washintonia 🌴 My first ever outdoor planting 🌴

[JohnAndSancho]

Volunteer Washies from @Fusca, who I have tagged in 196 posts this week. I didn't sleep, so I figured I'd sweat less if I went out at 7am. NOPE. Anybody who does this for a living has my utmost respect. I broke up lots of grass and gravel, found the brick barrier and started digging along that before I said screw it and just laid the landscape timber down to mark it. 

I dug my holes way too deep, and they're in a mix of good organic soil and native soil after I shook out inches of grass roots out of it, then drenched everything. It drains. They didn't fall over. They're not under the eaves of the roof to catch condensation and rain, they'll get plenty of sun, and I warned the cats that I know how to dig more holes. The bigger one looks like it's leaning a little but I'll undoubtedly have to go back and add more dirt at some point and mulch the bed. They look ok for sitting in a box for a week. 

 

Anyway, pics. 

[Harry’s Palms]

Good luck on those👍. Harry

[JohnAndSancho]

I know how much everyone loves night time flash photography garden pics, so.... 

 

This is the bigger of the 2 Washies. This is very much a "use what you've got laying around" project, so I've got pieces from an old broken window screen holding it up until it starts to root. 

This is the smaller one. Looks kind of sad and droopy but I'm hoping it'll recover. I'm using the cardboard to smother the grass, I'll lay more down tomorrow and attack it with the rake and hoe again. It's deep rooted grass with gravel underneath so it's fun. 

I'm planning to just use these old landscape timbers to border everything off and keep the mulch from going everywhere once I get out all the grass and the remainder of the wisteria roots. I wanted to dig the drain deep enough to where it can go under the timbers and flood the yard and not my bed. I need to figure out something to line the sides of the drain with - I miss the good old days when you could get like 2 miles of plastic landscape edging for $9. 

I'd like to find a decent sized cheap Sabal Minor or two or 12 to throw in here but this is very much a 3rd world poverty project. Maybe I'll get lucky and find a small one in the woods. 

[happypalms]

I like your style job well done. Has the cat been to London to visit the queen! 

[JohnAndSancho]

6 minutes ago, happypalms said:

I like your style job well done. Has the cat been to London to visit the queen! 

Actually yes. There was a nice big turd on top of one of the bricks I'm using to weigh the cardboard down. I know I mentioned this earlier but I did let the cats know I'm not afraid to dig another hole if they tear up my plants. I think these Washies are just unhappy since they were sitting in moss in a box for a week. All the Philodendron cuttings that came with them looked a little heat stressed too but they'll recover. You know I only kill the really rare expensive plants. 

[happypalms]

I like your style job well done. Has the cat been to London to visit the queen! 

[JohnAndSancho]

Not trying to violate my own HIPAA rights here or anything, but I'm not in the best of shape and I take a lot of meds that drain me and make me very suceptible to heat and humidity. So I get started at 6:30 am attacking this stupid Wisteria. Y'all I swear it looks like I was digging a grave. Every time I thought I had the end of it, it changed directions on me. I dug and dug and pulled and pulled and dug and dug and pulled some more, and after I had a 2 ft diameter hole, I was up against the house, I just said screw it and hit it with the loppers. 

I broke down some more cardboard to lay down over the grass, and I found a dead kitten in one of the boxes. 🤢 

After I cool off and hydrate and my heart slows down, I'm going to go throw some more cardboard in a couple other spots and grab a few more timbers and maybe I'll plant out some of my baby Sabal Bermudana. I'll take pictures then. 

[JohnAndSancho]

Sooooo freaking close to lining up just right. I know it's like a 20 second cut but sooooo close. 

 

Just a little bit more to go on my French drain. I guess because this is Mississippi it could be a Cajun drain. I want to plant something that won't get too tall on the right of it, but it's gotta be able to take the sun. 

 

Yeah, it's basic. I'm not doing all those fancy circles and ovals yet. This is my first rodeo. 

 

I need to get back in the habit of naming my plants. This one can be Droopy. The new spear coming out is solid though. 

 

This one, I dunno. Welcome to Mississippi, little homey. That sun ain't no joke. I hope it adapts quick. 

 

I backfilled the Wisteria hole as much as I could stand to. I'm really thinking I want to put the Butia x Lyto in there. It's big, and we now know that it's bombproof. 

