Best looking CIDP in the Houston area

[MarcusH]

13 hours ago, Ben G. said:

I don't have any opinion about why CIDP are struggling in Houston, but this made me think of another, related question. It has been stated here that mules are more leaf hardy than CIDPs. I have been told before that P. dactylifera are more leaf hardy than CIDP as well. (I have no idea if that is true) My observation has been that CIDP survive extreme cold more reliably than either true dates or mules in Texas though. Is that true? Or is it just that mules and true dates are not planted in any comparable number to say for sure how they perform relative to CIDPs?

Either way, that leaves Texans who want a pinnate palm in a bind. Plant CIDP that will perhaps burn more easily but survive...or plant something like a mule or true date that may stay green a few degrees colder, if it lives.

Obviously, we could go with butia instead, since they seem solidly more leaf hardy than CIDP. In the San Antonio area at least, CIDP still seem to survive better (more reliably) than butias.

Any opinions on this?

I see way more Butias than CIDPs here in SA . It's like CIDPs are about to vanish like a ghost . Butias don't really grow in every soil you might see them less on the NW side of SA. But overall this palm is still rare. 

[Ben G.]

44 minutes ago, MarcusH said:

I see way more Butias than CIDPs here in SA . It's like CIDPs are about to vanish like a ghost . Butias don't really grow in every soil you might see them less on the NW side of SA. But overall this palm is still rare. 

Interesting. I have definitely seen Butias on the Riverwalk and at the San Antonio zoo, but I don't feel like I have seen many more. Admittedly, I haven't been here long though. 

On the other hand, I see a fair amount of CIDPs out here in the Cibolo/Schertz area. I know I have seen them on the sides of the road in Converse and Universal City too.  From my backyard I can even see two naturalized CIDPs in a vacant lot that have about 15ft of trunk on them. Without any care at all, I would guess they are fairly old to be that large.

I have spent some time at Schlitterbahn with my family recently as well, and I was a little surprised that I didn't see any Butias or CIDPs. Lots of S. mexicana and some washes. I was maybe most impressed with the mass amounts of naturalized elephant ears on the banks of the Comal river...and some of the taller fruiting loquats as well.

[NBTX11]

10 minutes ago, Ben G. said:

I have spent some time at Schlitterbahn with my family recently as well, and I was a little surprised that I didn't see any Butias or CIDPs.

There’s a large one at Landa Park near the pool, and there are a lot of other ones scattered throughout New Braunfels. The location on Mather St that has the 5 pure Robusta that survived the 2021 freeze also has lots of canary dates. There’s also two really old and tall ones of I35 close to the Guadalupe River. 

[MarcusH]

3 hours ago, Ben G. said:

Interesting. I have definitely seen Butias on the Riverwalk and at the San Antonio zoo, but I don't feel like I have seen many more. Admittedly, I haven't been here long though. 

On the other hand, I see a fair amount of CIDPs out here in the Cibolo/Schertz area. I know I have seen them on the sides of the road in Converse and Universal City too.  From my backyard I can even see two naturalized CIDPs in a vacant lot that have about 15ft of trunk on them. Without any care at all, I would guess they are fairly old to be that large.

I have spent some time at Schlitterbahn with my family recently as well, and I was a little surprised that I didn't see any Butias or CIDPs. Lots of S. mexicana and some washes. I was maybe most impressed with the mass amounts of naturalized elephant ears on the banks of the Comal river...and some of the taller fruiting loquats as well.

It's nearly impossible to observe every neighborhood in SA especially people's backyard.  My Butia grows in the backyard for instance . No one else will ever notice that I grow one from just driving by our house.  I live near Converse and Windcrest the only CIDPs that I see is one in the neighborhood probably 25 ft tall and some in the back of the Forum but those look like crap .  CIDPS aren't common in San Antonio as well as Butias but from my observations I see more Butia than CIDPs but like it said both of them are less common. The only tall palms that really dominate in Bexar County are Sabal Mexicana/ Palmetto,  Washingtonia Filifera/ hybrids . That's it ! You really have to look for CIDPs and Butias and spend hours driving through neighborhoods to count 20 each . I don't even know if I would find that many.  Maybe better luck in the Alamo Heights area.  I really don't go beyond 1604 that much . 

