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This is unfortunately the solution. We have an absolute feral cat plague here at the moment, haven’t seen a rat or mouse for over a year. Usually the rodents move into the greenhouse in winter and wreak havoc, this winter not a single one. The downside is that the bloody cats have killed everything else as well - bandicoots and all the ground nesting birds, lizards, etc. So the solution to the cat problem is this little cutie who's coming home with us on Friday! If she's anything like our previous shepherds she'll chase the cats away and leave everything else in peace. Yep, we'll end up with rats and mice again but that's a small problem compared to the devastation cats cause.

I’ll be 75 next June and immigrated from the Netherlands in 1956 at 5yrs old. Been into surfing all over the world, road racing bicycles on and off until 65 years old. Been a Palm society member since 1977, and now I’m on my second go round with my 13 years old garden in the hills of Vista/ Bonsall area of San Diego. I just finished spreading 36 cubic yards of mulch this week myself. I’m growing cycads, aloes, agaves, plumerias, protea, boojums, and of course palms. The world keeps on changing but I’m still the same cantankerous beast that I’ve always been 😎

@Hillizard + @Meangreen94z + @nachocarl + @Pdmesa + @PalmBossTampa + @Swolte + @Borassus2892 + @fr8train I figure this is a great thread for us to discuss our recent experiences growing this palm. It's long been a desire of mine to have a grove of them here in Florida, but I'm not sure how they'll handle my soil long-term. There seems to be some better luck in Texas and California, so let's share here. My garage needs to be emptied out, so I've started selling or potting the remaining seedlings and figure the discussion can outlast the sale here. ----------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: This discussion is a split topic from the original for sale posting: https://www.palmtalk.org/forum/topic/85671-medemia-argun-nubian-desert-palm/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- For everyone that has asked about how we manage to grow them here, know that they are a little bit flakey when they are young. If you let them get to the point where they root into the ground, it's almost certain death if you break the roots. At that point, you'd do better to go get retaining wall blocks and build a raised bed around it. You'll have less issues in a more sterile environment in a pot. @PalmBossTampa had a good idea about stacking pots. Below is what mine look like when I pot them for individual growth and sale locally. This is a seedling on leaf #2 that was just moved 11/24/2025, and it will probably start reaching the holes by February or March. Water deeply, let it dry, keep a reservoir at the bottom when you water it a month or so later to make sure the soil at the bottom gets damp like an underground stream bed. Note how the soil in the pot is raised where the stem comes above the soil line to prevent stem rot. These are the best tips we currently have here in my region. There are a lot of growers in the desert southwest of the USA that are growing these. Any tips to share for folks struggling with this one in the much more suitable arid climates? In the ground, mine are in a raised bed. They usually don't make it in the various areas of the yard. The soil is heavy and tends to retain moisture. This is probably my best and last shot.

A nice dypsis remotifolia and a very nice licuala triphylla var stenophylla. Loving the heat of 39 degrees Celsius today.

@Jim in Los Altos your ebony petioles rock! Obscenities loudly screamed in the Southland!

November 24, 2025 Here is the yellow one. I’m trying to bond with it more. I slowly moved it with help. I needed to really clean it down and spray it with fungicide. I need to decide where its forever spot will be bc it is soooooo heavy and if it gets any heavier I’ll need like a crane haha. I know it looks raggedy but I’m certain it is healthy. I think it has atleast 1 more fronds since the last pic of it. the big one is actively growing again since the storms stopped, the newest frond is starting to open. with the power lines issue in mind, maybe a cold plunge might actually prolong the coconuts life (by setting it back) lol

That is similar to my Macrocarpa , very dark green with only slight mottling and short petiole but huge fronds for the size of the palm. I like all Chambey’s but the blonde crown shaft and size of the Hookeri is special . I just can’t remember if any I’ve seen have those very dark petiole. I mean , those in your photo are near ebony , like black bamboo. Harry

Thank you Not right now as I have been swamped running my coffee shops. It took all my time. Writing was a full time job. Plus, I would never want to use new tools like ChatGPT - which so many bloggers now do.

Nice pics I import a lot of seeds from Thailand, it’s a palm growers paradise!

