Varnished Phoenix? OVER THE TOP.

[TikiRick]

A neighbor who is renovating their home decided to take out a small stand of Sabal palmettos (another story) and install two large Phoenix dactylifera (I believe). Going for that grand, estate look, and attempting to stay very formal, they had the trunks of the Phoenix varnished.

At first, I thought that they were installing artificial Phoenix until I took a closer look.

Is anyone familiar with this procedure? Is it done in California, Texas, or Arizona?

Does it pose any threat to the palm?

[Tad]

I have seen it done to palms here in Texas, washies,med fans, and canary's...looks kinda neat for the first few weeks and then looks like dooooo after a couple of months and from then on. in my opinion.

[Kris]

Dear Rick Leitner  

Lovely stills and healthy phoenix but it resembles more like a phoenix sylversteris Robusta.Sp to me..but iam not an expert with plant identification.

if stills are avaliable after the binding belt is removed off it will be easy to i.d it.but i have a sylversteris,date palm(2)varities in our garden here.and date palm leaf & trunk is very different than what is observed in your still_But i can be wrong !

thanks for those hi res images_i love it !

And here is a image of what is growing in our garden.the first one is silversteris,2nd one is california date palm and the 3rd one is too small to be visible they are from oman(Muscat)..i hope it of some use to you.

Lots of love,

Kris  

[cfkingfish]

Seen it done, agree with Tad. Imagine putting a nice antique dining room table in the blazing sun - regardless of finish, it will look bad after a season or two.

It looks to be some nice P. sylvestris he has there.

[fastfeat]

I agree with Kris that these are P.sylvestris, becoming more and more common in SoFla. (At least I hope they are--I ID'ed some new plantings of nearly identical trees in Port St Lucie (FL) as such...)

[Kris]

Thanks fastfeat  

here is a lovely link to see the P.Sylversteris robusta form...

http://www.rarepalmseeds.com/shop/PhoRob.shtml

Lots of love,

Kris  

And by the way i love that black HUMMER_H2 thanks for covering it in your stills..

[PalmGuyWC]

Hi Rick,

I see these people are driving a mini-Hummer too, the same kind of mind set that would varnish a Phoenix trunk. I thought most of the kooks were in California, but you guys in Florida are running a 2nd close place.

Dick

[amazon exotics]

Those are Sylvestris and I don't think they are varnished.  The first photos the trees are wet, which gives them the varnished look. When they trim these trees and do the nice cut on the trunk they remove fibers around the boots and it gives the freshly exposed areas a shiny look. I have seen varnished Dactylifera before though, not a good practice.

[amazon exotics]

also, the way the trees are tied up and the cut on the boot tells me those trees may have come from FishBranch.