 

I had 2 more landscape timbers I really wanted to use, but they're kind of full of ants right now. 

 

Anyway I guess when I take Sancho out again, I'll show these Washies the picture of Big Bertha from LA, and tell them they need to toughen up. After I yell at them I'll water them, because Christ on a cracker it's hot. 

[JohnAndSancho]

I didn't do anything today, but pictures anyway. The other day i very stupidly dug into the wisteria hole again just because I wanted to know how fast this soil actually drains. I'm used to little pots filled with bark that drains in seconds. I flooded this hole and it took a few hours. Even worse, now yellow jackets are coming in and stealing my mud. 

 

I haven't even finished killing all the grass in the front yet, I'm pretty much exhausted just from walking my dog, I sweat like a goat just standing outside, and I'm already eyeballing and imagining other spots in the yard. 

[JohnAndSancho]

Progress. Slow, but progress. The cultivator is my favorite thing in the world right now. 

The bigger of the 2 Washies from @Fusca - I think both of these fronds are new. The rest just absolutely cooked in the sun. Looks like it adapted real quick. 

 

Lil' Droopy over here too

 

Ok so just for reference, these bricks once upon a time were the border of this flowerbed. I'm pretty sure these bricks were from the house my grandfather grew up in, so they're easily 150 years old. I'm using his tools to dig out and reclaim my grandmother's flowerbed from years of grass. I dunno if they'd be proud or if they'd think I'm crazy for planting palms on old farm land in East Mississippi - probably a little of both. There's another line of brick under here somewhere, too. Eventually I'll clean them up and find something cool to do with them. 

 

I chased the rest of them off, but Hugh stuck around to supervise. His full name is Hugh Jass for The Simpsons fans. I'm gonna have to find some kind of fencing or plant something they hate, because I really don't want this to turn into a litterbox.

 

[JohnAndSancho]

I dunno what else to throw in here. I'm open to suggestions - I want my Butia hybrid to be the centerpiece but I am going to do something out of the ordinary and take the advice of people smarter than me and baby it in its pot for another year. @Harry’s Palms is babying a Washie seedling that he rescued for me while pulling weeds, so thank you Harry for that. 

 

I've still got all the Bermudana babies and Lord knows there's hundreds of seeds on the mats that'll all hopefully eventually turn into beasts, but we're talking years and years down the road. Def some stuff like citronella or lavender or basil to keep the cats at a distance. All of this is really more for me. We don't live in a neighborhood, there's only traffic on this road on Wednesday and Sunday when people are going to church, and all of this is hidden behind walls of cedar and crepe myrtles anyway, so - like nobody but the UPS driver and the mailman and the occasional ambulance will ever see it 😂

 

And y'all of course. But I'm open to suggestions for cheap stuff I can throw in here and elsewhere around the house to pretty it up. My friend is holding some Agave pups from Brother Fusca as well. This could end up just being a big bed of unwanted bastard plants, which is kind of a cool concept too. Maybe hit Lowes clearance rack in the middle of winter to rescue some dying stuff. 

[DoomsDave]

Great effort @JohnAndSancho! Keep it up! 
 

Maybe try some Chamadorea radicalis in shady spots?

[Harry’s Palms]

Your lil’ Washy is waiting for signs of growth , and then it is off to you . I hope to find another one down the hill to put in the box so they will not be alone . Harry

[JohnAndSancho]

2 hours ago, DoomsDave said:

Great effort @JohnAndSancho! Keep it up! 
 

Maybe try some Chamadorea radicalis in shady spots?

Welp I know how I killed the last ones you sent me, so I know how not to do it again. I don't have a whole lot of shady spots, but there's a couple tight spots under crepe myrtles on either side of this bed. 

2 hours ago, Harry’s Palms said:

Your lil’ Washy is waiting for signs of growth , and then it is off to you . I hope to find another one down the hill to put in the box so they will not be alone . Harry

Even if you don't, I've got a Filibusta I'm acclimating to brighter light I can buddy it up with. I had it in a bathroom window, and the Palm Condo™ burned its first opening palmate frond. I kinda regret putting it in the bigger pot now, but it felt right at the time. 