I have a cat but she is retired now, and as for getting another one living in the bush next to state forest there just too much of an environmental hazard for our wildlife. And no she doesn’t eat any wildlife anymore but I just can’t get another cat after having them for 38 years ever since I left home.

Those are some nice Vershafeltia, they look like they are ready to march away! Harry

My foxtail did this last year due to cold damage from the previous winter. Got lazy towards the end of the season and it damaged the growth point ever so slightly. I got the same knot in the crownshaft and the emerging spear was opening super prematurely. I let nature take its course, and what resulted was a trunk with a slight kink in it, but it resumed growth normally. This palm later became the victim of allocating cold protection resources to more important things, and it died in a snowstorm. Long story short, its probably been caused by some sort of internal damage. Who knows what might have caused it. Not saying this is the reason, but it would probably help if you didnt cut fronds off the palm. These palms are self cleaning, no need to cut anything. Once the frond is brown, it should pull right off.

No matter what it is it is probably the best looking Chambeyronia I've ever seen. Wow

@redinkyblot I would guess it was a shade grown palm and super stretched out. When it goes into the sun it then tries to grow"normal" length fronds. In this case probably several feet shorter than the old ones. The bulge might be fronds getting "stuck" near the growing point and having a hard time growing up and out. I'm not sure if there's a real solution to it, other than letting it keep growing out. On bananas I have done "surgery" to open up the culm and let it grow out straight again. I think that might be a bad idea on a palm. Maybe some others here have good suggestions?

Iguanura wallichiana. Tim

This is truly frustrating . I haven’t had too much trouble in my garden but down on the hill…..GOPHERS !! They have eaten so many palms it has , at times , infuriated me. The latest was a really nice Sabal Mauritiformis. I thought it was safe as they have ignored the Sabal Riverside for 28 years . They haven’t messed with the Butia , either Brahea , Phoenix Reclinata, Trachycarpus, Washingtonia or either Livistona. They have eaten several trunking Howea , a nice Bizmarkia, Syagrus Schizophylla, Syagrus Romanzoffiana. We have trapped several of the nasty little vermin but they just keep coming from other properties that don’t trap. We have neighborhood cats , snakes , Hawks and Eagles , yet they persist . O K , rant over . Thank you for listening! Harry

Y'all, I have the solution to your problems. Come to Mississippi and get cats from me. I've never seen a rat or a mouse around here, but I did see one's tail being used as a kitten toy.

Seeing some progress but still not speedy progress in the last 3 years. Patience is rewarded though.

I got this Cycad labeled as Ceratozamia pacifica as a small 1" caudex probably a dozen years ago or more. It greatly resembles my Ceratozamia mexicana, but hasn't coned yet. I have another larger male plant labeled as Ceratozamia pacifica, that I bought closer to 17 or 18 years ago, which had already coned before I bought it. The older plant pushes more vigorous flushes with 5 to 9 leaf flushes. Both appear to be the same species. This one was in a pot for a long time, but never pushes much more than 3 leaf flushes since I planted it several years ago. I like the glossy look of the new leaves as it flushes.

49..but just turned 43 in September

A nice young burretokentia hapala, had the dancing lady orchid to dance with!

Evening sun hitting this 2 headed Chrysalidocarpus Prestonianus Hybrid

Good morning from Okinawa... No editing - uploaded as it was taken. Lars

The common and exotic, both have a role in the garden to do!

This has been a fun palm to watch grow. I planted it in 2012 as a solid dark green 1 gallon. Slowly it became more and more silver on the bottom of the leaves and then started to turn silver on the tops. Now I have to climb on the roof to shoot a pic of the tops of the leaves and they are solid silver only loosing some their color as the leaf ages. Sorry for the Bigfoot quality photo on the first shot.

Of the several Chambeyronia in the garden, this one originally identified as C. macrocarpa has the yellowish trunk of a hookeri and nearly black petioles. Is this unusual or have any of you seen this characteristic before?

I wanted to start a thread here to share photos and put a place for others to share as well. The more time I spend in Midland and Odessa for work the more I appreciate what people are growing here and have through many years even 2021. This climate is 8A but after going back through climate data about 90% of our winters are 7b/8a/8b, luckily leaning more heavily to 8a and 8b. However about 1/10 winters the area sees 7a or even 6b lows and each winter there will be about 3 days where highs don’t get above freezing. So it’s amazing to see what these have endured. Unless many were cut down after 2021 it seems like filifera survival was close to 100% here and these seem to be the most common palm here and then sabal, Trachycarpus and chamaerops.

