Which palm introduced you into the palm hobby?

[Darold Petty]

Dale, that is my palm !    

[Banana Belt]

I planted 24 Jubaea seeds in 1982, two of which finally made it from sprouts to pots to planting outdoors next to my driveway.  For 35 years they slowly grew into big bushes and finally in 2011 starting showing signs of what I hoped to be a trunk emerging.  Then in 2012 a trunk began to appear, first picture.  Then in 2015 while visiting a nursery I saw up on their photo board a picture of my home and the two palms.   Four years later when searching on the web for Palms in Brookings I saw the same picture from the Nursery posted in Palm Society where discussion circulated as to where these two palms were.  There was speculation but many wanted to know so I took some pictures, joined Palm Socieity and posted new pictures of same two Jubaea.  Today the two I planted from seed are second Picture taken Jan 6, 2024.

Edited January 6, 2024 by Banana Belt

[Rivera]

1 hour ago, Billeb said:

Oh man, I love Belmoreana. Yours is an awesome size and is only going to look better from here on out as it gets height and you can see the crown overhead. They should be used more. 
 

-dale

Dale,

I should've stated explicitly that those are photos of Darold's garden, actually from a few years ago before we met.

I passed Darold's house while out walking on numerous occasions for at least a couple years before we ever sat down together, and I always paused to appreciate his collection which includes many seldom-encountered species. 

These below are in my garden, planted from overgrown 15 gallons. A good size, but still much younger.

Also a seedling beneath.

More seedlings, just in case.

Chrysalidocarpus baronii seedling below, actually a gift from Darold the first time we met. The bamboo stakes are to keep my dog from trampling it during her spirited rodent hunts.

[WaianaeCrider]

Can't remember what got me hooked.  Might have been a hike in the Lyon Arboretum in Manoa valley.

When I first bought this 2 acres in the mid 70's I knew I couldn't afford to irrigate it so I began collecting cactus and succulents.  Then sometime around 1998 I got hooked on palms.  Now25 odd years later w/about 100 in the ground....some old some new some inbetween I'm worried the coconut beetle is gonna kill them all in time.

Gotta search out a systemic insecticide to use as I sure can't spray the crown of all the 15' plus tall palms.

[Hilo Jason]

A friend of mine had her wedding at Greg Haman’s garden in San Diego. His entire property captivated me but his Caryota Gigas is what started it all for me. I went home that day and googled “caryota gigas” and the addiction began. I’ve since travelled all over the world to hike and look for palms and moved to the Big Island of Hawaii to create my garden paradise. 

[Palmfarmer]

I allways loved palms in general going to trips to Spain. I really liked the Washingtonias and Datilfera palms but I have gotton more spoiled over the years, but I still like those. 

[mike in kurtistown]

In early 1980, I transferred to a job in Miami. I was soon introduced to palms by a workplace colleague and making trips to Fairchild Garden. I was stunned by the Bailey palm grove and by a pair of very tall and majestic Borassus aethiopiums nearby. Those were the main early inspiration. Several were toppled by Hurricane Andrew in 1992, but the garden personnel propped them back up and saved them.

[DTS]

another vote for trachy

[Desertlife4me]

I first fell in love with palms when I went to Hawaii when I was 15, fast forward 35 years, I decided I wanted a tropical backyard in Seattle (8B). So I planted some bamboo and got a bunch of Trachycarpus seeds from my Father in law, I got near 100% germination and before long had 400 seedlings growing.  A few years later I moved to Arizona (9B/10A) and am growing all kinds of palms.

 

 

[DoomsDave]

My palm madness developed in stages. When I was about ten, I slipped on the ice down a flight of brick and concrete steps and tore my pants, and got banged up a bit. This was in the Cleveland area in Ohio.

A bit later, I watched some old films on TV and Santa Claus was getting his wheeled sleigh pulled down some street in LA with washies and CIDPs towering in the background, no ice or snow how totally cool!

In 1979 I went to Corpus Christi Texas and I was agog over agog driving down ocean drive in January with palms towering overhead. CIDPs, Washies and Queen palms!
 