[JohnAndSancho]

I didn't do anything today other than mist the indoor plants. Yesterday I *think* I got my French drain to where I want it - I need to pull some more grass and go in there with the hose and try and salvage as much of the gravel as I can to line it. I don't think Lil Droopy is getting enough sun, but the bigger Washy is doing well and it'd be doing a lot better if the cats stayed away. He can't grow his thorns fast enough for them. I got this crazy idea to build a PVC cage and I found some 50ftx50ft netting on Amazon that should be more than adequate to keep the furry bastards at bay.

I'm also really wishing I had added some orchid bark or something to the Sabal Maritimas for drainage, but they seem to dry out enough after a couple days and I don't think they mind wet feet too much, being tropical and all. 

We have some old wash basins - my granny bought these as a joke when my brother and I were kids, and told us we were gonna take hose baths in the front yard in them. I think they'd make an easy way to stack a few palms in them and I could move them back under the carport during heavy rains and move them inside during winter. 

I've also thought about moving some of the taller palms out of the condo and into the window in the add-on, just to see if they'll fill out more and get less leggy... And at some point I want to take a hike through the woods and see if I can find something I can dig up and transplant.

 

The local Sabal Minor is starting to push it's inflourences but some wasps have decided its fronds make a great place to live, so I think I'll let them pollenate it before I spray them, since I'm super allergic. And when my neighbor gets back from work, I'm gonna ask him to help me bring all the landscape timbers from across the road to start laying out future beds. 

 

Still open to suggestions on anything else I can stick in a zone 8 area while I wait for the 2 kajillion seeds to develop. I found tons of old flower bulbs in boxes my mom wanted to plant out when she still lived in another long gone trailer on this property. The trailer got sold and moved in 2009 or 2010 so their viability is questionable at best. 

[JohnAndSancho]

I started at sunrise when it's cooler and the yellow jackets aren't flying around. I spent 30 mins out there, had to cool off, then went out for another 30. 

The bigger Washy needs to grow it's thorns already to keep the cats off. But it keeps growing. 

Lil Droopy looks like he wants more sun. 

 

Some of y'all don't have this much grass in your entire yard, and there's still plenty more for me to dig out. PRO TIP it's easier to use the cultivator BEFORE you put cardboard over it to kill it. The more you know 🌈✨

 

At this point I lowkey want to just say the hell with it, level everything, fill the holes and mulch it. I had no idea just how deep grass roots could grow. 

[JohnAndSancho]

Bricks. Dirt.

 

I am so expletive expletive screaming expletive more expletives tired of pulling and digging up grass, so let's see if this expletive works. 

 

I am not a gardener. I am not a grassologist. But 4 inches deep of roots then hitting compacted gravel then more roots is just absolutely stupid and I don't have the energy for it. I sprayed the bed and a few test spots. 

 

The yellow jackets are still going ape poopy over all the fresh mud over here, and I'm wiped. So I guess if this stuff works, I'll pull the rest of the cardboard off and spray what's under it and at sunrise I'll lay down some mulch. I have to go get refills on Sancho's pain meds on Monday, and there's a wally world there and supposedly they've got some cheap lavender plants in stock, so I might grab 4 and finally plop some of these Bermudana babies in the ground. 

[JohnAndSancho]

This stuff absolutely sucks. You have to basically drown the grass in it. 

 

It's more like a grass and weed feelings hurter. I'm so tired of digging but I've been soaking everything every night so it's nice and wet and easier to tear up in the morning. Now I have to figure out what to do with the bricks. I'm going to use the walls of a rotted out wash basin to line the walls of my French drain, which works pretty damn good. 

[JohnAndSancho]

Gotta love those random popup severe thunderstorms. Summertime in the south, y'all. 

 

The aforementioned French drain in action. 

[JohnAndSancho]

The Agave pups from @Fusca are in the mail, and I begged my friend to send me some HEB butter tortillas too. So I figured it out. I got some tropical potting soil and a 50 pound bag of rocks - I'm gonna mix that and use these bricks to make raised beds for the agaves. I have not seen them, I don't know how big they are, I think there's maybe 3 or 4? I don't even know. I love surprise plant stuff, but I'm ready regardless. 