[jwitt]

On 6/10/2024 at 12:41 PM, MarcusH said:

We're due for a warm one. 

Famous last words!

I hope your right........this time!

[RJ]

5 hours ago, Swolte said:

For areas I don't want to maintain, I use a thick layer of pine bark mulch. Its hydrophobic and doesn't break down as quickly. 

Butia is tougher than CIPD here all things considered, imo. More disease and cold tolerant. 

~ S 

 

I forgot about the pine bark mulch, my dad just switched to it at his place because it doesn’t break down as quickly 👍

[MarcusH]

1 hour ago, jwitt said:

Famous last words!

I hope your right........this time!

Now I grow palms I don't have to worry  about I've learned the hard way lol but we went through 3 hard freezes that were all under 20f the last 3 years.  Didn't see anything like this before . At least give us one year of a mild winter. 

 

 

[Robert Cade Ross]

From 3 weeks that massive Cidp in Galveston it actually looks slightly better than a year ago lol 

[ahosey01]

8 hours ago, MarcusH said:

Lol if I would have a choice and the right amount of money I'd probably move to the Tampa Bay area. 

Deep south Texas is more botanically interesting than Florida.  Also the El Cielo cloud forest is three hours away, along with some of the isolated Tamaulipan deserts.  What you can see in the RGV and on a day trip around here is unparalleled by almost anything else in North America.

Im sure to some Floridians them are fighting words but there’s a reason I came here, lol

[ahosey01]

8 hours ago, MarcusH said:

Lol if I would have a choice and the right amount of money I'd probably move to the Tampa Bay area. 

Deep south Texas is more botanically interesting than Florida.  Also the El Cielo cloud forest is three hours away, along with some of the isolated Tamaulipan deserts.  What you can see in the RGV and on a day trip around here is unparalleled by almost anything else in North America.

Im sure to some Floridians them are fighting words but there’s a reason I came here, lol

[MarcusH]

On 6/11/2024 at 8:40 PM, ahosey01 said:

Deep south Texas is more botanically interesting than Florida.  Also the El Cielo cloud forest is three hours away, along with some of the isolated Tamaulipan deserts.  What you can see in the RGV and on a day trip around here is unparalleled by almost anything else in North America.

Im sure to some Floridians them are fighting words but there’s a reason I came here, lol

Can I disagree without starting an argument? Lol . People move to Florida because of their breath taking beaches , lakes , islands , subtropical and tropical landscaping . They don't experience the extreme cold like we do every few years , at least in most parts of Florida.  Most people don't even know what a spear pull is .  It's so colorful over there while I personally find that most parts of Texas aren't impressive looking to me. I hear that a lot so it isn't just me.  But that's just my personal opinion.  

[ahosey01]

2 hours ago, MarcusH said:

Can I disagree without starting an argument? Lol . People move to Florida because of their breath taking beaches , lakes , islands , subtropical and tropical landscaping . They don't experience the extreme cold like we do every few years , at least in most parts of Florida.  Most people don't even know what a spear pull is .  It's so colorful over there while I personally find that most parts of Texas aren't impressive looking to me. I hear that a lot so it isn't just me.  But that's just my personal opinion.  

No but you can disagree and start a fun argument I enjoy having lol...

For the cold part, the RGV went 32 years prior to 1989 without experiencing a freeze event below 27F, and Brownsville in particular only broke 30F twice during that time, and only for a couple hours each time.  During '89, Brownsville hit 17F and most of the Orlando area hit between 15F and 22F.  As I understand it, and someone like @Eric in Orlando would have to confirm or deny for me, I believe even the normally hardy stuff like queens and pygmies were hit pretty hard.  In '21 Florida was spared, but that's not always the case.  In '85, Florida got hit and Texas was spared.  Luck of the draw and pretty much anywhere east of the Rockies is subject to the good ole generational arctic blast every once in a while.  Case in point - Miami, FL and Lake Havasu City, AZ share an all-time-record low temperature, but LHC is roughly 600 miles further from the equator at approximately the same latitude as Columbia, SC.  But I don't really care about the cold.  It's the plants and animals you find in the area and the surrounding environs that are significantly more interesting to me.