Alas I didn’t last long in Texas and wound up going back Ohio a few months later. 
 

In March of 1985 I left Ohio for California…..

[John2468]

Mine has to be the coconut palm. It all started back many years ago when I was in elementary school in Illinois. Our teacher gave us a fun activity where we would each grow an apple tree from a seed. As a child that didn’t know anything about growing plants, there was many things I did wrong. Such as having no drainage holes and watering everyday, despite all that it still sprouted. As months go by, it was getting bigger and bigger until it was too big for the cup and the windowsill. At that time, it was the start of autumn and temperatures were starting to drop. I made the awful mistake of planting it before it snowed the next day. About 3 days later, it shriveled up and died and that’s when my plant interest started. As weeks go by, I learned more and more about different types of trees and plants and how to grow them. Fast forward a few years later, we decided to move to south Florida to stay away from the cold. As we were driving our way down, from Illinois, I spotted many plants that I have never seen before. I remember describing it as a tall stick with big leaves at the end. That turned out to be the one and only coconut palm. 

 

 

Edited January 8, 2024 by John2468

[Kim]

Wow, I am loving all these stories from all over the place! It's so interesting to read the various ways we all got bit by the palm bug.

Growing up on the central coast of California, it was common to see Phoenix canariensis, and very often that was a matched pair growing at the entry driveway to an old farmhouse on the outskirts of town where they were growing garbanzo beans or artichokes or sugar beets. Today, I realize these might have been the chosen landscaping of some of the many farmers who arrived from Portugal and the Azores in prior decades. To me back then, they were just a typical scene in my small world. There is a very tall CDIP growing in front of the public library on Broadway, for example. Just normal stuff in my eyes back then, unremarkable.

Fast forward to a trip to Hawaii with a girlfriend at age 17, just the two of us, after graduating from high school, on our own. Palms everywhere; unavoidable. Did that spark the interest? Not really. It was another world, and as deeply as I felt the impact of the warm, scented tropical air, the powerful ocean, the lush landscape, I was not yet a gardener and didn't feel any ambition to recreate the paradise that felt so new and different.

Later, much later, my oldest brother started giving me palms. He had this weird obsession with palm trees. I was trying to grow roses, then California natives. Palm trees! Don't they get too big, won't they crack the foundation of my house? I didn't quite understand it and was afraid to plant them, but I started noticing palms everywhere, especially some thriving Archontophoenix cunninghamiana up the street from me. They were beginning to produce their first flowers, and I was enamored of the neat crownshafts and pinkish-lavender inflorescences. Then one day I went to visit my brother's place in Orange County. The last time I had seen it, the palm collection was something to look down at to see. Previously, all the palms were young and to me, they all looked alike. But this later visit was a totally different experience. The palms were now overhead, and he had -- I'll never forget this -- a white plastic garden chair in a corner of his small back yard under 2 or 3 different palm trees where he could sit in the shade and enjoy his garden. And there was this crazy blue palm at the other side of the garden that had a name I'd never heard -- Bismarckia. Wow!

I went home and started planting. While I no longer live in that house, I have seen the Archontophoenix alexandrae I planted from a 4-inch pot that is well above the roof now, and the C. macrocarpa beyond it, with it's flashy new red leaf.  And the original pygmy date palms out front still look amazing. Wouldn't I love to see the several Rhopalostylus baueri in the back garden! Wonder if they are still there...

My primary garden is now on the Big Island of Hawaii with more than 375 palms of about 133 species. Oh, don't I love growing palms!

[peachy]