 

I spent the whole day waiting on my brother to be discharged from the hospital - "Come up around 10," he says - "they always send me home right after lunch." WELP. They discharged him about 4:30. The nurses had no idea he was going home. So lesson learned, next time call the hospital to confirm and if my brother gives you a time for literally anything, add at least 4 hours to it. This applies to when he's going to cook, what time he's going to pick you up from work, anything. Add at least 4 hours. 

 

Anyway he did buy me this Ti plant mentioned in my indoor thread. 

 

[JohnAndSancho]

I told myself I wasn't gonna do anything today since yesterday was such a long day and I hurt so bad when I went to bed. Well, I woke up around 4:30 am and the combination of Sugar Free Red Bull and Effexor had other plans for me. 

 

I understand now why so many of y'all prefer these deep wide trays for mixing soil. I need to find about 4 more and they're probably in the house. This is a mix of Miracle Gro Tropical and some beach pebbles for the agaves. I know Miracle Gro is trash but I didn't wanna buy another cu ft bag and this will work just fine. 

 

I also had little half baggies of peat and orchid bark leftover, I'm gonna use this for outdoor pots. And the coco coir is ready for seeds and I've got plenty of raised bed soil for other plantings in this bed. 

 

 

I grabbed the biggest Sabal Bermudana that has been really close to the grow bulb thinking it'll be the most ready for the sun. I think it was ready to come out of that dinky little cup. 

Ok little buddy, you're free!

Also put out the lavender, dumped the rest of the gravel in my french drain, extended it another 6" into the yard, and packed the sides pretty good and sloped it out. 

Speaking of... I started carving the remains of this wash basin to use as the side walls. My tin snips went right through one side until I got to the rolled edge. The other side just didn't want to cut at all. I need to find something bigger and just get all caveman on this. 

I need to research how deep agave roots grow so I'll know how high to stack my bricks for their raised bed. I think I'll put the biggest one here and the others, my mom bought some really pretty pots with almost no drainage so they're worthless for anything other than succulents. I marked this spot since it's away from the drip line of the roof and it'll get plenty of sun. 

I also filled in some low spots and pulled another pound or 2 of grass out and shook all the soil out. This seems to be pretty good soil so I want to save

Watered everything in out front and then watered these guys. I'm gonna give the $5 butterfly bush a few days to try and recover, and if not I'll give it the new soil. I really think it was just dried out. It's supposed to be uhhh I don't remember what they call it, but not quite purple not quite pink? Raspberry jam I think. Anyway it'll eventually find a spot in the yard - we already have a purple one, a red one, and a yellow one. My granny loved these and they always come back every year. 

 

I also started cleaning up a bunch of trash in my future winter storage/indoor greenhouse and clearing table and shelf space and found some more stuff I can use as little totes to move planters around and cleaned that up, and found a couple of unlabelled buckets of some kind of yard chemicals. They're just in old Cool Whip buckets. I guess I could experiment in the field and stuff will either die or grow and I'll blame it on one of the other Barts. 

 

Also on a sadder note, I know I gripe about the cats constantly, but they're dying off en masse right now. We've lost 4 in a week including my brother's favorite one, and there's another one I found this morning that'll be dead by noon. 

Anyway I thought about going ahead and dumping some mulch out, too, but after 3 hours - to put this in the absolute most deep south country terms, I have done sweated through my britches. So I'm gonna wash the grass seeds and mud off of me, check for ticks, and watch YouTube garden videos until Sancho wakes up and wants to go make the sausage. I really hope someone reads all of this stuff I write lol. I know pictures of mud aren't as exciting as pictures of giant Hawaiian specimen palms, but we all gotta start somewhere and I am talky. 

[TropicsEnjoyer]

@JohnAndSancho A lot to take in. Seems like one hell of a job. Also I don’t think agave roots grow that deep, maybe a foot or so. They’re shallow rooted like palms.

[JohnAndSancho]

1 hour ago, TropicsEnjoyer said:

@JohnAndSancho A lot to take in. Seems like one hell of a job. Also I don’t think agave roots grow that deep, maybe a foot or so. They’re shallow rooted like palms.

It's not fun lol. I am not exaggerating when I say I'm pulling up clumps of Bermuda grass and some of these roots are 4 or 5 inches deep on top of compacted gravel that was out here when the house was built in 1990. The sides of the house won't be this bad, but the back of the house is gonna be just as bad - it was all gravel for a 3 car driveway and the grass has just overtaken everything. But we'll get there and make it YouTube worthy eventually. 

