This is how Syagrus romanzoffiana should look...

[Eric in Orlando]

Syagrus romanzoffiana, Queen Palm, is an often maligned palm. It is too commonly planted and neglected/over pruned that they get a bad rap for being ugly. Well grown they are very nice.

Here is a near perfect specimen I found just north of downtown Orlando. A lot was recently cleared. This is one of the more slender, less hardy forms. Most of what is grown now are the more robust, hardier specimens. This one is awesome with the full crown of fronds.

this is another local specimen, I have posted photos of it before. This is the more robust, hardier form that is the one usually grown and planted now.

[paulgila]

those are nice,burly specimens!

[Kailua_Krish]

Ive gotten both forms from buying big box queens which is kind of disappointing when only the second type do well this far north. It is amazing how large the girth and fronds are on the robust type. Great photos of an attractive species!

-Krishna

[Stevetoad]

those look nice when they arnt over trimmed. looks good with the leaves hanging down.

[DoomsDave]

The kings of Queen Palms!

[velutina]

I'm interested in knowing more about this "more robust, hardier specimens". How can this be distinguished from the non-robust variety? Are palm farmers just using more seeds from known performers? How can I know if the specimen i'm buying is going to be of the "robust" variety? Or am I going to have to find a specimen and collect the seeds myself? I'm interested because i'm buying a house in Homestead and would love to have a palm like those posted in this thread. I know there is a lot of hate towards this "common" "over-planted" palm, but I happen to love them.

[Alberto]

I seek for some photos of my region were appears some queen palms .

First: Queen palm (jerivá), Cerus peruvianus at the side of Iapó river in Tibagi county.

Second: A jerivá (queen) on the way to Tibagi.

Third pic: native jerivás planted at the entrance of a little farm (on the way to Tibagi)

[Alicehunter2000]

I always thought queens did not retain their green fronds below horizontal....guess I was wrong. All the queens around here go brown once the fronds drop down low...why is that?

[Alberto]

Maybe its the variety (northern Brazil) you have....

[howfam]

Syagrus romanzoffiana, Queen Palm, is an often maligned palm. It is too commonly planted and neglected/over pruned that they get a bad rap for being ugly. Well grown they are very nice.

Here is a near perfect specimen I found just north of downtown Orlando. A lot was recently cleared. This is one of the more slender, less hardy forms. Most of what is grown now are the more robust, hardier specimens. This one is awesome with the full crown of fronds.

this is another local specimen, I have posted photos of it before. This is the more robust, hardier form that is the one usually grown and planted now.

t

uall

Good pics. I've seen numerous specimens of this hardy robust form here in Jacksonville. Very much more attractive than the "regular" ones, usually having a thicker trunk and thicker leaflets. Could these be the "Santa Catarina" or "Silver" variety that are supposed to be more hardy?

[WestCoastGal]

Wow, Alberto those are some of the most gorgeous queens I've seen. The palm-lined driveway to the farms is especially picturesque. The trunk height seems to really matter to the overall appearance IMO. I'm not fond of the shorter trunks with long cascading fronds when they are touching the ground nearly but, wow give them some height and some nutrients and totally different impression. The queens in my area only have dead, ugly brown fronds hanging down, much like David mentioned in his area. It's pretty much universal in my area I would say. Wonder if it's the soil, temp/humidity or what that you have going down in Brazil that lends to the exceptional beauty of them down there. Location does seem to matter.

Edited March 17, 2013 by WestCoastGal

[redbeard917]

Beautiful pics, Alberto. That area, Tibagi, must have good soil to grow Queens so well.

[sonoranfans]

well fed queens look a lot better than the scrawny underfed ones. Queens should be a deep green, yellowing is just a micronutrient deficiency problem. these palms are fertilizer pigs. But if you have clay soil with some drainage they can be fed easier than the high drainage sandy soils. they are also big Iron Mg feeders. I used to live in zone 9a AZ and queens were very happy planted in groups with lots of fert and water. Here is a grouping of queens around the pool at my former place.

[GREENHAND]

Seeing those makes me want to give queens another chance here in North Texas if i can plant one in a protected area, they are somewhat cold hardy and you can buy them for pretty cheap.

[Raymond]

Those Queens looks very good and I am not missing the usual "Queen Ripper Posts".

Raymond

[Walt]

I have lots and lots of queen palms. I planted my first ones in January of 1999, which had about 8 feet of trunk and were seedling then. There's lots of variance in these palms. Some have stout trunks, some have slender trunks. Some have heavy, dense crowns, some have more open crowns. Some have grown almost twice as tall as others.

The queen palm in the below photo is a progeny of one of the firsts ones I planted, and it came up as a volunteer. It just happened to come up in a good spot so I left it to grow. When they come up in an undesirable spot I either dig them up and pot them up or just mow over top of them.

Queens are naturalizing all over my property now big time, and are on the Class II list of Florida Exotic Pest Plant Control. The ones that are coming up in out of the way places I leave to grow. All others are irradicated by my yard tractor.

One notable thing I've experienced with queen palms is their growth rates from field dug mature palms vis a vis a planted potted (non field dug) palms.

Like I said, my first queens were field dug and had about 8 feet of trunk. I had these professionally planted in January of 1999, due to their size which required a Bobcat and sling to set.

In April of 1999 I bought about 20 one-gallon queen palms and planted them along my long driveway. I'd say in about seven years the one gallon queens surpassed in trunk height and overall height the trunked queens I had planted in January of 1999!

Above photo: The queen palm above is a volunteer and probably 10 years from seed. This particular queen has been a fast grower and is of a healthy size as far as queen palms go. I have another volunteer to the east of it, a few years behind in age (part of fronds can be seen to the left). This one has a very nice fat trunk and should be another healthy sized queen one day.

[Mark Heath]

Walt,

Your Queen palm looks fantastic! I also like your Schizophylla too!

[Exotic Life]

Very nice examples! I really like queens, unfornately we don't have enough summer heat to see some good growth.

[Walt]

Walt,

Your Queen palm looks fantastic! I also like your Schizophylla too!

Thanks, Mark. I'm lucky to have a (IMO) a better than run-of-the-mill queen palm volunteer come up. I used to have a big clump of 360 degree arching red bay trees in this general area, but lost them all to the laurel wilt disease a few years ago. I had many frost and full sun tender species of plants growing beneath the red bay canopies. This queen palm helps a little in that respect.

About 10 years ago I planted a 25 gallon double queen palm I bought at a local nursery (photos below). It grew well, and in 2005 both were blown partially over by Hurricane Jeanne. I left them that way. When the trunks started to turn back up the got very fat and elongated through the crossection. Otherwise, the palms are healthy and seemed to be anchored good.

The Syagrus schizophylla is a very slow grower. Most winters I bundle and wrap the fronds to prevent frost damage. The problem with this palm is that it never holds a full canopy and the fronds (leaflets) seem to die prematurely on the outer half of the fronds. Possibly, it's a potassium problem.

[Walt]

Very nice examples! I really like queens, unfornately we don't have enough summer heat to see some good growth.

Hear, almost year round (during the day) is one thing that is in abundance here. This March has been exceptionally cool. They say the coolest since 1996. That's fine with me as I want a respite from the heat.

I planted the below queen palm from a 7.5 gallon size, around 2000. It's hard to tell from the photo but it's one of my more robust queens. I tie a clothes line around it (you can just make it out in the photo) to hang my various items on it.