Turning a Water Oak Forest into a Tropical Paradise in NW Orlando

[Merlyn]

26 minutes ago, RiverCityRichard said:

Looking great!

 

I just picked up a Gaussia Princeps from Caribbean Palms last week. Keep walking around looking for the right spot to plant it. What has been your experience with them here?

Thanks!  I have had good luck with Gaussia Princeps overall, at least more so than the similar-looking Bottle and Spindle palms.  I bought about 30 seedlings 4 or 5 years ago and planted most of them.  A few were killed in winter freezes in the 24.6 to 28F range, but most survived.  They didn't seem to take noticeable damage above 30F, where Hyophorbes burn pretty bad around there.

They are very slow growing so far.  The largest is about the size of the ones in yesterday's photo, maybe 2 to 3 feet tall overall.  They grow MONSTER root systems while the above ground stuff doesn't grow much at all, kind of like Copernicias.  But they seem at least somewhat tolerant of being dug up and moved or repotted.  Full sun and part shade seem fine, though in deep shade they just sit there and barely grow.  I would pick some spot with Some sun but canopy if you expect hard freezes.

[RiverCityRichard]

20 hours ago, Merlyn said:

Thanks!  I have had good luck with Gaussia Princeps overall, at least more so than the similar-looking Bottle and Spindle palms.  I bought about 30 seedlings 4 or 5 years ago and planted most of them.  A few were killed in winter freezes in the 24.6 to 28F range, but most survived.  They didn't seem to take noticeable damage above 30F, where Hyophorbes burn pretty bad around there.

They are very slow growing so far.  The largest is about the size of the ones in yesterday's photo, maybe 2 to 3 feet tall overall.  They grow MONSTER root systems while the above ground stuff doesn't grow much at all, kind of like Copernicias.  But they seem at least somewhat tolerant of being dug up and moved or repotted.  Full sun and part shade seem fine, though in deep shade they just sit there and barely grow.  I would pick some spot with Some sun but canopy if you expect hard freezes.

Outstanding, thank you! This one is fairly decent sized, bursting out of a 3g. Good news about the cold hardiness. Thinking I’ll put it against the east side of the house for heat and full sun, and I bought some crushed limestone to amend the soil with. There will be a Hong Kong orchid giving some partial overhead canopy.

[Merlyn]

@RiverCityRichard mine are in regular sandy soil, with no amendments.  They might grow better with added limestone, but I haven't seen any signs of nutrient deficiencies or other problems here.  

@palmfriend I have become much more ruthless when "editing" out stuff in the yard.  Sometimes it is a snap decision, like the Madagascariensis that I realized I just didn't like it.  Sometimes it is a long term plan like knowing the Sylvestris and Queens had to go eventually.  I also have to accept that some things I move may not survive.  

@Cindy Adair thanks!    i hope to get to the "maintenance" phase sometime soon, so I can sit back and enjoy instead of working on it all the time.  But somehow I keep finding more palms and cycads to buy and plant! 

[RainforestCafe]

On 8/10/2024 at 1:55 PM, Merlyn said:

 

@Merlyn hey there! I've been working out west this summer so I'm getting caught up on some of the threads now to see what I've missed!

Your garden looks really good! I really like that new area you've made where you have the red brick path and the new bamboo clumps going in the bed to the right of it. It already looks really good, but that's going to look even better when everything matures.

In the picture I quoted above, this is your new spot for the chambeyronia, right? I love the contrast of the feathery leaves and then the fan leaves of the palm behind it. That's a really cool look that I'm going to steal and replicate myself 😂 The one thing I thought of though, was how big and spreading those chinensis can get. Do you think they'll kind of run into each other a lot as they grow? Because those are two palms that both spread a lot before moving up higher. And they'll probably move up at roughly a similar rate together. One thing I always try to do is put taller things next to things that stay lower and spread and take awhile to move up. So for example, next to a Chinese fan palm that stays low for awhile and takes up a fairly large footprint, I'd put archontophoenix or a kentiopsis or something that's quicker and/or more upright. Just curious your thoughts on that.

One more question: with the rhapis that you said was getting a little invasive... How fast did that guy grow, and how tall are they? I wanted to plant some and I actually want them to spread and get invasive. How long did it take them to gain some height? Id like them to screen an area and need them to be about 8' tall and was wondering if that's feasible and how long it'd take.