[JohnAndSancho]

@iDesign do you still do the Photoshops? I can post lots of pictures of mud and tall grass and kind of give you ideas of what I have growing and sprouting lol 

[JohnAndSancho]

I lied. I went back outside. I also had no idea that one bag of mulch really is not that much. I originally wanted to put the Butia x Lyto dead center here, but with the Washies (I still have a Filibusta and another refugee from Harry's yard), I thought it'd get kinda crowded when stuff eventually grows. Plus I really like the theme of this bed being a whole bunch of unwanted plants. 

I've got enough bricks to go another layer high, maybe 2? I know Agave Americanas get a huge wingspan, so I hope that's enough room for it. I also wanted to just get a feel for how this would look with mulch on top. This is just pine. I've still got roughly 5 sqft of grass to tear out on the left side, plus the whole right side and clean up against the house. 

 

I want to start putting stuff on this side of the house, too. It shouldn't be nearly as hard to dig out since there's no gravel here - the issue here is gonna be all grass related. And the septic tank is under there somewhere. I'd also really like to get rid of all 3 of the satellite dish poles, but that's gonna be a chore. I think I read they're 5 feet deep and they use concrete to anchor them. I know they're hurricane and tornado proof... This is facing roughly south. View of the house and a side view. 

 

I really need to prune the crape myrtles BAD, but I'm not gonna do it when they're in bloom and when it's this freaking hot. Let the bees have their fun and let them be pretty. 

 

[iDesign]

3 hours ago, JohnAndSancho said:

@iDesign do you still do the Photoshops? I can post lots of pictures of mud and tall grass and kind of give you ideas of what I have growing and sprouting lol 

Sure thing! I'm less familiar with your zone though, so you'd need to send me...

• "Beauty shot" photo that you want me to use as my base (for me to Photoshop plants onto)
• Photos of the palms you want to plant in this area, shown at a mature size (realistic for your area)
• Photos and/or names of the companion plants you're thinking of including (to give pops of color, and mid-height interest).
• Mockup indicating where the planter borders will be (if known), any preference on plant placement (a scribble on top of the "Beauty shot" photo is ideal).

Although I need to charge for "real" design work, I'm happy to give a free quick & dirty mockup of your favorite view.  

If nothing else, these mockups are great for generating additional suggestions from others in the forum.

[JohnAndSancho]

We're forecasted to get 2 inches of rain today so I'm saved from sweatin' through my britches and gloves today. Maybe it's a good day to do some laundry, maybe it's a good day to community pot some Sabals, maybe it's a good day to nap. 

 

Anyway, to keep this on topic - with all these downpours I can at least get a better visual impact of like low spots and drainage and whatnot. 

 

It's also kinda cool that you can really see the bluish colors of the baby Sabal more contrasting against the mulch and the grass. It's a lot more visible than it is under a white grow light! And bonus that there's enough grass close to the house that I could still tear out another small hill worth with my cultivator fork from under a covered patio. 

[TropicsEnjoyer]

On 7/10/2025 at 1:37 PM, JohnAndSancho said:

I've got enough bricks to go another layer high, maybe 2? I know Agave Americanas get a huge wingspan,

They can easily get 6 feet wide, maybe even more. Also I would suggest you use something to cement those bricks in place. The agave might over time develop a short “trunk” and possibly lean which might push unsecured bricks eventually.

[JohnAndSancho]

1 hour ago, TropicsEnjoyer said:

They can easily get 6 feet wide, maybe even more. Also I would suggest you use something to cement those bricks in place. The agave might over time develop a short “trunk” and possibly lean which might push unsecured bricks eventually.

Oh no doubt. I'll figure something out. This has definitely not been one of my more thought our endeavors here. And to top it all off, when I was futzing around out there this morning... Welp with all the rain we got yesterday, the fire ants moved in and got inside my gloves and I jumped and stepped on my little Washie and kicked him over.

I also should have remembered from my car audio days of building subwoofer boxes that .5 cu ft of rocks is not going to fill an enclosure that's roughly 3 cu ft. 

I also didn't forsee the gravel I dumped into the French drain getting buried by all the loose soil from all the rain. 

