Yet another great place to live.

[Stan]

Mountains down one side of the street- and Coconut palms and the ocean at the other. San Felipe is so much lusher then other parts of Baja.
Its was 85f there today.
https://www.google.com/maps/@26.0090736 ... 312!8i6656" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Geoff]

Coconut Palms? Didn't see any.

[Epiphyte]

Is this a coconut palm? I think I see a couple coconuts on these.

[Stan]

That's them Epiphyte. Geoff,they're not in the view I posted- but scan to the left and you see young ones shiny in the sun. IF you drive around town,there's plenty of them. North and south of San Felipe...not many towns like this with plenty of nice gardens. I don't know why.
One thing about Google? They dont show any of the small towns of Baja from past Ensenada to about La Paz. So,trying to see where "Tropical California starts"- even if its not ultra tropical- is not really possible.

[Geoff]

As long as it's mostly warm and doesn't freeze a Coconut will grow.... the 'mostly warm' part is the most important part (has to have a low that rarely goes below 45 and usually is above 50, even at night in the winter). Don't know where the exact cut off is, or how many colder/cooler days a coconut can tolerate before it withers, but suspect you found the 'near upper limit', though some do manage to grow in the Salton sea area and the inland California desert areas if against a building.

[Epiphyte]

I think I found a few more a bit further North. They look a little... burnt.

In terms of making northerly progress with coconuts, I wonder where would be the optimal place to grow a million of them? There probably wouldn't be any survivors if we gave a million coconuts to Stan. And there would probably be too many survivors if we gave them to somebody in Puerto Vallarta. So which place would result in the optimal amount of survivors? And what, exactly, would be the optimal number of survivors... 5%, 10%, 25%, 50%?

[Stan]

Nice find! I tried looking up SR..then when it was just one road..I skipped. Most of the coast freeways are just desert.
I tried coconuts. I dont like lugging big plants indoors and outdoors. It died in a December frost and freeze. It had grown one and half fronds in summer in a pot. I've grown them in a warm tropical greenhouse- get out of the way,they explode before your eyes. Fast growers.
Those in SR look decent. I take in consideration they seem to be on their own..nobody lavishing water and fertilizer over the year. Even the past Newport Beach coconut would have been so much better with good garden skills put to it.
One more...they might go farther north to south of Hermosillo. In the city I haven't found any. Lots of Royal palms. Lots of dead Royal palms too. I wonder why so many big ones dead in Hermosillo?

[KLC]

I think you need to move to a warmer climate Stan, you are obsessed with places that are 85 degrees.

I think San Felipe is kind of a dump. Chartered a fishing boat out of there about 15 years ago and had to stay the night before boarding. Those are now just memories because I'll likely never set foot south of our border again.

dorado.jpeg (119.48 KiB) Viewed 1201 times

[Stan]

That was 15 years ago. Actually- those places remind me of growing up in Lathrop in the early to mid 60's. Old 1914 homes, sandy roads, barns. Lots of open areas and not a person in sight. Summers were hot. The new Mini mart was the place to get a Coke and Comic book. Quiet.
Here? Its city life..noise,hot rods,punks. I could trade that away if I could. Imagine Mango tree's that grow all year..that's living!

[Epiphyte]

Stan, have you had a chance to "visit" South Africa yet? I briefly checked out Cape Town, East London and Durban. Looked like pretty nice places to live. Didn't see any coconuts in the first two cities but saw some in Durban.

It's interesting if you look at a distribution map of coconuts. They go pretty high up in China... almost to Shanghai. I lived in Shanghai and it gets much colder than it does here in LA... but it's certainly more tropical during the summer. I think coconuts have had the longest time to travel up the coast of China. No other place in the world has such a long land continuum from tropical to temperate with summer rain.

As far as I can tell, coconuts were introduced to Florida not very long ago. So they haven't had nearly as much time to travel up the coast. The problem with the coast on our side is that there's a darn desert ruining our coconut joy.

I'd like to watch a documentary about how coconuts travel up (or down) coasts. The guy would go around asking random people at the coconut limits whether they've tried to grow coconuts before.

[Stan]

You know,I'm so used to our California climate.I like the idea of living in a tropical California climate rather then something all wet and humid. Lots of sun,warm 12 months of the year instead of 8,and a nearby river for all the water you need. A dream.
I checked out Shanghai climate on WIKI...for three months of the year its considerably colder then Hayward. Lows that average mid 30's..highs in the high 40's. Brrrr. How do coconuts take that? I tried to google maps..but nothing. I guess China fears an American car recording everything on every road.

[toditd]

Stan, this article, The Curious Case of August Engelhardt, Leader of a Coconut-Obsessed Cult reminded of this thread. After all, this thread is about coconuts, and KLC did use the word "obsessed".

I liked the opening illustration and wondered if that might be an image of you? Then I realized it couldn't be . . . there's no mangos! The moral of the story is that "paradise is not without its perils, nor can man live on coconuts alone". Perhaps, but what about coconuts and mangoes?

[Stan]

I'm not quite that fanatical. I need at the minimum,Big screen TV,Internet and a microwave. But!,I can spot a mango tree from google block away - anyplace in the world.

My build is less starving German and more stout Samoan like.