reliable website

[Than]

I quite often look for information on palms and other plants' requirements and , as I guess we all do. However, with the plethora of sources out there, I often get conflicting information. Therefore, I'd like to ask for recommendations from more experienced members here:

Which website do you find most reliable and most accurate? 

[Tomas]

That is the advantage of Iternet, an enormous source of knowledge 🙂

 

Edited January 3, 2024 by Tomas

[Bill H2DB]

This site is quite good .

Use the Search feature to pull up threads on whichever palm species that you want .

The State of Florida , and others are also good sources .  

 

For example :    https://sfyl.ifas.ufl.edu/lawn-and-garden/florida-palms/     

I assume that California and other places would have a similar site . More suited to your climate   ......?

 

These are non commercial , so there's that ....

[OC2Texaspalmlvr]

When in SoCal I used @Phil Junglemusic.net like the bible. Now i use thos website haha 

T J 

[WagnerMX]

6 hours ago, ego said:

I quite often look for information on palms and other plants' requirements and , as I guess we all do. However, with the plethora of sources out there, I often get conflicting information. Therefore, I'd like to ask for recommendations from more experienced members here:

Which website do you find most reliable and most accurate? 

 

I mostly use this site for quick and reliable information, and palmpedia for pictures. If there's nothing on this site, it usually is quite a rare species.

[Las Palmas Norte]

Information varies as does the same palm in different climates. I've found there's no "one size fits all" web-site. Local networking with other experienced enthusiasts is worth exploring for more reliable regional info.

Edited January 4, 2024 by Las Palmas Norte

[Than]

Thanks everyone 

[Jerry@TreeZoo]

the university of Florida has the best palm care info,

[SeanK]

I have found BBs to be interesting but offer questionable advice. Many questioneers have made a decision and are fishing for affirmation. Many respondents offer much longer answers than are necessary, as a type of braggadocio.

[floridaPalmMan]

davesgarden.com, palmpedia.net and this site.

I prefer davesgarden the most outside of palmtalk because the climate zones have their own section and are really easy to find. You don't have to dig through a bunch of content to find cold tolerance numbers like in palmpedia. But palmpedia is great for additional information.

The problem is that, like this site, the search does not work very well on davesgarden. So I just use google to search the name of the palm followed by 'davesgarden' and nearly always find what I'm looking for. I use the same search technique for palmtalk. Palmpedia uses google search for its internal pages so it works fine.

You're still going to find conflicting information here and there, but its nature, things happen differently in different ecosystems.

[Las Palmas Norte]

8 hours ago, Jerry@TreeZoo said:

the university of Florida has the best palm care info,

Great for Floridians

[Chester B]

By far this website has the best info.  It comes directly from highly knowledgeable and passionate people who are actually growing the palms they discuss

[Jim in Los Altos]

[Kim]

Being in Greece, you may find some of the European websites more in tune with your climate and growing issues.  I'm not sure how active it is these days, but I used to sometimes check in on le Forum des Fous de Palmiers: https://www.fousdepalmiers.fr/html/forum/

For myself I use this site, PalmTalk -- and we do have active members in Greece;  also Palmpedia, though I know some of the photos are misplaced, so be careful, and the Jungle Music website (California info). I used to use Kew World Checklist to verify names, but it's been completely redone recently.

You can also find active tropical plant discussions on FaceBook. The international Palm Society page is quite active: https://www.facebook.com/groups/InternationalPalmSociety

 

[Tomas]

the essence of the cold hardiness information contained in this forum is here. Please scroll down for the most updated version

 Please, forgive me for this impertinent observation, how many contradictions! 🙂

[Frond-friend42]

I just ran into one of many poor sources called, "the Spuce".  Here's some of their advice:

"The licuala grandis does best in full sun conditions but prefers to receive indirect light"

This makes no sense and has me wondering how much of internet content is now AI generated. I also commonly see obviously mislabeled palms. I think this site has a more open forum used by people passionate about the subject and so there are enough people weighing in and correcting things that you can find the most useful accurate information.  Palmpedia seems pretty rigorous and on the cutting edge as well, better at least compared to anything I'm aware of.

[Fusca]

On 1/4/2024 at 4:46 PM, Kim said:

Being in Greece, you may find some of the European websites more in tune with your climate and growing issues.  I'm not sure how active it is these days, but I used to sometimes check in on le Forum des Fous de Palmiers: https://www.fousdepalmiers.fr/html/forum/

I like the translated name, "Forum of Palm Tree Fools"!