[JohnAndSancho]

Okie doke more posting more long words more boring stuff. 

The wash basin carcass I wanted to use for the French drain just ain't working but I randomly found this. It's pretty thin metal, the aviation snips will go right through it and I could probably make 4 decent drains out of this, and I found some random plastic screens that'll keep dirt and mulch and whatnot from washing away. 

I had to water the cats so might as well water my empire of dirt. The cultivator went to work again and if you dig deep enough here, you find lots of gravel. I also found a random basketball sized chunk of concrete and a piece of rebar and a few more bricks. I also found some fire ants. 

Lol do you think Tractor Supply will let me exchange this lavender? The other one is ok but this one, not so much. It kinda cooked which is funny because they had them in full sun outside the store. 

This is the pile of grass I've undirted so far, there is another pile this size still in the bed. I'm trying to keep as much of the soil as I can since it's apparently as fertile as the Octomom. 

So weather dot com says there's a 4% chance of rain. I water the plants and literally as soon as I put the hose away it started thundering and this rolls in. Anyway - ants don't like wasp spray. And it'd be super awesome if I could get my hands on a wood chipper for a few hours. 

 

[JohnAndSancho]

Welp, I've spent the last couple hours with a pad and pen and that's never a good sign. When my neighbor gets back from work (he's a riverboat captain) he's gonna bring me the load of landscape timbers. At 3"x4"x8ft by my math it's approx 32 cu/ft if I go 2 high, which should be plenty for anything. I don't know how many are over there, I never counted and it's like a 2 mile hike. But there's gotta be enough to build 3 or 4. And they shouldn't be too warped or bug infested since they've been covered this whole time, maybe some spiders and wasps. 

That'd give me enough height to keep the grass out, and I could do like different themes for each one. Tiller the bejeezus out of the ground, build the frames out, and I think equal parts of topsoil and compost to a half part of soil conditioner (bark) and lots of mulch on top would work great for most stuff. I've still got some Sabals I'm just gonna plop in the yard when they get bigger, too. 

I could even start growing my own produce, but I think by state law I'd have to change my wardrobe. No more baggy jorts, flip flops, and Cubs hat - I'd be legally required to wear overalls with no shirt, a straw hat, and go barefoot. 

I'm thinking of a pseudo Asian theme with some Trachies, a pseudo tropical theme with some Sabals and whatever, and whatever else will look good with this cycad that definitely doesn't want to be a houseplant anymore. I even sketched out plans for a worst case scenario cold tent. 

I guess if I was feeling really froggy, and since most of the cats are afraid of me and I threaten them with the shovel when they get near my plants now, I could do like @Rickybobby did around his pool in the summer - bury the pots of some tropical stuff I've been hiding indoors and bring it in for winter. Then maybe 5 years down the road when things start to mature I can have an Etsy store if the world doesn't end by then, unless my work visa to become @happypalms assistant goes through. I'm still waiting on him to find me a nurse that looks like Margot Robbie though. 

[JohnAndSancho]

Filibusta in the ground. I'll probably end up moving it or adding more dirt, this area is kind of a low spot because it's all sloped for drainage now. 

 

@N8ALLRIGHT being the benevolent gentleman that he is has also donated some Trachy hybrids and Princeps to the John and Sancho East Mississippi Palm Hole, so I'm asking for suggestions. Should I keep planting here in the Bed of Unwanted Palms, or do I start something else and do a bed of straight Trachies? 

[N8ALLRIGHT]

I like the Trachy bed idea! I'd wait on the princeps for the dirt. They need to get their legs under them.  It's my fault, they got tucked away out of sight and I forgot them😐 .A season in a pot would do them good.  The Waggie/Princeps got forgotten aswell,they're just tougher,I'd plant them out. 

[JohnAndSancho]

34 minutes ago, N8ALLRIGHT said:

I like the Trachy bed idea! I'd wait on the princeps for the dirt. They need to get their legs under them.  It's my fault, they got tucked away out of sight and I forgot them😐 .A season in a pot would do them good.  The Waggie/Princeps got forgotten aswell,they're just tougher,I'd plant them out. 

