W. filifera in North Florida

[Alicehunter2000]

Here are some pics of some purer forms of W. filifera here in Panama City. You California folks are probably yawning about now, but for Florida this is more unusual. We have mostly W. robusta's and hybrids. I included one picture of what appears to be a more pure robusta than most around town. These are located near each other and you can really see the contrast between the two Washingtonia species.

[Alicehunter2000]

Another

[Alicehunter2000]

And another.....what causes the base to be eroded like that? High humidity?

[Alicehunter2000]

And now for comparison.......the robustas.....there were three but they cut one down

[FRITO]

David, nice photos.  those filiferas are some good ones. they definently rare in this area.

I have spotted 4 washy's in a line up at a local car lot.

there are 3 that are much slower growing and shorter. they also have stiffer/more erect fans and are also eroding at the baselike the ones you show. (more of a filifera characteristic?)

Then there is one that is 2x the height. Ill have to get a photo since they have recently been trimmed.

Luke

[ruskinPalms]

I have recently acquired a new appreciaton for this genus. There are some at my place of employment that are adolescents, about 20' to 30' overall, that are so beautiful, with impressive spread of crown. These put me in a state of peace as I walk into work, they give me srength to face the day. By the way, I am sure they are hybrids, but oh well.

[ruskinPalms]

I recently planted six cheap Washintonia hybrids in my backyard. May they grow with vigor and thorns! I remember seeing the best Washingtonia hybrids ever in Hawaii when I went out there few months ago. Damn, everything grows great out there. What do you think about when a palm grows someplace else better than in its native habitat? If it wasn't for the occaisional lightning strike or hurricane, Washintonia would look immaculate in FL...it does look immaculate in HI.

[Alicehunter2000]

A couple of Filibusta's that I posted before for comparison

[Alicehunter2000]

Another........got lots of seeds sprouting from these beauties.

[paulgila]

nice pics,david.you got the stout "fatties" & the stretchy ones!

it was REALLY windy here today & i saw some of those tall ones wavin' in the breeze like never before...

[SubTropicRay]

That's a great looking palm.  Believe it or not, there is a good sized specimen on Madeira Beach (near Clearwater).  I collected seeds once and they all germinated.  As on would expect, all dampened off and rotted.

Ray

[ed110220]

I've noticed this strange erosion of the base of Washingtonia filifera before. I always assumed it was damage from grass cutting or other maintainence work as palms cannot repair their trunks as dicot trees can through secondary growth. Whatever it is it is rather disturbing and odd looking. However, I've never seen a W. robusta with this problem. Their trunks always seem to be spread at the base.

W. filifera is also much less often seen around Cape Town than W. robusta. There are some eroded ones on Wale Street and I remember one in Sybrandt Park.

Until relatively recently most of the Washingtonias were in the older suburbs (from the 1920s-50s), there weren't so many of them and they had had time to grow very tall so they stood out a lot. Now they are being planted on every new development and in every central reservation which is a pity in a way as familiarity breeds contempt.

[spockvr6]

(Ray, Tampa @ Mar. 28 2007,06:06)

QUOTE

That's a great looking palm.  Believe it or not, there is a good sized specimen on Madeira Beach (near Clearwater).  I collected seeds once and they all germinated.  As on would expect, all dampened off and rotted.

Ray

Ray-

In my parents neighborhood in Palm Harbor (between CR1  and Alt 19 off iof Curlew), several of the streets are lined with what I believe are massive Washingtonia hybrids.  I am not able to ID robusta vs filifera very well since we dont have many pure filifera around here, but these things definitely have something else in them.  The bases are ridiculously fat and the crowns seem a bit more open.

I believe there is a pure, or mostly pure, filifera down the street from my house.  It looks just like the typical pics of filifera our western members post here.  Its the only one I have noticed around my area.

[Kris]

Dear David  

you made my day,Since iam a die-hard fan of the Washy.Filifera's.i was just feasting on those stills.

But what i wish to ask you and Zac,is that Zac still in

plants seeds & swap chapter.there he had put up a

still of 2 hefty gigantic filifera's and it satisfied my

crush for this palm.but seeing your stills it does not

seem too bloated in trunk region why !

since out of 40 seeds only one germinated,rest is

sleeping and has not rooted or rotted yet ?

so the palm that has survived will it grow-up into your

type or Zac,that is my question.

since if its going to grow as your still,then i could keep

a TaliPot palm instead of allocating the huge pits that

were dug 6 to 8 months ago ?