[Brad52]

This topic speaks to a current rant of mine, I recently told my wife that one can no longer find decent plant info on the internet anymore, do a search and its all the same ad filled crap on the first several hits.  The amount of misinformation and fluff is stunning.

 

 

 

[JohnAndSancho]

7 minutes ago, Brad52 said:

This topic speaks to a current rant of mine, I recently told my wife that one can no longer find decent plant info on the internet anymore, do a search and its all the same ad filled crap on the first several hits.  The amount of misinformation and fluff is stunning.

 

 

 

Searching for recipes is even worse. Like, Sarah Jean has to tell you stories about how her grandfather was a banker and her kid ate Play Doh in school once and 3 pages about when she worked in a dentists office... Just tell me how to make potato soup, ma'am. 

[Silas_Sancona]

3 minutes ago, Brad52 said:

This topic speaks to a current rant of mine, I recently told my wife that one can no longer find decent plant info on the internet anymore, do a search and its all the same ad filled crap on the first several hits.  The amount of misinformation and fluff is stunning.

 

 

 

Palms aside, ( Some of the most knowledgeable, long time growers live there )  ..Have you checked out Tom Piergrossi's site, Vintage Green Farms?  and / or  Plant Group Hawaii, ..for Heliconia / other Ginger- esque plants?  Some of the greatest Orchid and Plumeria minds and growers hail from the islands as well.

Dave's Garden used to have some great people posting excellent info / articles....Ahem, Geoff Stein, AKA Palm Bob ( We miss you ).. Then it went ....Somewhere... in a hand basket ..or three,  quickly,  haha..

Agree, lots of other awful plant info sites out there in the past several years unfortunately. " The Spruce "? = an absolute " poo "  fest  ...and that's just the tip of the ice burg. 

[Brad52]

3 hours ago, Silas_Sancona said:

Palms aside, ( Some of the most knowledgeable, long time growers live there )  ..Have you checked out Tom Piergrossi's site, Vintage Green Farms?  and / or  Plant Group Hawaii, ..for Heliconia / other Ginger- esque plants?  Some of the greatest Orchid and Plumeria minds and growers hail from the islands as well.

Dave's Garden used to have some great people posting excellent info / articles....Ahem, Geoff Stein, AKA Palm Bob ( We miss you ).. Then it went ....Somewhere... in a hand basket ..or three,  quickly,  haha..

Agree, lots of other awful plant info sites out there in the past several years unfortunately. " The Spruce "? = an absolute " poo "  fest  ...and that's just the tip of the ice burg. 

Agree, I live on the same street as Tom but not bought from him,  have been to Plant Group as well.  Just wish it was easy to web search a question when you think of it.  I’ve learned lots from the internet but so much harder now.

[Than]

Anyone knows Monaco Nature Encyclopedia? It has articles on many plant species but not sure how accurate. It tends to be on the pessimistic side; if a palm is labelled zone 10a elsewhere, it'll probably be "tropical zones only" in MNE

[Tomas]

38 minutes ago, Than said:

Anyone knows Monaco Nature Encyclopedia? It has articles on many plant species but not sure how accurate. It tends to be on the pessimistic side; if a palm is labelled zone 10a elsewhere, it'll probably be "tropical zones only" in MNE

I know Pietro, the author of many of the articles, most of those on palms. He iis a member here and has a garden full of palms in Palermo and I am sure he grows most of the palms he describes, or at least has tried to grow them.

I find the hardiness of most of the palms I search in that site is specified by the lowest temperature they can take, not the USDA hardiness zones. Which I prefer most. And I am sure he is the most appropriate person for stating them.

Very usefull pages are also those of Palms for California by Geoff Stein, you will find them inside the Palmpedia site, a great contribution to palm growers

[Than]

16 minutes ago, Tomas said:

I know Pietro, the author of many of the articles, most of those on palms. He iis a member here and has a garden full of palms in Palermo and I am sure he grows most of the palms he describes, or at least has tried to grow them.

I find the hardiness of most of the palms I search in that site is specified by the lowest temperature they can take, not the USDA hardiness zones. Which I prefer most. And I am sure he is the most appropriate person for stating them.

Very usefull pages are also those of Palms for California by Geoff Stein, you will find them inside the Palmpedia site, a great contribution to palm growers

Ooooooooooooooh that Pietro!! I know him too; he is indeed a bit pessimistic but I think he's right. It's mostly the other websites that provide too optimistic info. Just because a palm survived 20F once for an hour in Florida with a maximum of 70F next afternoon, it doesn't mean that this species is really zone 9...

"Palms for California" is a very valuable source for us who live in Mediterranean zones; thanks a lot!