As I spent most of my later childhood in Melbourne, where in all the big parks and private gardens, palms were a common sight and soon became my favourite plant. My grandmother's house had a very long driveway with big old CIDPs all along one side, underplanted with huge blue hydrangeas. Whenever we visited her it was my favourite place to be. When I began to take an interest in furnishing and decorating my own home, I began buying plants of all kinds to place in positions that provided good Feng Shui plus giving my place the 'Home Beautiful' touch. My first palms were Chamaedorea Metallica that I found on the sales shelf in my local supermarket. A few weeks later I spied a gorgeous palm that looked completely different to any other I had seen, so naturally my life was worthless until I bought it,  for a mere $300 at the time. (it was in a nice pot) In the late 1970s it was a very extravagant purchase even more so when it turned brown and died within a few weeks,  You are probably wondering what wondrous rarity could it have been for me to pay that much back then. To sate your curiosity, it was an 80cm high Phoenix roebellinii,  available almost anywhere these days for about $20 !  Let's roll the clock forward now to the 90s when I moved to Queensland,( where it was still the 1950s)  and finally had the space and climate to indulge my long term interest in palms.   In those primitive times there was no Google or even the Internet and we had to do our research using archaic objects know as books. One day  I was roaming through a department store after my very first squirt of botox in fact, when I spotted a book about Palms in Australia,  which was also it's title. Brace yourself readers, this is the catalytic moment ...on the cover was a photo of the most glorious, unusual and beautiful tree I had ever seen. (Copernicia baileyana) Little did  I know of the years of heartbreak, desperation and poverty that lay ahead or that my interest had just became a cruelly addictive obsession. Put away the Kleenex, or as they say in the business,  don't cry for me palm talk reader, today sees me with a tiny garden with healthy strong palms being in the majority. We shall draw a veil of mystery over the minority.

Peachy

 

 

[Than]

For me it wasn't a palm that introduced me into the palm hobby.  I wouldn't say that my hobby is palms until now; it's rather tropical plants in general. Regarding palms my first one was a cocos when I was still a teenager. I fell in love with it and bought it and of course it survived only for few weeks. I knew nothing about plants back then.

Another palm that stole my heart was Cyrtostachys renda when I first saw it in Borneo in front of my hotel. It was a tall mature specimen and I just couldn't believe that a plant could be that beautiful.

[Brandon39.5]

I'm loving all of these stories!

[mxcolin]

When I lived in SoCal, a Mexican Fan Palm started randomly growing in my backyard. It got to about 9 feet before my landlord came and removed it. I loved that thing and have been hooked ever since.

[DoomsDave]

….in March of 1985 I left Ohio for California. Compared to the 1979 Texas sojourn, I was better prepared all round. I was older, a bit wiser, and had a good bit of money saved up. 

The palms were everywhere. They became the backdrop for existence. Towering queens in mid Wilshire in LA, CIDPs over Palm Drive in Beverly Hills, lush green Howeas in Oceanside, and 100 foot tall Washies towering over freeways everywhere.

I got a job as a nursery manager in what was then called Sunnymead, now part of Moreno Valley in Riverside County in the spring of 1986. That September 2, I closed on a house in the unincorporated area near San Bernardino, now part of the city of Highland, in San Bernardino County. On September 3, I bought three five gallon queen palms and planted them in the front yard. Soon after that, a couple of CIDPs in the backyard.

Sold the house in 1989, went to college, then law school. The law school librarian was a member of the PSSC and IPS. Soon, so was I.

Down the pit of addiction I went!

My Chinese roommates in Monterey Park were tolerant of my growing palm collection. When Bo Goran Lundquist moved to Hawaii, I got a bunch of Phoenix palms from his collection, potted them up and grew them on., along with other palms. Howeas, Rhopies, Dypsis, and Chambeyronias followed.  When they got big, I put ads in the Recycler, and sold them. 
 

More to come….

[N8ALLRIGHT]

I have always been interested in something, just not always palms.(reptiles,fish, native hardwood trees,etc) About 5 years ago my wife and I were in the keys as I like to fish she likes to warm 🙂 Mama also likes sleeping in and I'm terrible at it. So I was sitting on the  porch drinking coffee and watching curly tail lizards,and they were scampering after bugs in a mess of red seeds. They had fallen from a big old adonidia and my curiosity was piqued. I'd never really looked at palms quite like that. it's crownshaft was almost alien looking to a Midwest boy,so I grabbed a couple seeds and the rest is history.