If I remember correctly from the movies and the commercials that came out around that time, gophers love to party and drink root beer. Maybe throw on your tackiest golf pants and see if you can't bait them out.

E. sclavoi. Pup just flushed, but parent is still sleeping. Does that mean pup now has its own roots and is fairly independent from the parent? Pup caudex is about 4" and I will probably remove it in the spring. Parent is about a 1' x 1' basketball that's been in the ground over 20 years. aztropic Mesa, Arizona

Few pics...intersting thing, recently find out that one of my rostrata make 2 head without flowering....i thought they do that only after flowering....

As I say big rookie mistake not labeling, I still do it now and then, you can’t rely on the good old brain. I could pot up something every day if I wanted the only thing that stops me is I get so busy doing other things. And you know what they say one day the best student becomes the teacher! Richard

There all varmits!

Alright free cats iam up for a dozen, and when iam old and senile the wife can be the crazy cat lady of happypalms!

Great reference @JohnAndSancho , I was thinking about deploying an underground nuclear device! Harry

Here’s my mapu in my cabinet. the funky color is my grow lights are pink 😁

Had a minor rat problem at the old house but since moving here I have only seen one. (and that was quite enough actually) I do get mice in the yard but my 16 year old cat keeps them under control and one of my fluffy little Pekingese isn't bad at catching them either. I get the odd Cane Toad but no bats so I guess as far as vermin go I am pretty lucky here. Peachy

This one is @ Gizella Kopsick in St. Petersburg, FL Picture taken June 2025. I think this illustrates well the tillering aspect of the species

Speaking of thorny, guess who got stabbed in the head today putting on christmas lights…. me 💔🌴 Luckily the thorn came out cleanly, even though I instinctively ripped it out the moment I felt it.

Thanks all, for the great "behind the username" stories we've seen in this thread. It's been nice to put a story to the user and to see some of the users who don't post much, as well.

You can see a C. macrocarpa behind and to the right of the Chambeyronia with the red leaf and it’s trunk and crown shaft are very dark green as the typically are. That one produces dark maroon new fronds.

That's what sucked me in. I bought a Majesty for my apartment as a houseplant. Lol we all know how they do as houseplants 99% of the time, and I found y'all looking for guidance. Then 2020 happened, and I suddenly had all the time in the world to do nothing and extra money. I came out of that with a decent job that left me enough money to pay the bills, buy a car, and buy more palms. Then the bottom fell out, as bottoms tend to do, but now I can at least look like I know what I'm doing. And after getting lots of gifts and lots of knowledge over the last 5 years, I've got all the room in the world to grow stuff.

Yep at again planting a couple of nice exotics, I give the garden five years and it should be looking pretty good!

Today it caught my eye how difficult it is to photograph my Mauritia and how easy it is to photograph my Pinanga.

Here's a Corypha sp. at Kopsick loaded with fruits with lots of seeds to be collected later and a big removal to come as well!

Great hobby to share with the children . I remember my little girl , then a toddler , following me around with her pink beach pail “helping “ me plant palms everywhere around our home . She would go with me to Jungle Music and different palm specialty nurseries around the north San Diego area on “ safari “ . Cherish the memories , as your palms grow , the child’s voices will echo after they have grown and left the nest . My favorite …” Why are you trying to hide our house , Dad ?” Now , at 71 it means so much. Once , while visiting us on holiday , she posted on social media a photo of the view from our deck with a one word caption “Home” ! Harry

32. Got into palms 4 years ago after buying my first house. I do remember seeing my first coconut palm outside Ron Jon’s in Cocoa Beach as a kid, and that blew my mind. (Grew up in inland central Florida) This hobby has been awesome now that fishing/hunting hobbies have been harder to work out with having kids. Now digging in the yard with my boy has become something I look forward to every week.

A view from my new garden. I moved in April.

Dypsis procera, beautiful smallish palm.

L weddelianum today.

Skippy the bush kangaroo in amongst the palms.