There are an abundance of plant species belonging to the Tamaulipan scrub ecosystem that can be found in this general area and nowhere else.  Cordia boisseri, Condalia hookeri, Ehretia anacua, Leucaena pulvirulenta, Ebanopsis ebano, Vachellia farnesiana, Eysenhardtia texana, Parkinsonia aculeata and texana... so many incredibly cool things that you don't find anywhere else.  And those are just a fraction of the woody plants - not the flowers or the grasses, and not the birds and insects.  The Rio Grande delta extends from Port Manfield in the north to Punta de Piedra in the south, and is one of the largest wetland ecosystems in the United States, and the only one occurring in such a drought-prone climate.  Where else can you see giant tree yuccas perched on sandy berms in a wetland oasis?

200 miles to the south and you have the jaumave desert - one of the weirdest and smallest deserts in the Americas with all kinds of unusual succulents like Obregonia and Ariocarpus.  Towering over that desert is a mountain range that features a Costa-Rica-style cloud forest called Reserva El Cielo.  In between here and there you have the Sierra San Carlos which has mile-high peaks and weird Mexican pines like Pinus teocote.  Between Texas and Tamaulipas grow natively multiple different Sabal, Acrocomia, Roystonea and Brahea.

I literally can't think of what more a plant guy would want than the high variability that occurs between Texas and Tamaulipas.  And I didn't even mention the Chihuahan desert.

Florida is cool, no doubt.  But it's not Texas.

For your viewing pleasure, here are some videos that describe in way better detail what I have hinted at here:

 

[ahosey01]

@MarcusH I would also mention that twice since 1982 Archbold Biological Station in South Florida, which is on the same latitude as Siesta Key, has recorded 13F.

[ahosey01]

2 hours ago, ahosey01 said:

o but you can disagree and start a fun argument I enjoy having lol...

For the cold part, the RGV went 32 years prior to 1989 without experiencing a freeze event below 27F, and Brownsville in particular only broke 30F twice during that time, and only for a couple hours each time.  During '89, Brownsville hit 17F and most of the Orlando area hit between 15F and 22F.  As I understand it, and someone like @Eric in Orlando would have to confirm or deny for me, I believe even the normally hardy stuff like queens and pygmies were hit pretty hard.  In '21 Florida was spared, but that's not always the case.  In '85, Florida got hit and Texas was spared.  Luck of the draw and pretty much anywhere east of the Rockies is subject to the good ole generational arctic blast every once in a while.  Case in point - Miami, FL and Lake Havasu City, AZ share an all-time-record low temperature, but LHC is roughly 600 miles further from the equator at approximately the same latitude as Columbia, SC.  But I don't really care about the cold.  It's the plants and animals you find in the area and the surrounding environs that are significantly more interesting to me.

This should have said "...prior to 2021...," referring to the 89 freeze.

[MarcusH]

32 minutes ago, ahosey01 said:

@MarcusH I would also mention that twice since 1982 Archbold Biological Station in South Florida, which is on the same latitude as Siesta Key, has recorded 13F.

Down the road my friend is all about personal preferences.  I moved to San Antonio from Germany,  so what I'm used to and miss at the same time is RAIN and the bright greenery .  Here in San Antonio we don't really have a forest with tall trees . Everything looks semi dry , rocky . It's too hot to keep tropical plants alive or good looking.  I'm surprised that my Alocasia and Colocasias in filtered sun light  doing well so far. Knocking on wood.  Canna lily's so so on the other side.  Anyway I'm getting off topic .  Adding Mexico to your list isn't really a fair game.  Too much of a risk to explore the country as a non Hispanic ,as beautiful as it is I don't travel beyond border cities where the Cartel is.  

We can compare temperatures with historical data but I don't know if there's a place in the RGV where healthy looking  Royal palms and Coconut palms are planted at every corner in the city .  

 

[NBTX11]

14 minutes ago, MarcusH said:

Down the road my friend is all about personal preferences.  I moved to San Antonio from Germany,  so what I'm used to and miss at the same time is RAIN and the bright greenery .  Here in San Antonio we don't really have a forest with tall trees . Everything looks semi dry , rocky . It's too hot to keep tropical plants alive or good looking.  I'm surprised that my Alocasia and Colocasias in filtered sun light  doing well so far. Knocking on wood.  Canna lily's so so on the other side.  Anyway I'm getting off topic .  Adding Mexico to your list isn't really a fair game.  Too much of a risk to explore the country as a non Hispanic ,as beautiful as it is I don't travel beyond border cities where the Cartel is.  

