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Pollen collection this morning

The good old trachycarpus, tougher than an old leather boot. I have 4 in my garden all 25 years old. They never receive any special attention all where gifted to me. They were so common back then. Sold as a frost tolerant winner, when the buyer asked what have you got that takes frost it was a no brainer trachycarpus fortunei! They are in shade and growing well, so they are shade tolerant and will grow quite well.

This was a small 1 gallon palm I bought from Jeff Searle in 2006. Keeps on moving albeit slowly. 30” of trunk now.

I had to go to Lowe's to snag some lumber to finish up my 3rd table, and yeah this was a roll of the dice since we did get down into the low 20s, but their return policy is now 1 year on plants sooooo I snagged the healthiest looking one. No visible leaf burn on this one vs the others were browned and curled and will likely be on the Cart of Death next week. Then we go to Walmart. Needed storage tubs for watering messes. I went to - and I say this with love - the rich people's Walmart on the other side of town since they had both sizes I need in stock. Ofc I hit the garden center and got some organic Dr Earth tropical fertilizer for like 3 or 4 bucks and I saw these on a rack that says Rollback $5. So I literally spider man and suck my guy in to squeeze between all the pallets of Christmas garbage to get to these. Pink princess and white princess. Get to checkout and one won't scan and the other one rings up as $24.97. So I'm insistent and tell the cashier the rack said $5. He tells me how horrible their garden dept is about adjusting prices because they don't have to deal with the customers. Anyway he looks online and sees a similar one for $5 but he's confused because it says 2.0, and I'm like maybe it's a 2 inch pot (they're not. They're like 4 inches). And then after some great acting for the cameras, "oops I accidentally ripped the label and now they won't scan at all so I'll just honor this $5 online price." And then and then this is my favorite part! I only lifted one baggie to take a photo but a few of the 19 pots of these seeds from @WaianaeCrider have finally sprouted! These are Kahuka (sp?) papayas and he says they're awesome. And my dragonfruit seeds look like a mat of grass. And mentioned elsewhere I also snagged a 15 pound 4 foot inflorescence of what I believe are Sabal Mexicana seeds. It was a great freaking day. Got bogo on my vape juice too.

The little marianneae is tucked in well after an early autumn planting. It tolerated its first winter in the ground well. A few more years and there should be a nice little specimen palm!

Here is an impolite, tough love comment; This appears to be severe potassium (K) deficiency, the most common macronutrient problem. You have been doing everything right, yet no improvement. You also have other queen palms that appear OK, behind the house and solar panels. Therefore you have issues with just this one palm. I would remove it, and sooner than later. Anyway, why queens in Encinitas ? You're in an extremely favorable microclimate, plant something more exotic or beautiful. Howea is a vastly better palm. Life is too short to deal with unsatisfactory plants. As I grow older I have become much more ruthless about discarding plants that no longer please me. Good luck !

Fortunately it has recovered nicely

That's my favorite thing about palm trees. I've had a few that took weeks if not months to show signs of damage from overwatering and etc. You think it's fine for a while and then you wake up to a brown stick. That's my absolute favorite thing about them.

@Maddox Gardening-youtube post some updates in a few days, frequently damage is latent. In cold fronts here it took around 3 days for the damage to show. Some things that were spots turned to completely torched fronds, sometimes it just stayed as spotting. I didn't see much here today after 34.7F and 15mph winds. By this weekend whatever damage happened will be more clear.

Pull it out and replace it with a palm that evolved in your mediterranean climate. Even a mule palm. Cali palm growers can recommend species, i.e., Jubaea, Rhopalastylis spp, Parajubaea, Howea and more. I can't grow them in FL. Maybe someone will actually recommend a palmate palm to shake up the balance in your yard. Now you are wasting, time, money and energy trying to revive a weedy, needy palm with a death wish.

Hah, too true! Or when they look fine one day and the next day the top falls off from Thielaviopsis. Tons of fun!

Most definitely suited to a humid greenhouse, but surprisingly a cool tolerant little palm, if you can get a few seeds or a plant definitely worth a try. Richard

Mine are ankle high right now but they'll get there one day.