[bruce Steele]

Jubaea. I lived in Santa Barbara and liked foraging. You could pick avocados growing along Mission creek and subtropical fruit at City College and Jubaea seeds at the Mission or the lawn bowling courts. Well I moved over the hill to Santa Ynez ( Buellton ) and had a bag of Jubaea seed from SB and put them into a communal bed perlite/ peat in a greenhouse I use for starting vegetables. Some of them germinated and I now have four of those first few Jubaea planted out , a couple are 4’ tall. I am an avid gardener and ran a farm stand on my farm for a few years. You can only grow what your local climate will support and after we had 122F ( 50C ) heatwave a few years ago I decided palms might be a long term survivor to the conditions our climate was headed towards. So I germinated another hundred Jubaea and potted them up, added several Brahea to the sprouting boxes, Pindo palms, dates, and now Parajubaea. Dates are probably the hardiest of all and easiest to germinate. I am trying to plant potential eatables and date pits are actually fairly nutritious when ground into a flour but it will be a very long time until we are hot enough here to get sweet dates to mature. Hoping the palms outlive whoever takes my farm when I am gone. 

[PalmatierMeg]

If I could go back to my very distant past I must say that the source of my palm fixation was Howea forsteriana. Even when I was child I desperately wanted one of those dark green beauties I saw live at upscale shops or hotel lobbies and, of course in old b&w photos of Victorian parlors. But Howeas - palms in general - were not available in the Washington DC area of my youth.  And I had no idea this temperate palm would find the US East Coast a difficult place to grow.

[Fusca]

My story is similar to @John2468.  We traveled just about every summer visiting relatives when I was a kid.  In school we had a seed-growing project with pinto beans or something similar and we also learned about terrariums which one of my teachers had at the school.  In the mid 70's I remember collecting fruits of either Butia odorata or Syagrus romanzoffiana on vacation in either South Carolina or Tampa, FL.  I only remember that the fruits had a sweet smell to them.  Never imagined that they would be tasty to eat!  All that I knew is that they were palm trees of some type.  Not knowing any better I buried the uncleaned fruits in a jar and covered with plastic wrap and somehow managed to get one to germinate!  Of course using crappy potting soil and probably watering it every day eventually killed it but the interest began!  I proceeded to collect seeds of all types every time we traveled which I still do to this day.  Never saw any palms growing outdoors in Tennessee so I never tried to grow any outside until I moved to Texas in 2000.  By then, thanks to PACSOA and Dave's Garden websites, I knew that there were a couple of palms that I could grow in 8a Tyler, Texas.  Hard to believe that my very first palm purchase was 2 Trachycarpus fortunei which were promptly removed just a few weeks after selling that house - along with a Butia odorata, Sabal palmetto (first online palm purchases) and a few CIDP seedlings that I had grown from seed (my first zone-push).

[Tracy]

Growing up primarily in California, I was exposed to palms from the start.  The Washingtonia robusta's planted near the pool my parents put in when I was 3 years old being my earliest memory.  The passion didn't start then though.  It probably expanded from my parents growing vegetables when I was young and getting me interested in plants and gardening in general.  It was after college and buying the first house in Carlsbad that the interest really was sparked.  One of my friends from my college years came from a nursery family, some from Southern California will remember Hines Nursery.  Growing plants was truly in his blood being the grandson of the person that launched that nursery in the 1920's, so when he and another friend started growing some palms from seed, of course I had to get a few from them to plant.  They were growing Kings, Queens, Pygmy Date's, "Sago Palms" and this new to me strange palm a Triangle Palm in neighboring Encinitas.  I also stumbled across a "Shaving Brush Palm" at a small independent nursery in Encinitas where my wife and I had gotten hooked on exotic Hibiscus hybrids (pre-white fly of course).  We sold that first house 28 years ago, but I can still drive by and see palms I planted from 1 gallon pots.  I later learned those Shaving Brush Palms are Rhopalostylis sapida palms.   The next house we bought a few blocks away in Carlsbad was an opportunity to start planting all over again, and add to the diversity (eg. Phoenix reclinata, Woodyetia bifurcata, Chamaerops humilis).  

