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Posting a few photos of my Parajubaea torallyi. I planted this palm about 15 years ago from a 5-gallon pot. It currently has about six feet of clean trunk and it’s about 25+ feet tall. This time of year, I tug on the old leaf sheaths to see if any of them are ready to come off. If they're ready, they pull off easily. However, if they aren't, no amount of pulling will remove them. It’s not unusual to find Arboreal Salamanders (Aneides lugubris) under the old leaf sheaths as shown in the photo below. I'm in the San Francisco bay area.

Upon request by the owners and IPS president Andy Hurwitz I am posting information about a one of a kind legacy property available for sale in Hawaii. PT is not normally the correct venue for real estate ads, but I believe when you read more you will see why an exception is made here. Although memories of my visit there in 2022 will forever be etched in my mind, please address inquiries to the owners, not to me personally. Please see information and photos from the owners: A New Chapter for Casa de Las Palmas We purchased Casa de Las Palmas in 2017 from the estate of legendary nurseryman Jerry Hunter. Jerry was the owner of Rancho Soledad Nurseries in California, Palms of Paradise in Hawaii, and Mount Soledad in Pacific Beach. Dubbed the "Dean of California Landscape Architects", he held license #33. His designs are found throughout the San Diego area, including San Diego Zoo, Balboa Botanical Gardens, and a host of other public and private venues. Along with collecting and hybridizing many new plant varieties, he built the first plant tissue culture laboratory in San Diego. Casa de Las Palmas was Jerry's private Hawaiian retreat. Over the course of 35 years, Jerry transformed seven acres of upper Hilo farmland into a true garden masterpiece, creating a magical realm of exotic palms, waterfalls, meandering lava-rock paths, water gardens, and flowering tropical plants. Now over 45 years since planting began, it's a vast and mature botanical collection of rare palms, cycads, philodendrons, bromeliads, anthuriums and orchids. We have been honored to be the caretakers, but the time has come for us to move on, so we are offering the property for sale. Before we list it on the open market, we want palm and garden lovers to know it is available, in the hope that we can find a custodian for the future. The property has a 2-bedroom, 2-and-a-half-bathroom house with a separate apartment, and potential for additional dwellings. We currently do private garden tours, film shoots, and small events, and there is plenty of room to grow a successful business here. We had the delight of hosting IPS members for a lunch and tour during the 2022 Biennial in Hawaii. Please do contact us if you would like any further information. Irene Francis & Lars Woodruffe 646-338-7882 irenefrancis@hotmail.com https://houseofthepalms.com/