We can compare temperatures with historical data but I don't know if there's a place in the RGV where healthy looking  Royal palms and Coconut palms are planted at every corner in the city .  

 

I saw some huge royal palms in McAllen a couple months ago. They looked very healthy. There were a lot of them. 

[NBTX11]

5 hours ago, MarcusH said:

. They don't experience the extreme cold like we do every few years ,

Yes, The panhandle and North Florida do. Even interior Central Fl away from the big cities experiences a lot of freezes and occasional hard freezes. 
 I lived near Tampa Fl and experienced some bone chilling cold on more than one occasion. I also lived in Homestead, the furthest south city in Fl and it got really cold there, around 32F. I don’t know if it was because we were used to heat but when it got that cold it felt extra icy cold. It felt bitter cold. 

[ahosey01]

1 hour ago, MarcusH said:

Down the road my friend is all about personal preferences.  I moved to San Antonio from Germany,  so what I'm used to and miss at the same time is RAIN and the bright greenery .  Here in San Antonio we don't really have a forest with tall trees . Everything looks semi dry , rocky . It's too hot to keep tropical plants alive or good looking.  I'm surprised that my Alocasia and Colocasias in filtered sun light  doing well so far. Knocking on wood.  Canna lily's so so on the other side.  Anyway I'm getting off topic .  Adding Mexico to your list isn't really a fair game.  Too much of a risk to explore the country as a non Hispanic ,as beautiful as it is I don't travel beyond border cities where the Cartel is.  

We can compare temperatures with historical data but I don't know if there's a place in the RGV where healthy looking  Royal palms and Coconut palms are planted at every corner in the city .  

 

As a red-blooded American dad of 5 children who is whiter than a Galveston snowfall I can assure you the country is eminently explorable and I would encourage you to do it.  The security situation is less than optimal, but it's not Haiti, either.  You're missing out on some truly incredible places with that mind state.

Let me ask the point directly:

• Would you categorize Texas and its surrounding environs, or Florida and its surrounding environs, as more botanically interesting?
• What flora would cause you to make that choice?

As far as I'm concerned, the area from Corpus Christi to Tampico and Ciudad Victoria to Laredo is a plant guy's wet dream.

[Xenon]

15 hours ago, MarcusH said:

 

We can compare temperatures with historical data but I don't know if there's a place in the RGV where healthy looking  Royal palms and Coconut palms are planted at every corner in the city .  

 

Brownsville has several public royal plantings most notably in the central square, all over the university grounds, at the main bus station, etc. Progreso planted royals at the border crossing. Plenty of royals in public and commercial spaces, but they are especially common in residential areas.

There are single neighborhoods in McAllen with hundreds of royals alone like Sharyland, some of the mansions have several dozen royals planted just on one property. 

There isn't a huge difference in what you can grow at the same latitude in TX and FL until you get close to the I-4 corridor (Orlando-Tampa) where the península effect really starts ramping up. Houston and Jacksonville are pretty much identical, San Antonio and Tallahassee, etc. Very similar average temperatures and record lows, with warm periods and cold outbreaks, etc. 

There's no denying that southeast Florida is one of the warmest if not the warmest locations on the planet at its latitude. It's crazy crazy warm, warmer than all of northern Vietnam despite being 6-8 degrees farther from the equator. 

South Florida is also a very interesting place for biodiversity imo. It's where temperate meets tropical, Caribbean/Neotropical meets the last Ice Age. Nowhere else in the world can you see alligators and crocodiles side by side. The varied soil composition allows for different plant communities from the swamp/savanna of the Everglades to the pine rocklands and coastal tropical hardwood hammocks (the only evergreen tropical forest of its kind in the continental U.S.). If you count all of the invasive/nonnative species it's even more interesting...peacock bass and all sorts of aquarium fish in the canals and drainage ponds/ditches, Nile crocodiles, caimans, monitor lizards, pythons, anacondas, all sorts of parrots, etc. 