The deep dive came a few years after we moved in when I wanted to redo some plants in the garden.  A friend/customer in LA asked me if I had ever been to Jungle Music in Encinitas, less than 5 miles from my house in Carlsbad.  I hadn't, but ended up going there and simultaneously to some nurseries my neighbor introduced me to in Fallbrook.  Chameaedorea understory palms, Chambeyronia's, Bismarckia nobilis which I had seen on surf trips to Hawaii, and the world of Dypsis were opened to me.  I could grow these at home, so out came some of my seed grown Queen palms and in with diversity, including my wife's favorite, the Caryota gigas.  So was it a single plant or people... friends, that introduced me to the passion of palms?  I would have to say it was friends and there were many doorways along the way.  We bought our current home 14 years ago, giving me an opportunity to begin anew.  The neighbors were a bit shocked when I tore out about 50 Queen Palms, 75 clumps of Giant Bird of Paradise, numerous clumps of Phoenix roebelenii to start a new palm garden.  What was wrong with all the palms that were already there?  No one asks why I did that anymore.  It is normally a question of what is this plant? Or they say: We always enjoy walking by your house looking at all the plants, when will the bananas be ripe?  I will add that collecting palms has only lead me down the rabbit hole of collecting many other types of plants to accompany them.

[DoomsDave]

1 hour ago, Tracy said:

Growing up primarily in California, I was exposed to palms from the start.  The Washingtonia robusta's planted near the pool my parents put in when I was 3 years old being my earliest memory.  The passion didn't start then though.  It probably expanded from my parents growing vegetables when I was young and getting me interested in plants and gardening in general.  It was after college and buying the first house in Carlsbad that the interest really was sparked.  One of my friends from my college years came from a nursery family, some from Southern California will remember Hines Nursery.  Growing plants was truly in his blood being the grandson of the person that launched that nursery in the 1920's, so when he and another friend started growing some palms from seed, of course I had to get a few from them to plant.  They were growing Kings, Queens, Pygmy Date's, "Sago Palms" and this new to me strange palm a Triangle Palm in neighboring Encinitas.  I also stumbled across a "Shaving Brush Palm" at a small independent nursery in Encinitas where my wife and I had gotten hooked on exotic Hibiscus hybrids (pre-white fly of course).  We sold that first house 28 years ago, but I can still drive by and see palms I planted from 1 gallon pots.  I later learned those Shaving Brush Palms are Rhopalostylis sapida palms.   The next house we bought a few blocks away in Carlsbad was an opportunity to start planting all over again, and add to the diversity (eg. Phoenix reclinata, Woodyetia bifurcata, Chamaerops humilis).  

The deep dive came a few years after we moved in when I wanted to redo some plants in the garden.  A friend/customer in LA asked me if I had ever been to Jungle Music in Encinitas, less than 5 miles from my house in Carlsbad.  I hadn't, but ended up going there and simultaneously to some nurseries my neighbor introduced me to in Fallbrook.  Chameaedorea understory palms, Chambeyronia's, Bismarckia nobilis which I had seen on surf trips to Hawaii, and the world of Dypsis were opened to me.  I could grow these at home, so out came some of my seed grown Queen palms and in with diversity, including my wife's favorite, the Caryota gigas.  So was it a single plant or people... friends, that introduced me to the passion of palms?  I would have to say it was friends and there were many doorways along the way.  We bought our current home 14 years ago, giving me an opportunity to begin anew.  The neighbors were a bit shocked when I tore out about 50 Queen Palms, 75 clumps of Giant Bird of Paradise, numerous clumps of Phoenix roebelenii to start a new palm garden.  What was wrong with all the palms that were already there?  No one asks why I did that anymore.  It is normally a question of what is this plant? Or they say: We always enjoy walking by your house looking at all the plants, when will the bananas be ripe?  I will add that collecting palms has only lead me down the rabbit hole of collecting many other types of plants to accompany them.

You go, brotha’!

