Leaderboard

Bottle Palm in my front yard.......

made from seed collected at the Naples Botanical Garden in 1999

Oriole nest, Harry. You probably already knew that though.

Sand + muck can be a risk and sort of solidify into a sort of concrete. I’d suggest some porous rock based material would be best for addition like perlite as suggested or maybe something like pumice.

Time to increase the collection again. First up is a nice Pinanga sarawakensis a cool tolerant Pinanga, and a nice little licuala triphylla possibly one of the cutest small licualas around. And a nice microsorum whiteheadii a fern from Sumatra that is cool tolerant. All proven winners in the greenhouse!

Thought I’d post an update of this standout palm. It’s grown quite a bit in 18 months still exhibiting wide internodes. Although the dropped frond doesn’t have the weight and heft of say C. prestonianus, it can still be a hernia inducing lift. Ufta! Tim

A double header licuala ramsayi looking good.

I would not say I am necessarily in a cool climate, but it’s not that hot of a climate either. I have been growing a couple of these palms for awhile now. First one, Its not as easy to get a clear picture of the other one. From the front you can now see them both peeking up over the roof. Both palms seem to be constantly shedding old leafs. Very fast growers as everyone who has one knows.

While walking in my jungle I found

Doesn't seem to be for plants grown in dryer desert conditions anyways. I've been growing this species in the Arizona desert for 25 years now and have about 20 examples planted throughout my garden. Never seen the decline symptoms here.🤷‍♂️ aztropic Mesa, Arizona

Just noticed these three recent plantings replacing last years storm damage from milton. First ones ive seen on the island

Very! Like real dated but smaller. The ratio of flesh to kernel remains nevertheless the same. It is a fruit from f1 roebelifera pollinated by f1 roebelifera.

I'm not ready to grow by the thousands and set up a greenhouse with drip irrigation and market as hard as you do! If I just make enough to pay for me and Sancho's prescriptions every month it's a win. Maybe small time on Etsy, Marketplace, and hit a farmers market once a month or something like that. It sounds like Mississippi is a lot more lax than other states though.

Fastest palm seeds that I've ever germinated were Copernicia hospita after just a 3 day soak!

oh man.. there is so much that I learned as we grew from just passively selling, to finally incorporating, paying taxes, nursery licenses, compliance agreements to be able to ship. All I will say, is unless you have a passion, want to devote your time to it, it's a LOT of work.. I thought there would be less business red tape than there is, but there is a lot! Happy to answer more in depth questions if you have any.

John, what can I say? I had many species that were lost during my illness, but now I've started sowing again.

If only they grew faster. The best time to plant a palm is 20 years ago!

In the shadiest, coolest and moistest spot inside my cold frame!

By the way, I just asked Sabine if she could see anything in the smaller picture. She immediately said she thought she could see small roots. So I asked her, “What do you think it is?” No, it was her intuition and a slight recognition of the root. Okay, 1:0 for Sabine. What can a man do against female intuition.... 🤔😄

Konstantinos, those are indeed wonderful, magnificent babies. Do you have them in partial shade or full shade at your place? In any case, they are thriving beautifully at your place.

Thanks for the offer guys. It would be great to expand their collection so I might be in touch if there’s anything you’ve got suitable for down here that I’m not already growing for them. I might monitor how this first batch goes first and see how they are cared for and grow. @Jonathan Haycock I do remember Grant back from the P4B nursery, been a long time!

This is a family show you do realise this 🤣

Thanks I won’t hold my breath, but you just never know ones luck for seeds!

These were the first plants I ever successfully germinated from seed without damping off or overcooking them on the heat mat, so they hold a special place in my palm heart.

This is my Bermudana. Same blooming time with minor as yours. This is first blooming season

I tried sand once and it was a mess. It all sank to the bottom and clogged the drain holes in my pots. Maybe I didn't mix it well enough, maybe it was too fine of a sand, I don't know.

I found another use for the super rich muck.

E. Dyerianus loosening up and a E. Eugene marasii fully receptive. IMG_0563.mov IMG_0182.mov

Coco coir tends to hold moisture. You definitely don’t want to add it to mucky soil.

Not yet but they’re working on it. I last visited maybe a couple of years ago and from memory they only had Livistona australis. Since then I believe they’ve planted some others like Linospadix apetiolatus and soon the Oraniopsis. It is nice out there though and worth a visit. They’ve got some other notable plants including Macrozamia macdonnellii and Wollemia nobilis.