I've not shared anything with you folks before, simply because I haven't had anything to offer. I was not born with a passion for palms. We (my wife and I) fell into this peculiar and fascinating world quite by chance. Like anything, the more you learn, the more interesting things become. That said, all we have to offer you is our experience managing a legacy garden. Irene & I bought Casa de Las Palmas on Hawaii Island in 2017. The garden was the tropical fantasy world of the late San Diego nurseryman Jerry Hunter. Mr. Hunter was successful. He’d started his company in the 1950's, and was the 33rd licensed Landscape Architect in California. He'd been involved with the design of San Diego Zoo, Wild Animal Park, and Balboa Botanical Gardens, among many others. He had the first tissue culture lab in Southern California. His parents had been the go-to people on the west coast for begonias. He was essentially American plant royalty. He figured out that if he grew his tropicals in Hawaii and shipped them to California, he'd be ahead of the competition. He built a nursery in Hilo and bought the land for Casa de Las Palmas. It would serve as his home away from home, and as a showroom for his wealthy clients. Construction of the garden began in 1981 on almost seven acres of upland pasture. The volcanic clay soil was not suitable for planting juvenile plants, so untold tons of cinder and rock were brought in, and the landscape shaped and molded into what we see today. Most of the planting was done into cinder mounds. For the design of Casa de Las Palmas he worked with the local landscape architect Brian Lievens, whom he would task with sourcing some of the rare plants from east Hawaii's growers. Brian was gracious enough to provide us with the original planting plans of the garden which are now laminated and framed on the lanai. These exquisite plans (like a cross between a complex wiring diagram and an artwork) were how we learned about the palms in the garden. We spent endless evenings cross referencing the botanic names with The Encyclopedia of Cultivated Palms. Being a nurseryman from San Diego, Mr. Hunter had a crew of extremely hard working and talented Mexican men build the garden for him. A swimming hole was hand-hewn under one of the waterfalls. A delicate stone foot bridge was created over the stream. We were told that the lava rock paths took three years to complete. And the scale of plantings were nothing short of colossal. The kind only a successful nurseryman like Mr. Hunter could even contemplate. We were lucky enough to apprentice under one of the original employees, Cristobal. Without his dedication and care we would never have got off the starting line, our ignorance would have been absolute, the garden would have fallen into chaos. I recall how early on we planted a dwarf papaya on a cinder mound next to a Metroxylon amicarum and Dypsis carlsmithii (now Chrysalidocarpus carlsmithii), much to Cristobal's unspoken, but obvious, distress. Shortly afterwards a large palm leaf fell and destroyed the papaya. We took this as a sign that the garden requires a certain amount of respect. Since then, staying true to the intentions of the garden has been something we work hard on. When we plant, we consider the design. Perhaps we plant a Alocasia zebrina underneath the Caryota zebrina to mimic its petioles. Perhaps the Pinanga distitcha should be planted near the Licuala mattanensis “Mapu” to mirror their mottled leaf forms. Constant working in the garden reveals new insights every day. Sometimes it's like garden archeology, discovering a long-overgrown path or a rare plant languishing under piles of fallen leaves. Sometimes it's a lesson in design - realizing that most of the plants in an area share undulating leaf forms or that the color scheme is quite deliberately rigid. Casa de Las Palmas has evolved from a carefully orchestrated young garden into a mature ecosystem. Plants have produced progeny and plants have died. The blueprint has gotten a little more fuzzy. Many of the palms are too big to groom now. Everything fights for light, air and nutrients. It has become naturalized. Pretty soon we realized that the nutrients the garden demands couldn't be met by chemical fertilizer. It was just too expensive. So, we looked into goats. We now have six gelded males rescued from the butcher's block and fenced on a neighboring paddock we own. They provide plenty of manure for the garden. Their poop doesn't smell much, is hard and breaks down slowly and can be flung from a shovel in showers through the dense plantings. The plants love it, but we do supplement weak or needy palms with a special palm fertilizer as needed. Legacy gardens are by their nature equal parts demanding and rewarding. They offer those of us new to gardening an incredible learning experience. We certainly don't have the kind of money, manpower or knowledge required to create something so remarkable from scratch. But like buying a beautiful, world-weary house, after a lot of work, you can enjoy something unique, grand and magical. Really for us it is the magical spell that Casa de las Palmas puts you under, one that removes us from the world and enchants us, that makes this legacy garden so very special. Lastly, I'll leave you with three things of note that we have learned: Map your garden. Don't make it too big. And don't go planting Clinostigma samoense down the driveway...or any heavy crownshaft palms for that matter! com.google.android.apps.docs.editors.kix.editors.clipboard?uuid=ecbeebc8-9124-4c8d-9ebd-e5cbdce7e26b

Happy new year everybody. A small update of my coconut palm in Cyprus. It's still alive for another winter. I increased the water in the summer and it started to make a difference in the growth.

This is the luckiest palm in my garden. Twice it has been narrowly missed by huge falling trees, surviving without so much as a scratch. It even seems to like the decaying Cecropia trunk 1/4" from its base. Love watching this beautiful baby grow. Do you have Johannesteijsmannia magnifica in your garden? Or a photo of one you have admired on a palm tour somewhere in the world? Post your photos here! Not kidding about it being "in the jungle!"

January 2026 update:

Another update on this one, sorry. It caught my eye this morning opening a new frond. It’s been growing great. -dale

Nice new Lepidorrachis leaf, always eye catching.