[Merlyn]

@RainforestCafe thanks, I really like that red brick paver road too.  The bamboo has been sprouting fast and is already noise-damping-equivalent to the old Viburnum hedges.  I'll find out in a couple of years if it's going to be a maintenance hassle or not...  I also moved 7 good-sized clusters of Arenga Engleri into a hedgeline just inside the bamboo.  I'll have to get a photo in a bit.

The picture you quoted is actually on the NW corner of the house.  I planted two trunking Chinensis in April 2018, and bought four identical 3g pots of Chinensis from a local nursery.  I planted those underneath the bigger, flanking on each side as a sort of wide-spaced triple with maybe 3-5' spacing between each planting.  The idea was that the bigger ones would get a couple of feet of trunk before the smaller ones got very big.  That way I'd have a fairly decent visual block for the whole area for 10+ years.  So far it's working out okay, as you can see from the below pictures. 

The first is the SW corner of the house, with the pathway and the bamboo just on the right side.  I circled the two smaller Chinensis for reference.  This section ended up heavily shaded by the house in the AM and the Queens in the afternoon, and the earlier Viburnum hedge meant 100% shade in the winter.  So the big Chinese is fairly stretched out and a bit sunburnt.  Both smaller ones are growing slowly but at about the same rate.  In maybe 2 years they'll get to trunking diameter...maybe.  Growing up *maybe* faster or slower than them is a Sabal Causiarum circled in orange on the left.

This is the NW corner of the house, it's a photo from the other side of the one you quoted.  The big Chinensis here is more compact because it's been in mostly full sun.  For some unknown reason the left side small Chinensis is growing like mad, at least twice as fast as the others.  It has the same water and fertilizer and sun exposure, so I really don't know why.  Those are circled in red.  In the front bottom in orange is a Dypsis Arenarum (tall/thin) and the bottom right circled in yellow is a pair of Archontophoenix Tuckeri (also tall/thin).  Circled in blue is the Chambeyronia triple that's now a double.  I whacked the smaller one when I was transplanting it, and a storm came through and finished the job and took off the entire top.  Circled in pink on the right is another Sabal Causiarum.  So yes, I try to put tall/skinny stuff near spreading/short palms.  I've done it a lot with some areas, but unfortunately there aren't a ton of tall/skinny/25F frost hardy palms to choose from.  And (if you haven't noticed) I've probably just maybe a wee bit overplanted some areas. 

Regarding the Rhapis, it took the clusters about 3 years after planting to grow to 3-5' tall and start sending out rhizomes.  They aren't particularly fast growing in height, but do fill in reasonably quick.  If you planted a couple of pots 3' tall with a couple of culms each, I'd guess 3-4 years to get to 8' tall and start filling in?  If you want something faster, Caryota Mitis will do that quick and dense.  It's also more like a clumping bamboo in that it grows in a slowly expanding circle instead of like a running bamboo with rhizomes.  But it's not hardy below 27-28F.  Mine burnt almost to the ground at 26F with frost and I had to chop off most of the trunks...but it was back with a vengeance 6 months later.

[kinzyjr]

@Merlyn Finishing summer strong.  Almost time for the Fall Palm Crossfit Challenge

[Merlyn]

@kinzyjr I'm not sure exactly what WOD this is, but I'm sure there were some Farmer's Carries and lunges in there.  I finally got back to removing the Bambusa Tuldoides Not-So-Swollen-Internode stumps in the SE corner.  Here's before:

And I cut down and sliced out 10 Viburnum shrubberies on the fenceline at the same time:

And behind the Dendrocalamus Maroochy and Latiflorus there were two dead Viburnum and a couple struggling to survive:

[Merlyn]

And in the newly opened space I transplanted a Bambusa Eutuldoides "Basistriata" or "Ox-eyed" bamboo.  I had planted this a couple of months ago on the East hedgeline, and it really wasn't a good spot for a bamboo with a "prodigious annual growth of culms."  This spot now has a good 10' diameter for growth, so hopefully it'll be a good long-term fit:

Two weeks ago I made a snap decision and built a second layer of noise/sight block inside the SW corner bamboo.  I transplanted 7 big clusters of Arenga Engleri into a line.  These three are just inside the Textilis "RG Dwarf" on the left, and "Doli Silverstripe" on the right:

And just to the North side of that (to the right) are two more clusters:

Just to the left (South) side of those pictures are a couple of "Hope" Philodendrons and then two more clusters of Engleri:

[Merlyn]

During the week I ripped out the last cluster of Rhapis Excelsa.  I had planted it in October 2020 from a 15 gallon pot, just around the corner from the Engleri to the right of this photo from last week:

It had grown into a 6 foot tall mess of culms with rhizomes 4-6 feet out in all directions, but it's all cleaned out now!