[iDesign]

When we moved in, our house had:
- 8 Queen Palms
- 15 Washies
- 15 Pygmy Dates

For various reasons we started removing ALL of the Queens & Washies (the Pygmies got a pass - for now at least). ☠️

The first palms we replaced them with was two Caryota gigas (now obtusa), which we put in two corners of the yard. We also planted a Triple King Palm in another corner for shade. Then life got in the way... and our yard stayed empty for many years - which made me sad (though the two Caryota gigas did bring me a surprising amount of joy). In the meantime I focused on increasing my collection of Bromeliads, Hibiscus, and other small tropical plants. 🌺

Then several years ago I got sick of the empty spaces in the yard, and posted on Palmtalk - "If you had a relatively large blank slate - and lived in SoCal - what would you plant?" The answers came fast & furious and they were all palms I had never heard of.  So I "took a drink from a firehose" and started researching. 💦

I put together a list of palms I liked, but was especially enthralled with Dypsis leptocheilos ("teddy bear")... and eventually found a small one locally. This is the plant I consider my "gateway palm" - and I now own several of them. 🐻

Then I went nuts... scooped up a bunch of other palms locally, and placed a massive Floribunda order (per a Palmtalk suggestion). My rationale was "If I have to wait years for my Teddy Bear palm to grow up, I might as well start the clock on some other interesting palms!"  I wasn't sure which ones to get (even after all my research), so I bought ALL of the Dypsis and many many others.  Floribunda's relatively low pricing made obtaining a huge collection possible - and I've been enjoying the experience of raising palms (in addition to owning them). 🌱

There are other factors that contributed to the Palm collecting bug... For example, I've always wanted to go to Hawaii and despite getting a trip on the calendar THREE times, it's always gotten cancelled for one reason or another. And at this point my special needs son is no longer "portable" - so I've instead decided to build "Hawaii" in my own yard (to some degree at least).  I spend the vast majority of my days at home, so I figure it should be a nice place to be. I also discovered that working in a tropical-themed garden makes me happy (better than anti-depressants). 😊

At this point I have several "showcase" palms in the ground... many palms I'm hoping to put in the ground this spring... and a huge collection of baby palms in pots. Along the way, I also found a very nice group of people who I find funny & friendly (yes YOU guys). Despite being in the palm collecting hobby a relatively short time, I feel like I'm a part of the group, and have ideas to contribute.  I love reading your posts and seeing all the beautiful photos every day. Yes, I'm totally hooked at this point, and am a true "palm nut"  🥥

[DoomsDave]

Hmm. Maybe "insanity" is sanity for a different direction, or another purpose? "Better" or "worse" depending on whom you ask and when?

In January 1998, after schlepping my palm collection around to another Palm talker's place for safe keeping, I found a nice rental in the El Sereno section of Los Angeles. "Basement" apartment, half an acre, plenty of room.

And! Best of all! High on a ridgetop, so when cold came, it sank onto the unfortunates below, but not me or my palms. That came to matter a few times. Like when I woke up to see ice on roofs below me, but forties where I was. Yike.

Insanity turned into - hypersanity?

Passion revved, and I got into Palm Talk in its earlier incarnation.

Kept my memberships in the IPS and PSSC. Bought from Floribunda and Kapoho Palms. Raised the babies.

KP had a sale on Chambeyronia seeds, sprouted, 50 cents each. WHOA! So, I did what I thought only a rational person would do and got 500 of them. 250 macrocarpa, and 250 hookeri. Or maybe 300 mac's and 200 hook's. Got them all, potted them in gallons and sold most of them. But not all, to be continued . . . .

 

 

[JohnAndSancho]

I guess I should add a follow-up, too. I was working the front desk at a hotel that actually has real plants in the lobby, a fiddle leaf fig and a bunch of 2 sp of Dracaena. I knew nothing about plants, I just watered them (entirely too much) because nobody else did. 

 

As I was checking this guest in, he tells me he's a member of the Texas Association of Florists and he starts looking at the plants and telling me how unhappy they are. He told me the Dracaena were overwatered and brown tipping from all the salt and minerals in the water. Told me the fiddle leaf was getting sunburned from the bright lights behind the front desk. 

 

Our overnight person didn't show up that night, so I moved the fiddle leaf into a window that got just a little sunlight, and dragged all of these giant heavy 3 ft tall square planters outside and dumped out what had to be 30 gallons of water.... Shortly after that, COVID hit, and along with it came lots of free time and extra money. 