[Xenon]

14 hours ago, ahosey01 said:

As a red-blooded American dad of 5 children who is whiter than a Galveston snowfall I can assure you the country is eminently explorable and I would encourage you to do it.  The security situation is less than optimal, but it's not Haiti, either.  You're missing out on some truly incredible places with that mind state.

Let me ask the point directly:

• Would you categorize Texas and its surrounding environs, or Florida and its surrounding environs, as more botanically interesting?
• What flora would cause you to make that choice?

As far as I'm concerned, the area from Corpus Christi to Tampico and Ciudad Victoria to Laredo is a plant guy's wet dream.

Plenty of blondes and redheads that are 100% Mexican. Same story elsewhere in Latin America too. But people can instantly spot a gringo by clothing/mannerisms even before they open their mouth 😆.

El Cielo actually has a lot of lowland tropical moist forest too around Gómez Farías, it's the furthest north extension of the Veracruz moist forest and sits right below the Tropic if Cancer. You can find Attalea and typical tropical trees like Ficus and gumbo limbo there. It's also a very interesting place because despite the climax vegetation being tropical hardwood forest, it does get nipped back by freezes on occasion. There was damage in 2021 and extensive damage in 1989. 

[ahosey01]

7 minutes ago, Xenon said:

Plenty of blondes and redheads that are 100% Mexican. Same story elsewhere in Latin America too. But people can instantly spot a gringo by clothing/mannerisms even before they open their mouth 😆.

El Cielo actually has a lot of lowland tropical moist forest too around Gómez Farías, it's the furthest north extension of the Veracruz moist forest and sits right below the Tropic if Cancer. You can find Attalea and typical tropical trees like Ficus and gumbo limbo there. It's also a very interesting place because despite the climax vegetation being tropical hardwood forest, it does get nipped back by freezes on occasion. There was damage in 2021 and extensive damage in 1989. 

Yeah you find muchos gueros latinos en Brownsville tambien lol

[Xenon]

57 minutes ago, ahosey01 said:

Yeah you find muchos gueros latinos en Brownsville tambien lol

Even more in McAllen at La Plaza mall. They own most of South Padre too 😆

[Mr.SamuraiSword]

On 6/9/2024 at 8:40 AM, OC2Texaspalmlvr said:

So my buddy who is starting a side hustle with a dump trailer. Came a across this CIDP that the current owner wants to get removed. It would be a d@mn shame for it to meet the chainsaw. I told my buddy he doesn't want anything to do with this removal job obviously with the hazards involved. Anyways back to the palm this thing is growing so much better then all the CIDPs I have seen in my travels here. They just don't love it here imo. Regular dates seem to tolerate our humidity better. Maybe @Xenon has seen better ones 🤔 To me it's a normal CIDP but it is possible to be a hybrid with Theophasti. Anyone wanting to save this palm hit me up it's in Dickinson area. 

T J 

 

It sure would be a shame to see that one go... How much work would it be to remove and transplant? I know it can be done, and has been done with much larger examples, but I wonder the minimum cost... Anyone else have any insight? Knowing how much mature CIDP go for, you might be able to save a good chunk of money.

[MarcusH]

12 hours ago, Xenon said:

Brownsville has several public royal plantings most notably in the central square, all over the university grounds, at the main bus station, etc. Progreso planted royals at the border crossing. Plenty of royals in public and commercial spaces, but they are especially common in residential areas.

There are single neighborhoods in McAllen with hundreds of royals alone like Sharyland, some of the mansions have several dozen royals planted just on one property. 

There isn't a huge difference in what you can grow at the same latitude in TX and FL until you get close to the I-4 corridor (Orlando-Tampa) where the península effect really starts ramping up. Houston and Jacksonville are pretty much identical, San Antonio and Tallahassee, etc. Very similar average temperatures and record lows, with warm periods and cold outbreaks, etc. 

There's no denying that southeast Florida is one of the warmest if not the warmest locations on the planet at its latitude. It's crazy crazy warm, warmer than all of northern Vietnam despite being 6-8 degrees farther from the equator. 