It's wintertime in Holland with snow and a few degrees below zero C.. Nothing to worry about, just enjoying the view of the garden with some Trachy. fortunei, a Chamaerops humilis vulcano, laurels with winterprotection for the stems and a few date palms! By the end of the week, it will all be over again!

You guys get a few more points in California for Rhopalostylis, Ceroxylon, Hesyscepe, etc. hah! Here’s my Blue Decipiens. Still a ways off from trunking when they seem to speed up. I’m guessing this one is 8-9 feet tall from ground to tip of newest leaf.

Not a tree palm, but Allagoptera arenaria is from beachfront habitat.

Chambeyronia oliviformis powering on and opening a new frond yesterday despite a maximum of 44C/111F with 75km/h (46mph) winds. Tough palm. The nearby Chrysalidocarpus lanceolatus which also decided to open up a frond in the oven wasn’t so lucky. The heat and wind sucked the moisture from the frond and it wilted quickly.

Get your traps built. I catch 10-20 a week.

A nice summer swim and a walk along a beach, with absolutely no body on the beach for miles, except for a few seeds!

My biggest surprise was my two veitchia arecina. They propably becoming my fastest palms. When I put them in the ground last summer they were 2 feet overall height. Now they are about 7 feet with a few rings of trunk. I'm glad they survived in the summer heat. I lost some palms in the heat waves, and some don't happy under the summer sun. I increased the watering for all the palms and it helps a lot.

Here's one growing in the water at Presa La Boca, Nuevo León, México. However, this is freshwater, not salt water.

Say hello to my little friend, purchased from @Darold Petty just before Christmas. It was gorgeous today, I think all over California, so we did a little garden cleanup. This got me to thinking about where I intend to put this plant, probably in mid to late February. I have two spots, close together but quite different. Here’s the overall view. One location is where the Cycas is currently. It has never done well, I think due to scale, but is looking better lately. Still I would not hesitate to move or remove it. This location gets plenty of sun spring through fall, I’m concerned maybe too much. Eventually there will be more canopy but this will take years. It is very visible from our patio which is desirable. Darold recommends this location. The other option is a few feet away underneath the growing Sphaeropteris medullaris. Despite its own issues with sun, it will provide filtered shade for years and will gain height, allowing the Lepidorrhachis to become more visible. Honestly I am leaning towards this option but want to see what the group thinks. It’s possible that I get a bit more sun than Darold, and of course I don’t have anything like his mature canopy. Let me know what you think. Thanks.

Areca vestaria sp.

@happypalms I mix my own soil up with various ingredients. First is coco coir coarse, perlite, nutricote, top quality potting mix, and volcanic rock crushed, blue metal is another alternative to the crushed dust. Give it a good mix up and you’re ready to go. I prefer this coarse mix for seedlings it has good drainage and plenty of air. Get your soil corre t from day one and your growing troubles are over, well sort of so to speak. It works for me, you may want to tweak your recipe to suit your own growing conditions and climate.

Amazing story of survival in your jungle Kim! I was fortunate to get one of these this past summer since I finally have some canopy to plant it under.

Planted 3 L weddellianum together about 4 years ago and they caught my eye today.

I hope you're right! Another year for Theo! I'd say, it's been a reasonably good year. I had a low of 14F in the winter and that is the highest its been in several years. Its almost like I was actually in a zone 8b (I am ignoring the new laughable 9a classification for my area). No severe drought or really insane temperatures in the summer for extended periods. The fall was exceptionally dry though, with no rain for over 2 months (but luckily temps were not hitting 100s like the previous 2 years). The drought did kill some plants but many boar, attracted by the more moisture/life-retaining conditions in my garden, destroyed several beds (never seen it this bad!!). Theo was untouched, though. I guess the spikes helped!! As you can see by the stats, Theo appears to have benefitted from these relatively good conditions (or at least wasn't held back). Both trunk diameter and height have increased rapidly. I note that Theo receives no care other than some weeding around the trunk. I added a pic with from a different angle with some counter-light (looks great in real life). I have been experimenting with vining and waterwise roses that can climb up on it, however, this year was not a success. Probably because they do need water to get established the first year (and I have ignored that spot most of the year). I may get once of the exceptionally drought tolerant climbing rose this year from the rose emporium (these are NOT your typical roses). ~ S

Lacospadix, kerriodoxa and a nice little dypsis lantzeana all seem to get my attention!