[DoomsDave]

32 minutes ago, JohnAndSancho said:

I guess I should add a follow-up, too. I was working the front desk at a hotel that actually has real plants in the lobby, a fiddle leaf fig and a bunch of 2 sp of Dracaena. I knew nothing about plants, I just watered them (entirely too much) because nobody else did. 

 

As I was checking this guest in, he tells me he's a member of the Texas Association of Florists and he starts looking at the plants and telling me how unhappy they are. He told me the Dracaena were overwatered and brown tipping from all the salt and minerals in the water. Told me the fiddle leaf was getting sunburned from the bright lights behind the front desk. 

 

Our overnight person didn't show up that night, so I moved the fiddle leaf into a window that got just a little sunlight, and dragged all of these giant heavy 3 ft tall square planters outside and dumped out what had to be 30 gallons of water.... Shortly after that, COVID hit, and along with it came lots of free time and extra money. 

Give Sancho a nice scratch for me mate!

[JohnAndSancho]

9 minutes ago, DoomsDave said:

Give Sancho a nice scratch for me mate!

Will do. He's hogging the space heater right now. 

[happypalms]

That would have to be the Howea fosteriana the grand old kentia growing on lord howe island of the coast of south west of of where I live they where growing so well in my area I worked in a kentia nursery supplying the indoor plant industry in the city’s and exporting to  holland a huge industry I was 18 years old and loved working in the nursery seed collection was a big thing with the same people traveling up the coast knowing exactly where every fruiting palm was collecting seeds for the industry big business back in the 80s if you tried to doorknock and ask for the seeds they where always spoken for and you could never get the seeds now days you can’t give them away so plentiful  kentia palms everywhere i only grow about 50 of them in my nursery they become boring to me in the end being so common but still a beautiful palm and the Howea bellmoreana is quite rare in my area with not many plants about they are there you just have to look but definitely one palm worth growing the bellmoreana 

[happypalms]

5 hours ago, JohnAndSancho said:

Will do. He's hogging the space heater right now. 

Argh so that’s Mr  sancho  pleased to meet you Mr sancho 

[2palm]

For me it was Mexican fan palm. i was very interested in all palms until i found out which ones could grow in zone 8a. i had 2 options. 1, washingtonia robusta or trachycarpus fortunei. there was Mexican fan palms in the area so i bought one at my local nursery. that's what started my palm addiction.

 

[Las Palmas Norte]

On 1/6/2024 at 3:19 PM, Banana Belt said:

I planted 24 Jubaea seeds in 1982, two of which finally made it from sprouts to pots to planting outdoors next to my driveway.  For 35 years they slowly grew into big bushes and finally in 2011 starting showing signs of what I hoped to be a trunk emerging.  Then in 2012 a trunk began to appear, first picture.  Then in 2015 while visiting a nursery I saw up on their photo board a picture of my home and the two palms.   Four years later when searching on the web for Palms in Brookings I saw the same picture from the Nursery posted in Palm Society where discussion circulated as to where these two palms were.  There was speculation but many wanted to know so I took some pictures, joined Palm Socieity and posted new pictures of same two Jubaea.  Today the two I planted from seed are second Picture taken Jan 6, 2024.

Stunning examples of Jubaea. Quite likely a prefect climate for them.

Edited January 15, 2024 by Las Palmas Norte

[Banana Belt]

On 1/15/2024 at 9:40 AM, Las Palmas Norte said:

Stunning examples of Jubaea.

Thank You.   Last summer a Palm Nursery owner from San Diego drove by and noticed the two Jubaea, he backed up and asked what I have done to grow such nice palms.   I showed him the soil by digging a 3 foot hole in the garden which consists of organic rich loam that will grow almost anything.  He told me that normally Jubaea will exhibit a shaving brush type leaf canopy and only with deep natural or augmented soils will Jubaea grow a full wide canopy.  The reason for this he said was that many palms such as Jubaea readily drop their leaves in poor soils in order to save and provide nutrients to the new growth in the tree.  In deep rich soils there is no need for the Palm to drop its older leaves displaying a full wide canopy that collect ample nutrients from the soil allowing the tree to attain maximum growth and health.  Climate is also very important as you said, so the combination of everything being just right.