I'm still enjoying my lovely Pritchardia minor and its flowers. 😁

My coconut palm surrounded by 3 walls did fine in the extreme cold in Jax Florida. It’s bright red so possibly a variety like red spicata is more cold tolerant. After this wheather event it only had some yellow spots and very mild burns at the tips. Maybe I got a cold hardy variety, it was off Facebook marketplace. I still had to cover the trunk.

Another little haul of mother natures finest eye candy. A few collectors palms for the garden, and a Etlingera sp hot lava, a beautiful cut flower plant. A few zone push’s in there I will see what happens in winter with that lot. mauritiella aculeata licuala sp north sumatra Rothmania longiflora Areca sp Rabaul Dypsis forcifolia

At my old house I had three Archontophoenix Cunninghamiana that were growing well but always a bit yellow. I added SulPoMag as directed for about a year and the palms looked a bunch better. Make sure you break up the soil around the base of the palm and amend with a good top soil . Top it off with wood chips , a good layer . You will have to rake the wood chips out of the way when you work in the fertilizer , I use a claw . Then redistribute the chips. Syagrus R. should grow like weeds where you are , at least 4 new fronds a year. I have had to remove under performing Queens before , just something in a certain palm sometimes. Harry

Looks like Sabal palmetto to me

At least it will live in your climate, finally a palm you can’t kill!

A couple of winners for sure, mild winters in comparison to some zones. But still cold enough to kill tropical palms. Richard

The nicest ones I’ve seen are shade grown but they can also handle full sun at an early age. I’ve seen them growing well even covered in snow during winter months . We stayed at a hotel up near Yosemite one winter and they had a few very large specimens, about 20’ tall , shade grown , with very large fronds . There was snow everywhere , so weird to see palms in that environment but I was told they had been there for many years . Harry

Very cool “ Cousin It “ looking trunk. Slow like my Cocothrinax . I have come to appreciate the slower growing palms , never have to pay for tree service for trimming! Harry

The same happened to mine in January 2025 and it ended up with only 1 frond 🥲

The court jester perhaps 🤣

Thanks so much Tracy. Your Platys look super healthy and I am envious you can grow them outside. It does look like some form of bifurcatum from my untrained eyes but I could be wrong. It's been an endless rabbit hole with researching and finding out there is a huge community or die hard collectors in Taiwan and Japan that are creating some of the most beautiful and advanced hybrids I have seen. Far too expensive for my current wallet but I do believe many are being tissue cultured now. Yes ... I would love to see a pic of the very large Superbum you stated. I know they can get amazingly large in their native habitat and live for an extremely long time. I am just a novice and still learning their morphology and habitat needs. Hopefully they will thrive in my dining room for many years to come. This was just a natural progression from growing outdoors to indoors for ultimately, our real estate outdoors is now limited. Hahaha. Cheers Tin

That’s a beauty Matt. Of all the Pritchardia I’ve seen, the P minors in New Zealand are right up there. What’s the smaller Pritchardia to the right? I like the heavily folded and bright green fronds and its compact form.

Lately I'm collecting a lot of seeds traveling to a lot of places, and once they are cleaned I put them up for sale on my website, here are some new ones and I will be updating with new species I add over time. 100% of the seeds I sell are collected by me or my team here and cleaned by us as well. I don't resell seeds. Brahea edulis – Guadalupe Palm Seeds Pritchardia hillebrandii – Hawaii Fan Palm Seeds Latania loddigesii – Blue Latan Palm Seeds Coccothrinax argentata – Silver Thatch Palm Seeds Livistona australis – Australian Fan Palm Seeds Butia odorata – Jelly Palm Seeds Butia yatay – Jelly Palm Seeds

This sunrise , as I gaze through the fronds of our Howea , caught my attention! We are expecting a rain storm tomorrow and we are at the leading edge of the storm , creating a fire in the sky. Harry

Actually those weeds are doing you a favour. They are creating a living carpet or a nice blanket for the ground. And in summer they will also help create humidity as a ground cover. Just because it’s a weed doesn’t mean you can’t use it to your advantage to establish other plants and by doing so creating a canopy and by then the weed will be absolute, not being able to grow in the understory. Create a canopy and you have no weeds!

