Too Quick to Throw in the Towel?

My previous entry details my decision to "declare dead" the smaller of two windmill palms that has lived in my front yard for 3 years and has just gone through its first unprotected winter. A fellow palm enthusiast read that post, and kindly pointed out that I might have thrown in the towel on the poor devil a little too soon. Now it was more than just a few years ago that I took my single agronomy class at Ohio State - and I can state without any hesitation that we spent zero time on the horticultural needs of palms - but I've always thought as a monocotyledon, when the central growth spear of a palm was dead, the palm was too. Maybe I should check my transcript to see if I actually passed that class or not.

It seems that there are many instances of young windmills losing their central growth bud and recovering from what I thought was a fatal incident. Could it be that the poor windmill in my trash can was still alive? This thought haunted me. So I vowed that if I could find the garbage bag that held that poor little devil, that I'd put it back in the ground and give it a fair chance to live.

So here's a shot of two things in my life that are pictured here because in essence, they've shared a similar fate. On the right is Ranger, who was rescued from the dog pound 14 years ago. On the left is the small windmill, which was rescued from my trash can 6 hours ago, and repatriated back to mother earth. If windmills have at least some chance of recovering from the loss of the central spear, this one's going to get a shot. And I'd like to thank my fellow palm lover in advance, for calling this to my attention before the trash man arrives on Tuesday.

Also is a shot of my Mexican fan palm, with an image of me (5'7") to give you an idea of its height. It has certainly surpassed my ability to build rickety structures around it to protect it in the winter.