South Florida is also a very interesting place for biodiversity imo. It's where temperate meets tropical, Caribbean/Neotropical meets the last Ice Age. Nowhere else in the world can you see alligators and crocodiles side by side. The varied soil composition allows for different plant communities from the swamp/savanna of the Everglades to the pine rocklands and coastal tropical hardwood hammocks (the only evergreen tropical forest of its kind in the continental U.S.). If you count all of the invasive/nonnative species it's even more interesting...peacock bass and all sorts of aquarium fish in the canals and drainage ponds/ditches, Nile crocodiles, caimans, monitor lizards, pythons, anacondas, all sorts of parrots, etc. 

I visited Florida quite a few times to me it's my favorite place but that's just me.  To me Florida looks more tropical than Texas also cleaner but that's a subject that shouldn't be topic here on Palmtalk.  Texas has a lot to offer in terms of landscape, even more variety than Florida .  If I could choose I wouldn't even pick South Florida I prefer central and NE and the Panhandle . But even in the Northern part of FL it gets cold which I knew before.  Jacksonville is slightly warmer than Houston when it comes to low temperatures. There are Queens that are 30 plus years old.  It seems to be Florida's  climate is more stable than ours in winter.  But down the road everyone has different taste when it comes to choosing their favorite place. 

[Xenon]

1 hour ago, MarcusH said:

 Jacksonville is slightly warmer than Houston when it comes to low temperatures. There are Queens that are 30 plus years old.  It seems to be Florida's  climate is more stable than ours in winter.  

You can cherry pick any arbitrary span of years to suggest this but the 30, 50, and 100 year average annual minimum temperatures for Houston and Jacksonville are almost exactly the same. Jacksonville is currently in a rather warm run of years but Houston was milder than Jacksonville from the late 90s through the entirety of the 2000s...same for the mid 20th century. It was cold everywhere in the 80s 😆.The all time record lows are nearly exactly the same too (in the single digits 😱). Very very similar in the long run. 

Of course there's no denying Florida looks more tropical, not only does it get more rainfall but the entire southern half of it is either just a few degrees short of tropical to well into the tropical climate standards. I've been to almost all of Florida from the Panhandle to 90% of the Atlantic coast, Everglades and everything south of Tampa on the Gulf side. Just missing Orlando/inland central FL and Lake O. Been trying to get to FL permanently, hopefully soon. I'd move there for mango season alone 🤤

[Foxpalms]

On 6/10/2024 at 3:01 PM, OC2Texaspalmlvr said:

How is the soil there,  compared to the gumbo clay we see here. Also we don't have a dry season per say. 

T J 

Good drainage in central London, but in North West London there is very thick clay soil. Since I grew up there, I had to deal with clay soil where you could dig a hole and fill it with water and it wouldn't drain.  Then during the summer it would dry up and become rock solid looking like the Grand Canyon! Plenty of canary island date palms in that area though (zone 9a).

[MarcusH]

Orlando is nice ,very modern looking surrounded by numerous lakes probably former sinkholes lol.  Moving to Florida in this day and age from Texas means higher costs of living .  I could deal with it. I wouldn't pick South Florida , not that's bad looking or anything like it I prefer rather be surrounded by pine woods for shade .  Besides Tampa Bay I would also pick Pensacola and Jax.  I don't move somewhere because of plants .  I look at the whole picture.  You know I'm just happy with Sabal palms lol. I saw many Butias growing in NE and NW Florida.  They seem to love it there.  

[Xenon]

57 minutes ago, MarcusH said:

Orlando is nice ,very modern looking surrounded by numerous lakes probably former sinkholes lol.  Moving to Florida in this day and age from Texas means higher costs of living .  I could deal with it. I wouldn't pick South Florida , not that's bad looking or anything like it I prefer rather be surrounded by pine woods for shade .  Besides Tampa Bay I would also pick Pensacola and Jax.  I don't move somewhere because of plants .  I look at the whole picture.  You know I'm just happy with Sabal palms lol. I saw many Butias growing in NE and NW Florida.  They seem to love it there.  