And today I spent on my FAVORITE JOB OF ALL TIME!  That would be weeding.  Ok, so it is not my favorite job.  It took 3.5 hours to weed out this center rear agave bed:

[kinzyjr]

2 hours ago, Merlyn said:

And today I spent on my FAVORITE JOB OF ALL TIME!  That would be weeding.

I'm on day 2 of removing my "hardy native perennials", with 5 total wheel barrel loads of weeds moved out of two beds.  Only 15 more garden beds to go.

[Looking Glass]

1 hour ago, kinzyjr said:

I'm on day 2 of removing my "hardy native perennials", with 5 total wheel barrel loads of weeds moved out of two beds.  Only 15 more garden beds to go.

God….  I’m so behind on this.   They never stop.  Just different types, different times of the year.  Love that fence by the way!  

[Merlyn]

@kinzyjr and @Looking Glass yes, I am an expert cultivator of a wide variety of native and imported hardy annuals and perennials.    This bed was only 3 trash bags full, but it was extra stabby due to the cacti and agaves.  The biggest problem that took so long was this new weed that grows a giant carrot-like root.  If I don't get the entire root it just grows right back.  It first popped up last fall, and I made the horrible mistake of not ruthlessly killing it immediately.  Now I am fighting it all over...

[palmfriend]

Merlyn,

Thanks for the update!

I am going to start my weeding AND EDITING soon, when temperatures have dropped a bit more. I had to realize that 

I have a death zone in my garden... It is facing a farm with lifestock (a third mile away) which is a breeding ground for

the local rhinoceros beetle. Two maturing Washingtonias are already eaten down, now - and this still makes me speechless - 

a usually completely bullet proof (against typhoons and bug attacks) Livistona chinensis is on its way down, too...

I got to rethink (and redesign) the hole spot in the next future.

However, please keep going with your updates and sharing of ideas, I always enjoy them to check out -

Lars

 

[Merlyn]

I finally got around to identifying the new invasive weed...er...hardy imported perennial.  It is Boerhavia Diffusa, aka Punarnava, red spiderling, spreading hogweed, or tarvine.  It looks a bit like a purslane or spurge, but has big spreading arms with burr-like seeds that stick to socks, arm and leg hair, etc.  And one plant below has an 8" long carrot-like tuber root with seed arms spreading out 2-3 feet in all directions.  I dug out all the ones I could spot Sunday and at lunch today, but there are a few popping up in driveway cracks that I'm going to have to kill with chemicals.  If you see this weed, kill it as quickly and ruthlessly as possible.  Otherwise it'll Diffusa itself all over your property:

[Merlyn]

@palmfriend sorry to hear about the weevils!  I have a couple of weevil-susceptible palms here, including a couple of Sabal Causiarum, three Bismarck, and a Canariensis.  I killed four Palmetto Weevils hunting around for a nest in some chunks-o-trunk from Sylvestris and Queens that I cut down.  I'm keeping an eye out for more, or for any sign that they are actually nesting.

In the front yard I dug out a cluster of Dwarf Namwah bananas.  They had continual crown rot problems in that spot, I think they weren't getting enough sun.  So I replaced it with a Philodendron "Evansii" from the backyard.  It was in a bad spot next to an Encephalartos Hildebrandtii and was just going to get lost in the jungle.  The bamboo in the upper left is the Bambusa "Nana" aka x Thrysocalamus Liang:

And I figuratively dodged a bullet by taking down those queen palms.  One of them was probably 1/4 eaten away by termites about a foot above ground level! 

[D. Morrowii]

That palm trunk looks like it was a few months and a windstorm away from falling on something. Good save!

[kinzyjr]

Agree with @D. Morrowii.  You were one advective freeze or one strong thunderstorm from growing a queen palm indoors without a pot.