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I found some old pictures of the house and garden right from the very beginning at least 30 years back. It took me a few years of building and landscaping before I moved in. I cannot believe all the rocks and the sandy soil it’s amazing when I look back at the tropical garden I have created. Even my garden style was different with low perennial flowers and shrubs due to the heat in summer it was so unbelievably hot. Candles would melt inside the house when we went out and locked the house up. Now 30 years later the garden is 26 years old. One divorce later and a young man back then age about 26, now 56 years young again and still dreaming about the vision of the garden I created. So you can create a tropical garden in a barren hot bush block of land, just add love of palms and a dream to it!

Do t even do that just top em up, that’s just as good as an oil change🤣

I was amazed at all the rocks. There still there and more of them rocks hidden by the garden. Totally amazing when I look back, the ex wife gave the pictures to me today. We created the dream together, through a lot of hard work and love we got there. Unfortunately we went our separate ways 5 years ago, but she is still in that dream just a little bit different now. You cannot tell where life will take you. But the garden is still growing a little bit larger and it’s a lot cooler now with the garden. I could have planted a native garden or a cottage garden but my dream was a rainforest garden. Dreams do come true. Richard

The good old Toyota Camry, it was a good car back in the day. The garden is still going but the camry went to the car wrecking yard!

Hell yeah, Toyota power

The old saying in Australia yer I changed the oil I topped it up a week ago!

There are other gardens and collections out there far greater than mine. I know of 5 local gardens that are a lot better than my garden. And there’s some pretty big collectors in Australia who don’t muck around when it comes to collecting plants. I just have a passion for gardening and palms just like the rest of us on this forum. It’s about the love of palms, gardening and sharing on this forum.

Just a tad bit of work with a bulldozer. He hit a rock shelf and there was nothing else he could do in the way of bulldozing for the house site. Even iam amazed at the photos not seeing the pictures for 30 to 26 years later. Incredible amount of rock it just goes to show what can be done!

I kept record of where I was and for some reason, most of the palms were in the southwest Fairfax area. Yet, not close to the river where there as many tropical plants in general. Most of the palms were in this area and really close to highway 17. I don’t know why, but the amount of cement is alot so that would mean a lot of thermal mass. The fumes from the cars could have kept it warmer. It to me was so strange that all of the sudden when you went here there were noticeably more tropical palms

I'll bet if you changed the fluids and put fresh gas in it, it'd still run.

A bit of grading work was done prior to planting it seems.

To many the MAPU is a holy grail palm I can see why now. There absolutely gorgeous!

Yes it’s a monster unfortunately my climate is to unpredictable for moisture, and iam just to busy to tend to it daily. But yes planted in situ would be best for it. It’s alive still but give it time we will see how it goes.

It was a vision I had nos iam looking at that vision.

So cool to look back. We just recently went through some photo albums . I haven’t taken any film photos in many years. Thank you for sharing . Harry

Good start, Richard. Congratulations! Now you're in the future, with more palm trees around you.

What a monster! Would be tempting to plant that one straight into the ground...doesn’t look like something that enjoys being transplanted.

Stunning collection . I never get tired of Balboa Park or San Diego zoo. So many palms and cycads to be seen there. As soon as my hip heals we will go down and visit our daughter and take in the park. They moved a couple of large Bizmarkia recently , I hope they are ok. Harry

I used to have an Isuzu Pup. Oh my god that thing was so slow, I think it had 83hp. Lol the speedo went to 120 and it wouldn't go that fast if you dropped it from space. Anyway it had a main seal leak that was so bad I just added a quart a week. The oil was always fresh.

What you say makes sense and is the feedback I was looking for, thanks. In this case the raised planters are far apart, about 30 meters, and you can not see both of them at the same time. My minds made up, Im going to leave the pups on one of them as you says, to give it a different look.

Very cool my friend Mazat. Medjool

I especially love that palmetto! They all look great! 👍

Kyle, did you pick up the Jubaea seeds ?

If your climate is a solid 9b, then the B alfredii and Archontophoenix should potentially grow just fine for you outside...I'd certainly be giving them a go.