Come to south Mississippi haha, all pine trees a few sabal and Butia, greeeeeen low cost of living....just nothing to do 😂 North/northeast Houston, some parts of west and southeast Houston are very green too and have all of the amenities of a big city 

[ahosey01]

1 hour ago, MarcusH said:

Orlando is nice ,very modern looking surrounded by numerous lakes probably former sinkholes lol.  Moving to Florida in this day and age from Texas means higher costs of living .  I could deal with it. I wouldn't pick South Florida , not that's bad looking or anything like it I prefer rather be surrounded by pine woods for shade .  Besides Tampa Bay I would also pick Pensacola and Jax.  I don't move somewhere because of plants .  I look at the whole picture.  You know I'm just happy with Sabal palms lol. I saw many Butias growing in NE and NW Florida.  They seem to love it there.  

You're a more balanced man than I.  I move because of plants. lol

[MarcusH]

4 hours ago, Xenon said:

Come to south Mississippi haha, all pine trees a few sabal and Butia, greeeeeen low cost of living....just nothing to do 😂 North/northeast Houston, some parts of west and southeast Houston are very green too and have all of the amenities of a big city 

MS and AL would be on my list too as well as LA . NOLA has some nice looking palms including Canaries. All healthy looking . Sabals all over in the swamp that's something I enjoy looking at it .  I personally would stay away from Canaries and Date palms just like you mentioned lethal bronzing is serious and is responsible for numerous palm deaths. As beautiful as they look but won't have one in my yard ever. 

[MarcusH]

Just now, MarcusH said:

MS and AL would be on my list too as well as LA . NOLA has some nice looking palms including Canaries. All healthy looking . Sabals all over in the swamp that's something I enjoy looking at it .  I personally would stay away from Canaries and Date palms just like you mentioned lethal bronzing is serious and is responsible for numerous palm deaths. As beautiful as they look but won't have one in my yard ever. 

The problem I have with Houston it's too much of a city.  I also don't like the chemical plants and the air in Houston is toxic.  

[MarcusH]

4 hours ago, ahosey01 said:

You're a more balanced man than I.  I move because of plants. lol

I got bills to pay I would only would move to a place where I know jobs aren't hard to find. I'm not a city person but the reason I would pick a bigger city is just because of job opportunities.  If I could I would choose Pensacola over any other big city in Florida.  Plenty of bread and butter palms growing in the Panhandle . Nothing outstanding though unlike where you live. For palms your area is a hidden geme. 

[ahosey01]

32 minutes ago, MarcusH said:

I got bills to pay I would only would move to a place where I know jobs aren't hard to find. I'm not a city person but the reason I would pick a bigger city is just because of job opportunities.  If I could I would choose Pensacola over any other big city in Florida.  Plenty of bread and butter palms growing in the Panhandle . Nothing outstanding though unlike where you live. For palms your area is a hidden geme. 

If I’m not mistaken (and I’m often mistaken) the region with the greatest number of tree species growing in one forest is that region of the panhandle.  Also, the beaches are stellar and you can still find wolves on the barrier islands.  The Florida panhandle is awesome.

[ahosey01]

36 minutes ago, MarcusH said:

I got bills to pay I would only would move to a place where I know jobs aren't hard to find. I'm not a city person but the reason I would pick a bigger city is just because of job opportunities.  If I could I would choose Pensacola over any other big city in Florida.  Plenty of bread and butter palms growing in the Panhandle . Nothing outstanding though unlike where you live. For palms your area is a hidden geme. 

Here’s the graphic I was thinking of…

[NBTX11]

On 6/11/2024 at 7:54 PM, Cade said:

From 3 weeks that massive Cidp in Galveston it actually looks slightly better than a year ago lol 

This photo should forever put to rest the argument that UK Canaries are better than Texas’. While the UK ones have nice crowns, there would never be a Canary anywhere near this tall on the UK islands. 

[NBTX11]

22 hours ago, MarcusH said:

Jacksonville is slightly warmer than Houston when it comes to low temperatures. There are Queens that are 30 plus years old.

As did Houston, prior to 2021. It just so happens that Houston has a more recent freeze. However, Jacksonville has had exactly the same types of freezes in history. Jacksonville got down to around 7 degrees in 1985, which is much colder than Houston got in 2021. Yes, that is seven degrees. If that happened again, or anything close to it, it would be palm slaughter in N Florida. 
 

If it happened once, it will happen again. The only question is when. 

