Moving on to bigger things

[Meangreen94z]

Here’s one of the Hyphaene Petersiana seeds that was developing in a ziplock bag. They are extremely root sensitive from what I hear.

[KLC]

Nice. I've got the ones you sent me in a tupperware container with peat moss.

I just sifted through a bunch of royal palm seeds and plucked out the 4 that had germinated, and potted them up tonight. Right now the weather is very nice here, 97 during the day and in the 60s and 70s at night.

I have a final tally of all of the Bismarkia seeds I had successfully gotten to the strap leaf stage. Out of nearly 100 seeds I have 15 seedlings in 14" tall treepots. There certainly would have been more had our heat not been so brutal this summer. I bought 2 groups of 50 seeds from a guy in Florida, and on both occasions there were quite a few of them that had germinated while in transit. I was pleasantly surprised when I opened up the package to discover them with big white roots on them already. Ends up a good number of those particular seeds rotted upon planting. Anyways they weren't too much dinero and I enjoyed trying to germinate them all. Next spring when he has more I am going to order up some more of them and give it another try with some different media and see what we get. I'm totally happy with the 15 seedlings I have now though.

I had a complete failure of 220 Medjool seeds, none of them germinated. The date palm farm that I purchased them from actually sent replacement seeds to me just a few weeks ago. That was super nice of them to offer them to me. I am going to give some of the new ones a soak and try some of them in peat moss. The Palmfather guy on Youtube, Christian I think is his name, says peat moss will retard fungal growth with palm seeds so I'm gonna give it a try. It's still warm enough here to get them going before the cold arrives.

I've got literally a few thousand Washingtonia seedlings growing all together in 5 community containers. I want to make a bunch of doubles and triples for a potential new landscape when we decide to pick up and move. It doesn't take but a few years to get decent sized trees with them. Shaved and cleaned Washies are very attractive palms.

All of my other palm seedlings are moving along nicely.

[Jkwinston]

Wow Keith ! This is certainly a new kind of adventure for the Agave Man. I always feel with palms you need half a football pitch before you get going. Jkw

[Meangreen94z]

Did those Hyphaene Thebaica seeds ever develop? If not I have one in a bag still that germinated. I can send you that, so atleast you have one.

[KLC]

No not yet, it has been on the colder side at night lately though. I've got them in the garage in some sphagnum moss so hopefully they'll pop sooner or later. They were a bit moldy when I opened the package up, I cleaned them individually with a toothbrush and warm water before I put them in the sphagnum.

The Jubs I've had for what seems like 6 months haven't popped yet either. Not out of the ordinary for them from what I read.

[KLC]

Not too much going on with the palms in the last few months. All of the seedlings have gone dormant, it’s warming up so I expect to see some activity soon.

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My Bismarckia has developed a nice full crown. I’m sad I’ll have to leave this behind when we move it’s not one that digs successfully. Takes a darned long time to get to this point too, and much to pricey to replace at this size.

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[Meangreen94z]

Nice. Bismarckia love heat and love water. I’m not sure where you’re moving, but an extra splash at night on a new one would probably speed things up drastically in Arizona. I know there’s water restrictions out there though.

Did the Hyphaene Thebaica seed ever develop? I also had great success with Hyphaene Petersiana from rarepalmseeds. Something like 18/20 seed germinated, although I lost a few later. I’ve sold several, but still have 11 left. I would send you one, but they are in deep 7.7 gallon pots due to their initial root development requirements. They are also extremely root sensitive like Bismarckia and other Hyphaene and wouldn’t ship easily. Anyone in Texas is welcome to contact me about them. They aren’t extremely cold hardy though.

I’m currently looking for Acrocomia Totai seed. Acrocomia Aculeata is more common, but not hardy in Austin(Although Totai would bite the dust this week without protection). It’s like a Queen palm
combined with a cactus. From what I’ve read they do much better in Phoenix then queens, but people are turned off by the thorns. I personally like it, and Totai is trunk hardy to 12-13*F

[KLC]

I'm on municipal water so no water restrictions here in Goodyear, I can use as much as I'm willing to pay for.

No Hyphaene yet but it's getting warmer so they'll probably come to life pretty soon.

I've never seen Acrocomia here in Az but I'm sure they are around if one knew where to look.

[Meangreen94z]

Any update? Did those Hyphaene Thebaica seeds I sent ever do anything? My Hyphaene Petersiana are suddenly taking off. The longer leaves are 2+ feet long. Roots are already coming out of a 7 gallon bucket.

[Stan]

It's a nice Pilocereus icy blue. I think Geoff has said in his articles that the whole family is too warm needy for all California but the deserts.

[KLC]

No Hyphaene germination yet, it's been long enough now that the outlook isn't good.

[Meangreen94z]

They may never have been viable seed, but if they are showing no signs of rot you might remove them and let them dry out for a few months. Like most desert palms those seeds supposedly last many years, I’ve heard letting them dry out and then exposing to moisture can trigger germination. Those were fresh off a palm in the Phoenix area. I cleaned off the fruit, soaked and then bagged them but didn’t have any germinate. The dried out seed I bought from North Texas Cold Hardy Palm looked rough but had something like 80-90% germination.

[KLC]

I need to get on ebay and buy some 7 or 10 gallon nursery pots, the 1 year old Phoenix canariensis and Bismarkia nobilis seedlings are already putting out split leaves.

