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This isn't entirely palm related, but I wouldn't be here without the love and knowledge I've learned from this community so I'm posting it here. I live in a small town, downtown is like old skool buildings, think Mayberry. A lady bought out an old storefront on the main street downtown, and plans to turn it into a plant boutique. Her mom, her aunt, her baby - they showed up with a squad to buy some colocasias from me. She's seen my social media feed and seen my whole operation now. Welp, it's gonna be early next year, but it looks like Sancho's Green Paws plants will be available for purchase in her store. I'm both stoked and terrified at the same time. On one hand, I'm trying to set up a Palmstreet store so I can pay some bills and on the other hand, it's like now I need to hang on to stuff to grow it out, and- I mean, I'd also kinda like to keep some stuff for myself. Y'all, anxiety is not cool.

Cool to see commercial property owners using palms other than syargus, phoenix etc. Have any of you carried your hobby into properties other than your home? Here’s my attempt at identifying these near me in the San Gabriel foothills jubaeopsis caffra bismarckia/ roystoneas ravenala madagascariensis Struggling dypsis sp? With caryota mitis in background some sort of cycas?

The same tree in March

Physokentia denisiimaurietiella aculeata A couple of good ones.

Two very unique palm species. One the Calyptrogyne allenii @realarch (I know you like Calyptrogyne) that has been proven to be cool tolerant. And the other is a lovely little Geonoma and if they grow as beautiful as the atrovirens then iam sure they will take place in a prime spot in the garden. Iam looking forward to seeing both in the garden one day!

I use pelletised chicken manure all the time even in the planting hole with soil I remove from my chicken pen and have never had an adverse reaction. I use Rooster Booster from that nationwide chain of stores that starts with B then a U. You get it. I very much doubt the problem is fertiliser burn. Only roundup destroys that quickly (2 weeks) Anyway I think it is a soil pathogen that has killed it stone dead. I’ve had similar things happen here in wetter areas and sort of randomly. Normally the main spear stalls, rots out, then falls over leaving the older leaves intact but the palm is essentially dead then. For all the leaves to give up at once though kind of says a root disease/pathogen.

Dypsis prestonia, they just bigger each new leaf, a fast growing palm!

Everytime this palm loses a leaf sheath is quite the event. Who needs sun on a rainy day with this in the front yard, It’s really quite the chunk. Tim

This photo was taken in February at Mounts:

Wishing both you and the lady's new store success! (Also good wishes to her mom, her aunt, and the baby!)

Somethings telling me zinc and boron deficiency. I have found a couple of my belmoreanas do this but a dose of trace elements with zinc and boron and back they come. My pH is low which they should like. I can grow forsteriana without an issue and they should want a higher pH than what I naturally have.

Is the soil quite sandy Jonathan? It kind of looks a bit like nematode damage - it tends to cause very quick decline in all fronds leaving a bit of green in the spear. I quick way to check is to rip out the palm and check for nodules on the roots. Really just a bit of a wild stab in the dark and I’m not really experienced at all with soil pathogens. I would say though that I’d almost certainly rule out fertiliser burn. As Tyrone says, no way it’s going to do that much damage that quickly. Co incidentally my L fulva declined this summer. But much more slowly. I dug it out a couple of months ago and put it in a pot. I suspect in was in too deep shade and possibly drainage issue, but honestly the soil seemed ok when I dug it. Perhaps as a species they are a bit sensitive to various issues at this size (mine is a similar size to yours above).

🚀 Absolutely spot on for the speed of growth estimate! I was shocked when the nurseryman told me the 8 foot tall tree I had just bought was only 3 years old. "Stand back,and stay out of its way" 😄 Yikes! aztropic Mesa, Arizona

Chamaedoreas they never get dull and I don’t know what the clivia is doing flowering now, crazy warm weather!

Iicualas are easy to grow, some climates they do better in containers then in the ground. There are so many licualas available in Australia. Bracteata, triphylla, ramsayi, spinosa, fordiana just a few tough ones for a cool climate. Oh I wish i could order from florabunda! Richard

Physokentia denisiimaurietiella aculeata A couple of good ones.

No I don’t have that one, it’s surprisingly rare, either that or it doesn’t grow in the cool climate.