Both of you kindly explain this findings & help me out of

the massive trunk confussion_Please !

Thanks & Lots of love,

Kris  

[Scott]

David - No yawning here. Always glad to see an nice plam. It's like seeing an old friend

[NBTX11]

Are they the tallest ones you have in N. FL.  Maybe it is the climate, but they get much taller here.  I could post tons of pics of pure filiferas from around here that are super tall.  Maybe inland Cal gets taller ones, but I have yet to see someone post pics from a climate that produces taller W. Filifera than South Central TX.  I routinely see old tall 40'+ Filiferas every day, everywhere I look, especially in older sections.  SA is the W. Filifera capital, imho.  I will post some pics later.

[NBTX11]

Here's an example of the Filiferas I see around here.  I see tons of filifera around this range in height, this seems to be about how big they get...

[ed110220]

It is a pity they prune off so many of the leaves like that and don't let them droop down naturally I think.

[ed110220]

Here is a nice one (or at least a hybrid with a good amount of filifera in it) at Tenerife. It doesn't seem to mind the warmer more humid climate than it would get in its natural habitat.

[alex_7b]

My guess is that the trunk damage on the Washies is a landscaping issue. Either careless weed-wacking or maybe, there were roots growing from the trunk and they were intentionally cut off.

[FRITO]

ed, fantastic picture and such a nice filifera!

alex, I thought about the weedeater also. makes sense.

[Palmy]

yawn, although those are some nice looking washingtongia's.

[ed110220]

Thanks Frito. Loro Parque is a zoo but it has some pretty nice palms. Here is a grove I found particularly inviting:

[Alicehunter2000]

NICE!............makes me want to frolic around underneath them...........you all will not tease me if I say frolic?........will you?

[FRITO]

I am bumping this up because I finnaly got some photos of the local washies I refered to earlier in this post. one of them has a reallly smal base where possibly it was damaged from a weedeater?

nice little curve

detail of base

Luke

[Dacher]

(ed110220 @ Mar. 28 2007,19:50)

QUOTE

Here is a nice one (or at least a hybrid with a good amount of filifera in it) at Tenerife. It doesn't seem to mind the warmer more humid climate than it would get in its natural habitat.

Actually, the the Imperial Desert that most of these palms are native to are amongst the warmest in mean-temperature of any of the worlds true deserts. 90f being easily done in the dead of winter and light frost being rare outside of one or two months, and even then being an occasional thing. Also they spend virtually the entire summer in a humid ~105f, monsoonal moister from the gulf keeps things from getting too dry.

The cold threshold comes from some variants from arizona that grow at high altitudes.

[PalmGuyWC]

David, a well grown W. filifera is nothing to yawn at. (Damn, did I end a sentence with a preposition)? Anyway, the most beautiful ones I've seen are the ones lining the main drag in Palm Springs. The last I saw them, they had nice full crowns and were not over trimmed. Of course they should do well there since Palm Canyon is a short distance away. The ones I've seen seem to look their best in hot desert areas.  Any coastal influence in Calif, and they don't look to happy, especially in N. Calif.

I remember visiting Corpus Cristi TX soon after the 89/90 deep freeze where it got down to 13F.  Many of the tall W. robustas were killed, but the S. mexicanas and W. filiferas, while damaged, came through OK. It got so cold it even killed the fish in the Bay and many native plants were damaged.

Dick

[Daryl]

I think filiferas are beautiful palms. Mildura in southern Oz has some of the best I've seen. Here is a mini-photo of what grows there...

regards,

Daryl.

[NBTX11]

(PalmGuyWC @ May 01 2007,06:36)

QUOTE

David, a well grown W. filifera is nothing to yawn at. (Damn, did I end a sentence with a preposition)? Anyway, the most beautiful ones I've seen are the ones lining the main drag in Palm Springs. The last I saw them, they had nice full crowns and were not over trimmed. Of course they should do well there since Palm Canyon is a short distance away. The ones I've seen seem to look their best in hot desert areas.  Any coastal influence in Calif, and they don't look to happy, especially in N. Calif.