@Mazat this is my own potted babies still group planted. One male among several female plants but still it does its job, albeit with poorly results. Group is about 1.5 m tall. Some of those home produced seeds have germinated in same pot naturally, so the two youngsters are 2 gen. plants.

ET call home! I get nests from time to time , they like my Kentia palms . Harry

Maybe this is a useful addition to this thread… I recently visited Nong Nooch gardens in Pattaya Thailand. I was lucky enough to see all of Tahina, Lodoicea, Corypha utan, C umbraculifera, C lecomtei, Borassus flabellifer, aethiopum, Bismarckia and many Copernicia species all at their ultimate girth and crown size. Of course there will be variation between specimens, but it seems like Tahina fits in with some of the Borassus sp and Lodoicea just behind Corypha umbraculifera in terms of crown size, maybe 90% of a healthy C umbraculifera. Tahina ends up a LOT bigger than any Copernicia or Bismarckia. All are so huge they kind of detract from the scale of each other, but these photos show the relative size of the specimens in this garden.

Chrysalidocarpus Prestonianus dropped a leaf to reveal some color

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.

Talk about fast to germinate just past a couple of weeks and there up and running. I don’t think I have seen anything germinating as fast as these palm seeds. Bottom heating 30 degrees Celsius, now that’s moving for a palm seed!

free here too but takes time, effort, chemicals for the various harmonization plans, etc. Etsy collects, and remits taxes but you need to also report to your local taxing authorities for sales you make in person, shows, etc... there is a LOT to it that I learned.

thanks John

Photos of these Sabal Minor from August 2024:

Must be some Phoenix hybrid. How tasty were those fruits? 😋 The fruit actually looks like a fruit I harvested from this unknown hybrid.

Yesterday afternoon, we wanted to visit various garden centers in Austria again. As always, we were very excited. However, after customs, we were abruptly stopped by the police. We stopped and I was asked to show my papers and vehicle registration immediately. At first there were two of them, then four more police officers joined them, making a total of six. They weren't interested in Sabine at all. They passed my ID card around, discussed it, and then asked me to get out of the car. I wanted to say something, but was immediately interrupted with questions about whether I had been drinking alcohol, whether I used or sold drugs. Of course, I answered no, which is the truth. They looked at me again and I asked if I looked like someone they were looking for. The answer was a relieved “no” from the police chief and I could continue driving, as this was just a routine check. I got back in the car. Sabine was surprised, but calm, and when we drove on, she just smiled and said that it was never boring with me. We drove to the garden center, and while I was talking to a salesperson, Sabine came up and said, “Look, that's a Chamaedorea metallica, and we can get it for 30 USDA, okay?” I was speechless again, once more... She just said, “See, it's good I was with you...” So, what a happy end 🤗

Good question I buy both seeds and plants. Seeds are a great way to get a lot of palms and rare ones if you can find them, and cheaper than buying individual rare palms. It also depends on how common the palms are or how rare they are. Odds on the rarer variety’s you might get seeds, but you can come across rare palms your after but will pay a lot more . It’s a collectors world out there for palms. Be prepared to spend either way if you want that exotic palm collection, seeds are not always available and if they are how well will they germinate. Good luck!

John Sabals are very easy to germinate, if all species were like that.

So familiar the pictures with palms in front and the sea in the background! Could you please post close up pictures of hastula and costa on the leaves and of inflorescence as well?

As far as I remember, you told me once, that this botanical garden grows all kinds of Sabal. So there is a huge possibility, that your plant is a hybrid. I have observed in my similar climate that bermudana coincides in blooming with minor and rosei. Causiarum blooms months later in different season.

Hi Jonathan, it is Padua (Padova) before the public one. It had a large collection of plants, especially medicinal plants for study.

I might use it for willow cuttings. Willows love muck, and after watching a YouTube of a guy propogating some FAT branches in under a week, just cut a bunch of FAT branches off one of the trees in the backyard. Let them start some roots in water and as soon as I see white, plop them in grow bags and we go from there. I should have some nice saplings ready to sell by spring.

C. Hainanensis

Everyone favors the music of their youth. I enjoyed the Beatles, Stones, Doors, Grateful Dead, Hendrix etc. Nowadays it's solely opera, and primarily Wagner, Verdi, Bellini, and Donizetti.