I just love gardening, even I get amazed at what I have created. Yep the good old eat sleep repeat work pattern, I get to drive tractor all day and do irrigation, it’s a fun job that I love to do, oh and yes the tractor has Bluetooth so it’s music all day for me. And then after work I get to come home to my garden and palms, and yes you guessed it plant more plants! Richard

I saw this a bit when I visited NZ on some Hedyscepe at Landsendt and up at Kerikeri. It also happened to the Hedyscepe at the botanic gardens here years ago but I put that down to too much sun and heat eventually wearing it down. Not sure that’s the issue for you. Howea are prone to leaning crown syndrome here but I can’t say I can remember seeing this kind of problem with them here.

I have tried fertiliser with trace elements, Hydrogen Peroxide, topical fungicide and a heavy dose of Epsom salts (which is a good cure for similar problems in Parajubaea coccoides) but alas nothing works. The first photo is a plant that was in perfect condition six months ago but I knew it was just a matter of time before the misfiring spears would come. The second photo is where it is heading and likely remain between life and death for many years!

That’s great news for you, nothing better than a retail outlet, I supply a local hardware store and a couple of local nurseries and it’s a great feeling seeing your plants in a retail outlet. Good luck and happy gardening!

The differences between it and L. dasyantha are provided here: https://palms.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/PALMSv70n1p005-011-Qin-New-palm-from-Yunnan.pdf Recently, I have collected many samples of L. dasyantha and L. yunnanensis from more locations, and we're working on their relationships in pollens, and evolution using better sequencing methods.

Not a bad idea, unfortunately I would get run out town in the palm world, not a good business plan!🤣

Yes it’s not going to win any awards in a hurry, it was the original dypsis ambositrae. Pity it wasnt I would be sitting on right old seed bank. And the Cham plumosa I have seedlings in the greenhouse, iam now doing group plantings for future seed production. But I do get them settling seeds in the garden!

Not a bad idea I might just go and do a Johnny Appleseed with them in some of the hardest growing areas. Everything to gain and nothing to lose. Richard

A nice little find a grafted wilkinsoni grevillia. Always a favourite in any native garden.

Here is a better shot of the whole palm

Some of the many Brahea brandegeei blooming in old palm canyon in the western edition of Balboa Park. I believe this old palm canyon is over 100 years old.

Mine has been a great grower for me. The colors on the crownshaft and petioles are great. I just recently took a close up photo of the trunk showing the coloration:

April is pretty much the end of our wet season, the occasional light sprinklings in May are the last until September or October. Things are starting to dry out already. April brought 171.6mm. The Wet from 1 September to 1 May totalled 2865mm for 140 rain days. A neighbour a half kilometer away recorded 3021mm. April Av. max. 34.2 Av. min. 23.1 UV index 10

Not as warm as that but this weather still feels quite warm in the sun in the afternoons and nights are cool but no concerns about frost yet. All in all been a good growing season and palm have had 9 months to grow out last Winter's hail and slight frost damage. Wish palms looked like this all year. Even my youngest/smallest bangalow is trunking and way over my head now.

Here’s one small palm I fell in love with straight away. These little understory palms are an absolute beauty of a palm. Just as good as any small chamaedorea in the garden!

Sadly my Adansonia digitata was not getting enough heat or too short a season of heat compared to what it required. It would get new leaves in mid-summer and had a short growing season. I finally gave up and dug it out. I put it in a pot to give to a friend who lives in Vista, where hopefully it is getting the heat that it needs. It has been a little over a year now since I gave up. I love these trees. Had it grown the way they want to, I would have had to remove it eventually as well, as it would have outgrown my garden. That would have been a problem I would have enjoyed having.

Baronii and Ambositrae growing in such kind of medium

I think it accumulates from roots and over a long period of time so shavings should be fine. I would use them!