Edited January 17, 2024 by Banana Belt

[Las Palmas Norte]

3 hours ago, Banana Belt said:

... Climate is also very important as you said, so the combination of everything being just right.

Often overlooked when hardy palm growers set out with Jubaea.

[JLM]

Mine started with a trip to Fort Walton Beach when i was somewhere around 8 or 9 years old. I had never seen palm trees before, so obviously i was excited when we arrived and there were palm trees everywhere! It was Sabal palmettos that got me into palms. However, i was only interested in them, and had no ability to grow them and was too young to know how or what to do. We moved to Florida in 2017, and still could not grow them. I did not realize you could just grow them in pots, i always thought they had to be in the ground, and because we lived at a rental house, we could not plant anything. We moved to our current home in 2018 which is ours, and that made my mom (who also likes palm trees to some extent) want to plant some palm trees. So one day in 2019 they went to Lowe's and bought a 6 gallon and a 2.25 gallon Queen! We planted both of them, which are still alive today. I ended up taking the reigns on taking care of them, and now i have an entire palm collection both in ground and in pots.

[WNY Dave]

For us, my son and I, it wasn't a single tree but a cruise to the Bahamas that fired our love of things tropical.  When we got home we ordered 2 tiny windmill palms from a mail order nursery.  8 years later they are 4' tall without the pot and at the base of the trunk they are 8-10" in diameter.  Since then we have added banana palms, a 40" Sago palm and 2 pineapple plants.  They have a nice southern exposure window to look out over the 20" of snow we received last night and the 12" of additional snow tonight. The windmills are like family now...😁

[DoomsDave]

On 1/17/2024 at 1:12 PM, WNY Dave said:

For us, my son and I, it wasn't a single tree but a cruise to the Bahamas that fired our love of things tropical.  When we got home we ordered 2 tiny windmill palms from a mail order nursery.  8 years later they are 4' tall without the pot and at the base of the trunk they are 8-10" in diameter.  Since then we have added banana palms, a 40" Sago palm and 2 pineapple plants.  They have a nice southern exposure window to look out over the 20" of snow we received last night and the 12" of additional snow tonight. The windmills are like family now...😁

Pictures?

[DoomsDave]

Over time I’ve given away palm seeds — anyone find that helpful for their addiction?

The most common was Chamadorea radicalis, but there were others.

Represent y’all !

[ZPalms]

Sabal Palmetto. It was the main palm I was exposed to when I was younger when went to the beach. It was the only way I knew we were close to the ocean, and I really enjoyed watching the fronds blow in the wind; I thought they were so pretty. It wasn't until 2020 that I started thinking, How do palm trees even grow? and then realized palm trees had seeds and that you could buy them and the palms online, and that's when I bought my first Sabal Palmetto!

Which being this one 

 

Edited January 19, 2024 by ZPalms

[knell]

short story: Joey palm

long story: one evening i was looking online for conifer seeds and stumbled upon Toby’s site rarepalmseeds. Saw a photo of a Joey palm for the first time and did not sleep at all that night. Bought the Riffle/Craft’s Encyclopedia of Cultivated Palms and saw all the photos from Floribunda.

I started a thread here asking how i could get a job working with palms. Many wonderful people reached out and i had opportunities immediately, but Kim suggested i reach out to Jeff Marcus. It felt absurd to try so it was the perfect idea.

Jeff was in Thailand so he scheduled a call for when he returned home, so i had a couple weeks of nerves while waiting. We spoke for an hour and a half, and he did break it to me gently that he was already maxed out on employees.

Next thing i know i had quit my tech job and moved to Big Island so i could visit Floribunda regularly. A few days after moving there, Jeff called and asked if i was on the island, his worker had left and there was an opening.

That was on a Friday, i started on Monday, and my first paycheck with Jeff’s signature was on my birthday (one of the few objects i treasure and look at daily).

Lots more story between then and now (after the volcano erupted and my home was destroyed i lived in the garden for 18 months) but Jeff is one of my best friends and i am so grateful for everything