I acquired this lithograph at the Paris flea market, L'Illustration Horticole, circa 1880, It is not labeled but almost certainly is Howea belmoreana.

@juju95 I would say Elaeis Guineensis, but a rare mutation called "whole leaf" or "Idolatrica." ...and welcome to Palmtalk!

Golf course at Lajitas Resort, which borders Big Bend and the Rio Grande.

Just want to share some pictures of aloes I have here in Cape Coral, FL. Yes. Many can grow well in a hot, humid, wet Summer climate with the proper drainage. There are a couple tree aloes pictures here flowering as well. Thraskii has the golden branched inflourescens, and vaombe is red flowering in a pot. Also have an Alooides hybrid sending up flowers. Others here include dorothea, vanbalenii in yellow, and cameronii in multiple color variants. All here are blooming now. Enjoy the pics. Sorry. Some pics doubled up. Not sure why.

Here’s a photo of Santa Cruz Beach just south of the SF Bay Area and, as you can see, there are lots of Washingtonia growing in the beach sand.

Hey yall, I happened to be biking through part of my neighborhood in Anacortes with kids just after the New Year. My kids, being familiar with my willingness to stop everything to admire palm trees, shouted out: "Look, baba! Palm trees!" Sure enough, there was one Trachycarpus fortunei standing tall as a flagpole. Then I noticed the fronds of some cocoid looking palms (or rather, should I say: Attaleanid) tucked along the driveway. I'm going to go back up there and see of I can chat to the folks living there and get any intel!

A fantastic time to be germinating palm seeds in summer, for those tropical heat loving palms. A few new varieties have popped up along with a few late comers. I will say licuala palms are slow and sporadic and like heat to really get a move along!

Absolutely one of my favourites in the palm world. And as most people are aware of there is no shortage of joeys in my part of the world. Your one is an absolute treasure and lucky to survive narrowly avoiding a near death situation from a falling tree! They are actually easy to grow and quite tough, just add water!

A large clump of Acoelorraphe wrightii

I was lucky enough to snag a couple of these and working on having the ability to offer these in our Etsy shop.. until then, I have always wanted to get my hands on these. It's been a multi-year process and finally happened! I'm going to grow these out, try them both here in DFW and at my ranch in ETX as well. Really excited to see what happens. Sabal antillensis Sabal lougheediana

Archontophoenix alexandrae

Sounds like you have done pre winter protection, it’s up to Mother Nature now, welcome to the zone push club where you get to watch palms die and you also get to watch new palms live. See socratea rostrata picture below for a zone push winner!

I love the cocos but I also wanted to give priority to palms that can more easily grow in my climate. Here are some photos. Sorry for the mess. I have a lot of cleaning to do, but I've been very busy lately with work.

Finally got a bloom, overeating lookin inflorescence. Tim

2 pics from yesterday and 2 from today. I love this dypsis Mt. something or other

Why do all people overlook the humble Phoenix theophrasti and dactylifera? In Stalida in Crete Phoenix theophrasti grows right on the sandy beach. A few cm below surface one can dig with bare hands to sea water. Theophrastus in his book describes how ancient growers used to spread salt around the trunk base of cultivated Phoenix dactylifera as a mean of fertilization.

I reckon either option would be ok in your climate, which is prettysimilar to mine...shade is definitely preferable when they're young, but that's a pretty robust looking specimen you've got. Beautifully grown @Darold Petty.