Might be a boron deficiency problem. Your Biz looks like its been in strong winds and low water conditions from the pic. If the spears that do have leaves ready to open are stunted in apparent leaf size, boron deficiency becomes more of suspect. Got an overall pic from further away? I do remember growing these in AZ, dang spears just seem to rise and wait for the monsoon season where humidity goes from 10-20% to 45-55% RH and they open in rapid succession a few weeks apart once the monsoon hits. If its been real dry and your water regimen short, it could also contribute to stunting of newest growth. The deformed petioles are a riddle, never saw those on any of my (4) bizzies in AZ, but mine never had a boron issue. I never saw a pest eat bismarckia leaves, the weevils go for the grow point first. I see hundreds of bizzies here in public landscaping along roads and highways, and sometimes they get bad boron deficiencies(1/50 palms). This year in our drought the crowns appear to be shrinking and in some cases bronzing. If the recent growth seems to have increasing ratio of petiole length to leaf length as a spear, I am suspecting micro nutrient uptake issues. DO you know soil pH or if the soil is highly calcareous. Soil pH significantly impacts boron (B) availability, with deficiencies most common in alkaline soils (pH > 7.5) and highly acidic, sandy soils. Boron becomes bound to iron/aluminum oxides or calcium in high pH soils, making it unavailable. Ideal pH for boron availability is generally 5.0–7.0 If your soil pH is over 7.5 I would add 10 lbs sulfur pellets and a few tablespoons of borax around the root zone. Bizzies are generally not susceptible to nutrient deficiencies, but boron is the one deficiency case I've seen over and over here in our sandy soils. I had alkaline soil(7.8-8pH) when I was in arizona, but I put down several hundred pounds of elemental sulfur pellets around palm root zones to deal with pH deficiencies of other palms. Sometimes you can have just a bad spot of high pH due to construction debris and the rest of the yard is not high pH so dont think because one spot is OK and another nearby Biz is affected that its not a pH/boron issue.

Co incidentally nr 2 an expert inspected my declining Chamaedorea microspadix clamp and put me uproot a whole sucker, in order to check for nematodes, but it turned out finally Rhizoctonia.

You gotta try five in one it’s the go!

Do both I do, zone 6 here Mine are in the open on the north side so I protect a bit. But mine have seen dips to single digits briefly w/o protection. I have lost some but that's the game when zone pushing. Going strong 5 years in ground,at least my needle, it's in full sun

Close to all day full sun 1.5 miles from the ocean.

Min of 54.5f/12.5c with a high of 62.6/17c with 67% humidity. Thankfully that extremely dry air 10%s 20%s rh has gone for now. Had a small amount of rain the other day which brings the total so far to 1mm. We had a few days in the 70s now back to the 60s, 1st was 78f/25.5c. I put a few archontophoenix seedlings, likely myolensis x tuckeri but could be anything into the pond waterfall toady. I was beyond impressed with how well they tolerate water, including cold water. Some were in pots with no drainage holes and sat in standing cold water all winter with 0 root rot only some minor frost burn. And put out decent growth throughout April.

Well well well.

Another difficulty with those Schinus is a real issue with allelopathy. There was one on our property when we bought the house here and just had it removed a couple of months ago. Couldn't get anything to grow well beneath or near it and so I looked up the issue...sure enough, it's known to be highly allelopathic to many plants. The other one we've had immense problems with in that department is the African sumac..Neighbors have it overhanging a wall similar to the photo above...has killed out everything I planted in that area. (Also that sumac stinks like pesticide when it blooms each year.) It's a real problem with many dry-climate trees that, not only are they aggressive with their root systems harvesting all water and nutrients to the complete exasperation of any nearby establishing plants, but they tend to produce lots of nasty oils full of phenolic compounds that get rid of "the competition"...other obvious offenders being most Eucalyptus and Melaleuca. Sometimes landscaping and gardening can be a real minefield...

I see lots of Horridus in that new leaf and even a little blue! Also a nice wide leaf from the Are x Wood.That plant should only get better as it gets bigger!

Glad you got one of these. Yours is doing great - especially for a palm that can be a bit fastidious. One of my favorites in my yard. Here is mine now flowering. This came as a 7 gallon from JDA in 2008. Little more history on the palm. JDA had two similar palms at the time “Betefaka” and “Honkona” (note the ‘o’). Both grew very similar. Betefaka being more glaucous, Hankona green. This is the plant Ron Lawyer once called the “butt-ugly betefaka” because the original Betefaka was such a looker from a young age. That original betefaka turned into Oropedionis.

I thought I’d give one a go after seeing so many success stories on here. I’m probably in a cooler climate than everyone above but my B condapanna is still going great 18 months after planting. It’s about to enter its second Melbourne winter. If it makes it through I’d say it’s here for the long haul.