shop if I have ever seen one! 🤣

Yes I have tried that technique of winter protection with certain varieties, yes they lived and you get confident and put them in the greenhouse and first winter they die. All that work goes down the drain. I have learnt enough over the years right from when I first put my garden in if it lived it lived so be it.

Choose carefully your seeds, I went into it wanting to try as many varieties as I could. Iam still learning and won’t stop learning. Other growers will tell you oh they won’t live Ive tried them and all died. But you still go ahead and try🤣 It’s fun trying and you just never know your luck.

Definitely drop and see the gardens it’s a must do. It is a temperate climate zone but with all that concrete jungle in the city and the established garden, it’s a great microclimate. And there’s a stack of palms in there if you know where to look.

Holy what a monster palm 😮

What you would be best of doing is concentrating on the known varieties of palms that are proven to survive in harsh climates sabals are good choice Livistona, trachycarpus, syagrus, cocothrinax. There are many to choose from and it’s just those varieties alone. Then theres Caryota species, all these varieties are obtainable, get these ones going in the botanical gardens you wish to be part of. Then along way you can collect the more exotic smaller varieties. Think big canopy first then the rest will follow.

Hooooooooly 💩 that's amazing.

Nice one.

I just don’t have the time to stand around with a hose as much as love hand watering. Even running around doing the irrigation shifts every 20 minutes is a chore. A computer solenoid set up would make life easier. At work I have seen $100000 dollar irrigation set ups and it’s the bees knees so to speak, and they are state of art setups that work to treat. Unfortunately I don’t have a hundred grand to spend, but given the chance oh yes I would spend that much. Richard

Acrocomia intumescens (Macaíba)

Okay thank you because I was looking for a evergreen flowering canopy tree that can create a microclimate

Autumn update and a bit of compare and contrast. Pics from 3 years ago shortly after planting vs this week. This palm wants to be huge and has no trouble showing it. Fast grower for sure. Now over eight feet tall and at least as wide with no less than 6 trunks forming.

I had 60 of them, all dead now, no seeds, because the males and females here didn't flower at the same time

Amazing amazing amazing group of people-and we were missing some!

A few high elevation bromeliads, in the Ceroxylon forest.

Excellent Euterpe environment where we stayed, during our first leg. The larger more robust solitary species is precatoria. The clustering ethereal species is catinga. First time seeing either in habitat, but catinga stole the show...

@Dimimelbourne it’s worth remembering that the ‘feels like’ temperate is an human made artificial concept based on a combination of ambient temperature, humidity and wind. My understanding is the idea stems from the fact that humans generate their own warmth and also sweat to cool. It’s why heat feels more oppressive with the combination of heat and humidity because our bodies can’t cool as efficiently. It’s similar to why evaporative cooling is only popular in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth but not further north on the east coast where summers are humid. ‘Feels like’ temperate will also tend to be lower with increased wind speed as the wind is removing the warmth our bodies generate (if ambient temperate is significantly below our internal body temp). Thinking about the logic of the concept, I wouldn’t expect the same factors to apply to plants. That being said, it’s well documented that a freeze accompanied by wind is generally more damaging than that of an equivalent temperature if it’s still. But that’s more to do with the wind removing the temperate gradient in the air and displacing trapped pockets of warmer air (think a sensitive palm under canopy having some warmth trapped on a still night vs freezing + windy which would remove any retained warmth).

I had one in a 15 gallon container pretty exposed and it did fine last winter in Santa Barbara. Winter was mild; temps hit the high 30's a couple times. Planted it out at the end of June.

Agree , they will seek water but the roots are not invasive like a tree . Palm roots , although numerous , are not aggressive. They will seek other directions when met with obstructions . Plastic sprinkler lines can be run along where roots are most times . I had to have the French drain plumbing removed because the builder did not glue the connections and used thin wall plastic . The palm roots found a way in and clogged the drain. New 4” schedule 40 pipe was put down and glued together , no roots entering the drain. Harry ‘The French drain runs under this pathway about 18” below the pavers. This was done about 8 years ago . The roots don’t even move the pavers. The dark trunks are Queen palms that send out many “ feeder” roots, no problem. Any unevenness is poor masonary work and that’s on me 🙄!

Doug, I was wondering the same thing about the Acrocomia at Kopsick. It has a plaque reading "Acrocomia aculeata (syn. totai)" which confused me. Based on the trunk and light tan colored mature fruits I think it's totai. Your trunk looks similar. Are the mature fruits dark brown? That's the color of fruits I collected in Minas Gerais state in Brasil from A. aculeata.