I'm excited to see them. I've got a pile of recycled nursery pots, and - I'm a dork for this but when Coke had the labels like "Share with your homeys," "Share with the OG," I saved a few. Plus I have this water bottle from a chain of convenience stores that just went kaput that I'm dying to plant something into - maybe it'll get a Princeps or a Chineseis sprout. 

[JohnAndSancho]

Me: "Hey @teddytn, I really need some more Kroger bags and bamboo stakes."

 

Teddy: "Sure. Do you want some Sabal Minors? I have about 400."

 

Me: "Sure, that'd be great."

 

Teddy: "Ok here's a Lisa, a Vulcano, a Birmingham and an Etonia." 

 

And he even used Lincoln Electric packing tape so the UPS man thinks I can fabricate now. 

 

All of these have roots bursting through the bags and there's a mystery seed in the Vulcano. 

 

I can't say enough about the kindness and generosity from this community. I appreciate y'all and I'm going to make the B*stard Bed of Unwanted Palms as appealing as I can. 

[JohnAndSancho]

I just gotta figure out what to put where, now. I do want to put a couple more Bermudana in the front of the bed of the unwanted, move the bricks out, figure something else to plant in the center. Trachies on the side of the house or closer to the driveway? Do I take a chance with the Etonia? I've got a bunch more babies of them. And I guess about this time next year I'll have mountains of stuff to plant out and pot up. 

[JohnAndSancho]

Sabal Mexicana sprouts. I think it's their 3rd month since being thrown onto the heat mat. 

 

I don't care. I'm putting this $5 butterfly bush into the ground this week so I can put something else in the temporary sun spot here and plus I want the pot. (It's fuschia)

 

Sabal Maritimas. One seems happier than the other. Maybe the unhappy one wants a fuschia pot or something. 

 

This may be the smallest frond I've ever seen on this Butia x Lyto and it was shipped to me in a shock absorber box. But it's alive. 

 

I dunno. I like the way this looks right here, a lot. Aside from being empty and all. I think in a perfect world I'd have like a giant Causiarium there or something. 

The better looking of the 2 Washies. The cats still chew the fronds, the lavender plants did nothing to deter them. 

I'm not sure if it's cats, the heavy rain the other day, or adjustment that made this Filifera flop over but I propped it up with another stake. It looks flooded because I just watered everything, I'll fill in that low spot one day when the heat index doesn't reach 100° by 9am. I've got topsoil, mulch, gravel, cardboard, some evidence, all kinds of cool things I can use to fill a hole. 

 

 

[JohnAndSancho]

Wow it's been 11 days since I dug a hole. The central air crapped out and it's almost 90° inside, so I figured if I'm gonna get heatstroke let's do it outside in the mud. 

 

$5 butterfly bush in the ground, maybe it'll be happier in the shade, maybe it becomes mulch in the spring. But you keep wearing that clearance pricetag just in case you look bad, so nobody can blame me. 

 

 

Sabal Etonia in the ground. I wanted to get more done but my body disagreed vociferously. 

 

Just for reference the Sabal is the taller blades of grass that aren't against the bricks. It's the one about a foot and a half away from the bricks. Also, if you lay down cardboard to kill off grass like I did, fire ants love it... 

[JohnAndSancho]

I don't know if it's the cats or possums or the freaking GIANT armadillo that I saw last night or what, but something thinks Washy seedlings are tasty and it doesn't touch the Sabals. I guess the good news is they keep spitting out new foliage, the bad news is if the Filifera dies I might lose my mind since they're not that easy to come by. 

 

[SueinAZ]

Looks like quite a project. Don't forget the B vitamins when transplanting, it stimulates the plant to grow roots. I keep giving the B vitamins for a few weeks until I am sure it is growing good. Mix a quarter cup to a gallon of water.

My palms are getting old, so this year I am starting "the replacements" from seedlings growing here and there. That's why I am so into the B vitamins, found next to the fertilizer at the big box store.

Re- the ants, you can sprinkle some pure Diatomaceous Earth on their trails and hills and they will gradually die off. The pure DE is non toxic to people and pets, but eliminates all types of crawling insects. You will need to reapply after rains.

It is hot here also, I can relate. There is a type of shade cloth from Australia called coolaroo that works pretty good. Their claim is that it lowers the temp by 15 degrees. My plants can still flower under that shade cloth.🌼