Pretty sure it's Mexicana. Seeking confirmation. If anyone wants to confirm via street view, this is the San Marcos restaurant on Hwy 19 in Meridian MS. I just don't want to post offers without confirmation as to what I've got - these were planted alongside palmettos. I may have just a handful of these for trades/repaying favors/giveaways but I want confirmation on what I've got first. Like the minors I posted in the freebie section, these have endured snow and ice and single digits and triple digits. Long petioles and big fat fronds and trunks I'd struggle to hug. I love the irony that I went from freaking out about no seeds because the palm in my yard didn't seed this year to having an obscene amount in the span of what, 2 weeks? And NGL I'm tempted to go back for more and then buy a pole saw at Lowes for the palmettos and then return it.

I mean y'all could be right and it could be a genetic mutation of a palmetto. I'm not a complete idiot, I sound really smart around non-plant people but I come over here and I sound like a blithering idiot that can't say much more than "oooh pretty," but I can run a hotel and I can design a killer car audio system and I can fix anything in a first generation Toyota Tacoma and I'm full of worthless 80s-90s sports and pop culture trivia. But this ain't my wheelhouse.

Understandable. Yeah, I think @Sabal King would be our best bet for a positive ID.

Caryota sp.

November 2025 update:

I always wanted to put this question: which months are included in the seasons winter and autumn respectively in the Antipodes? I have the impression that in the tropics winter and summer refer to the dry and wet season, which down under comprise the opposite months of those in the northern hemisphere.

Looks nice. I really like slow growing palms more as I get older. No ladder required for maintenance and crowns at eye level. What’s not to like?

yes Richard,They can be grown throughout Italy and have a beautiful appearance

One tough cold tolerant palm, they take the subtropical climate easily. sold quite a lot in the early palm boom around here, but strangely I don’t see seeds on any of the old ones I see or perhaps Iam not looking hard enough to spot them. You see resorts with them and a lot of landscaping companies use them a lot. Richard

Some nice plants there. They have plenty of time to get ready for next winter , and your winters are fairly mild temperature wise. Harry

I had a feeling it might be P napaliensis and was hoping you’d say that. I’ve got one in ground coming along nicely. From memory it’s described as having incomplete covering of lepidia on the abaxial surface. Any colour to the undersides of the fronds at all?

All that and you are still planting more! Looking amazing. Harry

I would think that the Butia x J would like the cool climate. It might not be faster then the mule, but it will likely be happier with the cool temps. My B x J seems to like winter here, it puts out more leaves in cooler weather and stalls in the higher heat. My experience with mules is they vary a lot due to the F1 genetics is like a "box of chocolates". I prefer the upright mules, I have a yatay x syagrus to a neighbor, more butia blood. I had a more syagrus dominated B x J and it didnt do well in the dry sandy site I had it in. Today I have a (B x J) xJ at that site after an edit and it seems a lot happier. If I had an F1 hybrid and consider that either parent may dominate, Ill take the B x J. I am not a fan of syagrus in my sandy soil, they look poorly in my area and get knocked down in wind.

" Weed " in question looks like Bermuda buttercup ... Or another sp. of Oxalis Native there / aggressive cool season colonizer in California. Leaving it won't hurt the palms at all / will help keep the soil warmer. Won't effect how wet the soil stays either. Bermuda buttercup returns from bulbs anyway so chopping it won't eliminate it. Living mulch = far better than wood chips, let alone dyed wood chips.

Some very nice Pritchardia pictured here. As I previously posted , I only have one ( wish I had planted more ). The common Hillebrandii is a beautiful and welcome inhabitant of my garden . Harry Sorry , still dark out here as we wait for the storm coming in off the Pacific. Scrunched up against the house and slowly growing tall enough not to block my pathway . The lowest frond over the path is now over 6’ tall .

P. beccariana is definitely one of my favorites, here’s one i donated to the Kopsick Palm arboretum in St. Pete in 2019

There the ones perfect for the patio. It’s not all about everything in the ground, and by container growing it is possibly to grow that treasure of a palm in a container that won’t live in the ground no matter how much we try, container growing opens up a whole new collection of palms! Richard

The 1st pic is of early June. 2nd pic is of August, and 3rd of November. Very few flowers on the third blooming though. I've seen this happen on other trees in the area.

Happy Veterans Day weekend to everyone! I took advantage of the warm weather yesterday to swim with my kids for what will almost certainly be the last time this year. I hope you all had a great weekend as well. Stay warm as this front rolls through.

Nice one thanks for the pictures very interesting. Great to see some native palms in your area love it.