And OMG Washingtonia robusta grow fast! If anyone lives in an area where they readily grow there's not much of a wow factor in them, they are seemingly everywhere in the southwest. However when planted en-mass and are decent sized they do make good landscape material. The guy who lives behind me has about 25 of them in his backyard and now that they are all 30' tall it really looks good. Has anyone seen the twisted curvy trunked specimens which are grown that way on purpose? Really cool stuff.

I bought a whole case (300 or so) 4 x 14 treepots and ended up not using a majority of them. They are what one needs to grow many palms from seed to let the taproot go deep and not circle the bottom of the pot. I haven't worked up any numbers but if anyone is interested I'd be willing to sell some of them off for a good price.

[KLC]

Bismarkia nobilis's growth after germination is most bizarre. These guys will put down a 12" tap root and that will exit a tall treepot before a leaf even emerges from the soil. I have 18 of them that are a year old already, and another 20 or so from this years seeds that have germinated. The other 150 or so seeds haven't done anything yet but since I am getting a few a week that are popping I'll just sit on them for a while. I know this years seeds were fresh because I had to clean the fruit off of them when they arrived. It was a most unpleasant task, my hands smelled like rotting palm seed fruit for a few days I literally could not wash it off, hydrogen peroxide, bleach, nada. I suppose they would germinate without being cleaned too, the guys in Florida report that Bismarkia seeds germinate where they fall.

[Meangreen94z]

I like Washingtonia in either pure Robusta or pure Filifera form. Most of what you see around here is Filibusta, a hybrid of the 2. It has the increased hardiness of Filifera, with the better rain tolerance of Robusta.

[KLC]

I've potted up about 75 of my Wash. sp. seedlings. The rest were sold off on eBay for cheap. I have some planned usage for the ones I kept. They are growing by leaps and bounds in 1g pots and will need to be uppotted to 5g by this time next year. All of the washies around here have ripe seeds on them right now, I suppose I could grow a few hundred thousand more this fall. Germinating and getting them to the second leaf stage is the easy part, its separating and potting them by the thousands that takes up so much time and effort. I'm thinking these are filifera because of where I got them from, but some of them were from a tree with a more slender trunk and could be robusta. Unfortunately I did not keep very good track when I sowed them so I have no way of knowing which is which. Even if I did keep track of what tree they were from there's no guarantee they would be pure, there are so many of them around.

I've got 15 or 20 Phoenix canariensis that are growing fast, as well as some Phoenix dactylifera, medjool variety, Phoenix theophrastii (only 2), Phoenix sylvestris (only 1) and Phoenix reclinata. All of the Phoenix palms are growing faster than I could have imagined.

I just transferred a bunch of Sabal palmetto from community pots into their own soil, can't wait until I get a few good sized ones but that may be a while since they grow much slower.

I have 2 Royals that are doing well, and then there are 6 or 7 Wodyetia bifurcata that are on their 4th or 5th leaf, the newest are completely split and pinnate and without taking into consideration the huge seed that would give them away they are instantly recognizable by the leaves alone. I'll get some pics up the next time I can go out there in the daytime to look at them.

Without a doubt though, the Bismarkias are the ones I am longing for. There is nothing quite like a big silver Bismarkia in a garden.

[KLC]

Sabal palmetto

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Wodyetia bifurcata

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Phoenix canariensis

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Phoenix dactylifera (Medjool date palm)

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Phoenix reclinata

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Phoenix sylvestris

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[KLC]

Phoenix theophrastii

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Roystonia regia

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Washingtonia sp.

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Bismarckia nobilis

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[Meangreen94z]

You might try Theophrastii v. Golkoy. There’s still seed available on eBay, I had 90% germination. They are thought to be a natural hybrid of Theophrastii and Dactylifera from Turkey. I also had great germination from Brahea Super Silver sold by thefunnyfarm38834 . He sells the Golkoy as well.

[MockingbirdAgaves]

Wow how did I miss this post . You guys should really try some Copernicia . I’ve germinated several hundred here in inland so cal and they are doing great . Recently germinated a few hyphaene . Dichotoma and compressa .

[Stan]

Here are some seeds from meangrean last winter that are off and growing. I think the largest are Dypsis pembana,and most likely the only one in the bay area but I could be wrong. The other smaller might be Macarthur palm. Another very rare here. I dont know of any to be found. Both heading to their first winter outdoors. I will move them to a tall carts shelving- no frost will touch them there.

Also..the Aloe "red" I got from a A-ville person? Its really grown this summer and has a bloom spike on it. Last summer I mulched it,and what a difference it made. It grew more this summer than all the other years put together AND it developed this nice pale blue foliage. None of my other Aloes have that. Spike looks hefty too.
The Ovata? I took a look at at in the pot and it took grew well when I wasn't looking. AND, the Teddy Bear cholla sent to me when we were all at the other website Xeric?..I thank that person too. Its in a clay pot looking good. A bit undersized..but healthy. Next year moving it up to see if I can get the plump branches.
Updates
Heck..Any of you remember Ethan who posted as Red Sea Me on GW like 15-20 years ago? He had given me a dwarf Euphorbia saying he thought it would do ok outdoors in the bay area . It has. It's a natural small plant and all these years later is still going outdoors in a pot with snaky stems. Short stems.

[MockingbirdAgaves]

Copernicia ekmanii

[MockingbirdAgaves]

Copernicia macroglossa

[MockingbirdAgaves]

Attalea butyracea

[MockingbirdAgaves]

Coccothrinax macroglossa azul