And so a legacy garden is born, it takes time and a lot of work, it can be done on a budget but the work load is a lot heavier for just one gardener. It takes many years of research and searching for the plants so desired for that tropical look, only a true gardener knows the feeling of losing a special plant in a storm or succumbing to Mother Natures compost heap! Hopefully this garden legacy keeps on living and iam sure it will, as we get older our palms look better. Hooefully one day I too will have a garden that can be left for future generations! Richard

Bulbophyllum 'Wilbur Chang' is STILL blooming. It started in late summer and has had over 20 serial blooms

Well , no Joey here but the Huntington has a beauty! About 6’ tall and very nice. The only one I have seen in person. I encourage anyone in Southern California to make the trip if you can . The Glass House is amazing . The Joey is just one of many palms that are not commonly seen in our climate. Harry Yes , it really is nice The outdoor palm area is also very nice , as well as the other large gardens . All are very well cared for. Harry

I was out on the side of my house and the light rain turned into a deluge so I ducked under my Pritchardia . A perfect umbrella . It was a brief downpour, as soon as it let up I got inside. The only Keridoxa I have seen in person was in a glass house at the Huntington , could’ve put the whole family under that frond . Harry ‘Perfect one person umbrella , Pritchardia H. This one would be for the whole family!

Some happy plants in winter after a few freezes, just some chlorosis from sun or chill. The current project is a greenhouse, so no photos of other stuff yet till it's done in the next few weeks. After the summer slaughter things calmed down and the potted plants are mostly happy, so once they are organized into a good look I'll get more photos of them too. In order: cyphophoenix (I think Alba), chrysalidocarpus lanceolata, leptocheilos, basilongus, carlsmithii, B. alfredii, and chrysalidocarpus titan and Prestonianus to finish. All in ground two seasons and starting to get going a bit faster than the start. Losses were all due to heat and wet after the January freeze deaths, so learned to give more shade in summer planting spots, and less water with the high humidity even if they drain super sharp. Not pictured are a bunch of others, cold damaged and recovering from the cold last year, like hyophorbe and chambeyronia. Chrysalidocarpus lastellianus is not a good 10A palm for looks, it chill spots in the low 30s, but could survive a warm 9b event most likely under good cover (like a Christmas palm would do I think). Hoping the two cold events this November and new years are the two this year (average is 1 or so) and we are done but that's a stretch being January 7th.

Doing a spot of landscaping, and as usual I need to plant palms in the new garden. I will see how this one goes all i know is I had choose carefully where this one went, not a palm you plant next to path with thorns thorns that would stop Alcatraz escapes!

Some nice summer seedlings just perfect for potting up in the warm weather. Now’s the perfect time for those tropical seedlings, heat and humidity certainly help tiny seedlings, I might as we’ll take advantage of the warm weather iam sure winter will be a different story!

Planted a 1 gallon pot from FB in November of 2021. It's growing nicely. BUT this summer all the fronds got fried. Just spotted a new bright red today. Had it under shade cloth at planting Took the shade cloth down in February of '23. Looked ok for a few years. Then this summer I noticed the fronds getting "toasted". But it's still pumping new RED fronds. This summer was VERY DRY. From June to Sept. only had 1.48" of rain. Irrigation twice a week at night for 40 minutes each session. Might have to do some weeding and increase length of watering. But I think it was just TO HOT in the full sun this summer.

That looks similar to my seedling mix. I will change things depending on the species and age of the plant. Dypsis and Chrysalidocarpus tend to need excellent drainage so more perlite is put in. Howea, Archontophoenix and even Chambeyronia don’t require much more than a good potting mix with plenty of pine bark and less perlite. Hyophorbe indica actually needs a soil you could grow orchids or bromeliads in as they come from areas of lava flows with incredibly good drainage and humus rich soil over almost solid crumbly rock. So I’ll use the coarse coir, clay balls, coarse river sand a bit of the pine bark from a good potting mix for them. I get much better success than using straight potting mix. I buy Richgro Pro base mix in bulk and add Osmocote 6 month with Scott’s micromax.

I can't imagine a scene with so much snow in my garden, I would lose all the plants😥