Comparing Sabal palmetto Lisa, with Sabal mexicana ( right) in Dallas 🌴

Okay, Konstantinos. Then i will do it in this two steps. Thank you very much 🤗

My bad for not getting root porn pics, but they made this look a wee bit premature. But like, I really didn't want to have to just repot them again in a month anyway and if this soil doesn't drain amazingly I have problems because there's an insane amount of perlite. I threw a few big handfuls of Black Kow in all of them and mixed that in (very well this time, no clumps, didn't throw it in the bottom) with 5lbs of coir and 2 cu ft of perlite and yeahhhhh the tub at the end was full 2 hours ago. Speaking of 2 hours that's probably how long it'll take this crappy wifi to load a 2 minute YouTube but it's coming.

$155.61 got me a 10lb block of coir, 4 cu ft of perlite, 100 1 gallon pots, 2 more lights, 4 buckets and 5 loquat seedlings.

SD Zoo and Balboa Park surroundings are a gold mine for Palm, Encephalartos and Aloe sightings. Some cool pics there. -dale

I'm acquiring a collection 😂 light and water makes green.

This one is gonna be a little different and I deserve applause. I went to the blue big box store and they've got a rack of bananas for $15. This one had multiple pups and I didn't buy it. Same with elephant ears. I used to look at plants for size and overall health, now I look for multiple plants. They also had a clearance majesty with 2 7 foot plants that looked great that I didn't buy. Please clap because I am literally running out of room unless I get a sugar mama.

No market here. It would be for purely aesthetic purposes.

Most definitely protect them, I hear they don’t like below ten degrees. I had one seedling live in my hothouse this winter untouched by the cold weather, I was very surprised to see it live. Maybe if they are germinated in the cool climate they might have a bit of cool tolerance.

Both look great, so I'm no help unless there's a market for you to sell the pups to pay some bills.

My red spicata coconut palm caught my eye today

Red leaf on this Archontophoenix "Teracarpa" (it's a hybrid from Jungle Music Nursery).

My guess is if Brahea are slightly more tender than Washingtonia robusta or even filifera, that could be why they lack? But the very few Brahea do look OK where I am (Las Cruces & El Paso), so I would guess their cold limit would be in T or C or Alamogordo. Nannorhops are probably never sold, unlike in AZ or Las Vegas. I would also add Sabal mexicana seems worth planting in ABQ, but like too many Washies, they need adequate room to grow and not cause damage to paving or their own root systems - far more than they "need" some perceived microclimate benefit of cramscaping. Cramscaping never ends well, especially for the plant. Central New Mexico's desert valley, along the Rio Grande (Socorro to Bernalillo, inclusing ABQ), just seems to experience too many freezing hours and coldest temps most winters, that make it much harder for slightly less hardy palms than my area. But nobody will know until they make an educated try - and - gives those palms room to develop.

And here are some more from this past weekend. Some new finds as well!

Is that the Burj Dubai skyscraper in that photo Harry!

More blue sky down under!

Wow , I only have 3 Palm books . I guess I am behind on my reading! I have the pocket guide by Martin Gibbons, Palms by David Jones , and Palms and Cycads of the World by Lynnette Stewart.The last book was given to me by my friend who started my journey . He managed a local nursery where I bought a lot of my seedlings . Another collector had given it to him but he already had a copy. Some of the names have changed on these palms since publication but the information and pictures are amazing. Harry

Nice collection D L Jones is a great book the encyclopaedia is my bible go to book and I see your into Florida books happy reading I think the word book worm would suit us both

Also any book by taschen not just palm books

There’s another book on palms I will definitely have to get that 😁

And share you did very impressive it’s always nice to see other gardens

Looks like to much sun I have a few looking the same they are fairly exposed to bright afternoon sun and in a dry area

You should hear us when we’re drunk then we just use slang words now iam going to the pub to order a schooie of new and a dogs eye with a bit of dead horse work that one out 🤣 cause iam as dry as a dead dingos Donga we even call lady’s Sheila’s it’s an Aussie thing 🤣🤣🤣

You guys sure have us beat with crazy spellings!