I remember visiting Corpus Cristi TX soon after the 89/90 deep freeze where it got down to 13F.  Many of the tall W. robustas were killed, but the S. mexicanas and W. filiferas, while damaged, came through OK. It got so cold it even killed the fish in the Bay and many native plants were damaged.

Dick

Same with San Antonio.  There are tons of huge older W. Filifera and Hybrid robustas around town whereas most of the pure robustas were killed off in these freezes.  Just shows how hardy these guys really are.  I've seen large older Filiferas in Central and North Texas that made it through the 80s freezes, now you know they have to be hardy!!!  I saw a beautiful row of older Filiferas in Killeen TX recently that obviously made it through the 80s freezes.  Don't know how low they got back then but it had to be single digits.

[ZoneTenNut]

(Daryl @ May 01 2007,07:14)

QUOTE

I think filiferas are beautiful palms. Mildura in southern Oz has some of the best I've seen. Here is a mini-photo of what grows there...

regards,

Daryl.

Awesome shot. Those palms, like royals, are stunning in long rows.

[Kris]

Dear Daryl  

your still of the filiferas was stunning !

thanks very much.

Love,

kris  

[Alicehunter2000]

Hey found the thread pretty easy.....bumping it for another thread on the subject.

[Matthew92]

This thread was an interesting to read with some good pictures. Maybe I'll update the progress of my seedlings as they grow here.

[PalmTreeDude]

2 minutes ago, Opal92 said:

This thread was an interesting to read with some good pictures. Maybe I'll update the progress of my seedlings as they grow here.

Please do! 

[Tom in Tucson]

My avatar depicts 2 W. filifera growing at a spring in the Anza-Borrego state park in San Diego county CA. I much prefer the true species over most of the hybrids I've seen. Occasionally a 'filibusta' has the long fiber covered leaves of the species with a thinner trunk, but those are fairly rare. I grew some seedlings from the palms in my avatar to make sure I got some that were almost certainly not mutts. The nearest W. robusta was at least 15 miles away (Ocotillo, CA).

Although there are hundreds of good looking W. filifera here in Tucson, the seed purity is highly doubtful. That's why I bought 2 seedlings from Texas that were grown from seed collected from the wilds of the California desert. So far these seedlings look like the seedlings I grew back in San Diego.

Tom Birt - Casas Adobes, AZ

Hi 97°, Lo 75°

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

9 hours ago, Tom in Tucson said:

That's why I bought 2 seedlings from Texas that were grown from seed collected from the wilds of the California desert. So far these seedlings look like the seedlings I grew back in San Diego.

Tom Birt - Casas Adobes, AZ

Hi 97°, Lo 75°

I bet I know whom you purchased these from....

[Tom in Tucson]

14 hours ago, TexasColdHardyPalms said:

I bet I know whom you purchased these from....

How well are these selling?

Tom Birt - Casas Adobes, AZ 

Hi 103°, Lo 76°

[Matthew92]

Trying my hand at W. filifera here. Still learning a lot. Unfortunately, the soil I used for some of these pots may not be well draining enough. They had gotten pretty wet, so at the moment, I put them in this location to dry out. Also, with some of the seedlings I put in the pots from the "bag method," I misjudged the angles to plant them and thus some of the crazy leaf angles. Also, for an experiment, the pot with the light brown sand is our native soil. In all though despite drainage issues, I just now noticed some seedlings putting out a second leaf.

 

[Brad Mondel]

You need more perlite. I used about 60% perlite and 40% garden soil topped with gravel. Mine is doing phenomenal. 

 

 

[Matthew92]

On 8/8/2016, 8:31:25, Brad Mondel said:

You need more perlite. I used about 60% perlite and 40% garden soil topped with gravel. Mine is doing phenomenal. 

Yeah, I think I messed that up. It's a big mix, a few of them I used the miracle gro palm/cactus/citrus potting soil, a few others were a houseplant potting mix, and a few more were with some other more rich garden soil. At this point though, I'll just leave them and see which survive while trying not to let them get too wet. Although since I took the above picture, they've noticeably grown even more, so they may do just fine.