[Xenon]

1 hour ago, NBTX11 said:

As did Houston, prior to 2021. It just so happens that Houston has a more recent freeze. However, Jacksonville has had exactly the same types of freezes in history. Jacksonville got down to around 7 degrees in 1985, which is much colder than Houston got in 2021. Yes, that is seven degrees. If that happened again, or anything close to it, it would be palm slaughter in N Florida. 
 

If it happened once, it will happen again. The only question is when. 

I facepalm every time people who just moved there tell me you can't grow queen palms or citrus trees in Houston because "the weather is different now, omg freeze". Both were literally common landscape plants for decades, nobody would bat an eye if you saw dozens or even hundreds in a neighborhood. 

I swear if photos or google streetview didn't exist some of these people would think you're making stuff up🤣 or maybe they chose to selectively forget what grows here. 

 

Btw there are still queen palm 2021 survivors in Houston, quasi-unicorns but they do exist.

Anyways back to CIDP...yeah I'd bet on Queen palms outlasting CIDP. Lethal bronzing > very rare freeze

[UK_Palms]

9 hours ago, NBTX11 said:

This photo should forever put to rest the argument that UK Canaries are better than Texas’. While the UK ones have nice crowns, there would never be a Canary anywhere near this tall on the UK islands. 

 

Proves nothing. That one in Houston was probably planted between 1850-1900 and likely 150 years old at least now. It has had time to get to that size, unlike the ones growing over here. The first CIDP's weren't planted anywhere in the UK until the 1890's in the Isles of Scilly, as they were presumably not very hardy at all back then. And Scilly Isles is the most protected area. As most of us know now, CIDP's can take a lot more cold and especially wet-cold than previously thought, even compared to what was thought just 10-20 years ago. Anyway those big ones at Tresco are about 130 years old and the biggest one probably rivals that Houston one, if not beats it. The crowns certainly put that Houston one to shame.

 

Some were also trialled at Guernsey and Jersey as well on the English Channel Islands sometime around 1910. I believe the 62/63 and 86/87 freezes wiped out Jersey's, but not Guernsey's due to them having less continental and more coastal influence. Some of those are still lurking around on Guernsey.

 

I know there wasn't any CIDP being trialled on the mainland until at least 1950. Probably later. The biggish one in Torquay, Devon wasn't planted until about 1960 I think, so it has only had 60-65 years to get to it's size. The big one in London wasn't planted until 1986 either and it came through the 87' freeze while quite small. So they have had hardly that much time to get to impressive heights over here on the mainland.

 

Now they are here and growing they aren't going to get knocked out. Take this one in Torquay, Devon for example. The all-time record low in that particular area is about -5C / 23F in January 1987. So it isn't going to get cold enough to wipe these out. It isn't even going to get cold enough to properly defoliate them, which happens at around -7C / 19F. So they are obviously going to get as big as that Houston one in time.

 

They need hardly any heat either to look good. These ones in Portsmouth get even less heat than London, but pretty much no frost either. Whereas most of Texas gets hit by bad freezes ever few years (I'm talking -10C / 13F or lower), so the CIDP look like shit. Haven't seen a decent photo of a Texas CIDP in a few years now. Plus the lethal bronzing too.

That Houston one that was posted is basically a long stick with some green fuzz at the top. Metaphorically speaking. Much prefer the look of these ones with big full crowns. But these ones on the mainland will get just as big within a century or so. Again they can't get wiped out when the record low is like -5C / 24F. They just weren't planted in these spots until 15-20 years ago. So we are playing catch up.

[Xenon]

26 minutes ago, UK_Palms said:

That one in Houston was probably planted between 1850-1900 

It's not that old, the entire property was rebuilt following the great hurricane of 1900. It was probably planted sometime around 1901-1920. That hurricane changed the course of history and led to the development of Houston (which pretty much did not exist yet). Galveston had been the cultural and economic center up to that point. 

Royal, king, and foxtail palms grew for decades within a few miles of that big CIDP so I don't think cold is ever an issue for it (and obviously it's been there for over a century). I thought it had caught lethal bronzing years ago but it doesn't look ready to give up yet. Wonder if it's nearing the end of its lifespan in this climate 😱

[MarcusH]

Hands down the CIDPs in the UK look picture perfect. They look super healthy not dealing with extreme heat or extreme cold. Whatever climate they have those CIDPs look better than ours and probably almost never defoliated .  The trophy goes to the UK.