Mystery Palm

Ok, I have to admit that I'm stumped on this palm. I bought it as a very small plant probably 4 years ago from home depot, and it was labeled something like "tropical." I've seen some of these growing in South Florida and in my visit to Hawaii this weekend, but I'm really stumped as to what exactly it is. I usually take it in the house when temps start dropping into the middle 20s.

Anyone willing to take a stab at this?

The Mexican fan palm in the back yard is growing like gangbusters. I've left a few of the slightly cold damaged leaves on it from this past winter, but I'm lopping them off this weekend. Prediction, it will be taller than my garage by the end of the summer, which will present some unique challenges with my cold protection strategies this winter.

Not a Scene from my backyard

For those of you who have been wondering what happened to me over the last few days, I've been in Hawaii taking my 2 1/2 year old son home to reunite with his mothers. I couldn't resist taking a few shots from the balcony of my hotel room on Waikiki beach the first morning. Other good palm shots to follow, and a few more from my collection here.

Rolling with the Punches?

I wasn’t quite ready for what I found when I walked through my front yard at dusk yesterday and noticed what looked like black mold on the smallest front coming out of my prize palm in the front yard – my 3 year old windmill palm. This was the first winter the palm went unprotected, and I was reasonably confident that it had weathered the record cold without fail. The leaves are green, there are new leaves coming out of it, but curiously, the smallest of the emerging frond is rotten. Besides that, it looks great.

Eeeks!

I’ve read numerous accounts about these palms completely defoliating and coming back, and have had numerous conversations through this blog with people who know a lot more about hardy palms than I do, and the consensus is that this one will pull through. So both of my windmills, and my European fan palm are all sans central growth spears now.

I keep telling myself that experimental gardeners need to roll with the punches. But this one felt more like a kick in the jewels. Here it is pictured on Easter Sunday with a fresh dusting of snow. It's still bright green, and looks very healthy.

My First Endorsement

I didn't start this blog to push anyone's products, but since I've highlighted many of the palms in my collection, I'd be be remiss to not mention Georgia's Tyty Nursery which has been a reliable source of affordable, and healthy hardy palms. Their palms arrive in good shape, bare-rooted and ready to go. In addition, they're guaranteed for a year.

And maybe this exposes my soft spot for southerners (both sides of my family are from the south, although I was born in Ohio) but they're just nice people, helpful people, eager to do business and please their customers. I find myself shocked to find customer service people nowadays who actually care about their personal skills and are mindful of customer care (oh my god, I think I'm sounding like an old troll.)

The palms I've ordered from them have thrived.

Sabal var. Birmingham

So it might be apparent by now that I have a bit of an eccentric side. But the acquisition of this palm was even a little extreme for me. I learmed that a nursery in Central North Carolina carried this cold hardy strain of Sabal Palmetto. The problem was that they don't ship. Sounds like the makings of a road trip, right?

800 miles (round trip) later, I was the proud owner of two S. var Birmingham. This one is cited in my back yard micro climate, protected from the direct north winds by my neighbor's garage. It did well last winter with a moderate amount of protection (plastic enclosure, no heat). It suffered no leaf damage, and I think that by the fourth winter, I'll give it a go alone. It's sending up new fronds and seems to love the location.

Anything that can survive in my back yard is indeed hardy - the soil is actually a 100 year old collection of various forms of trash, from shredded beer cans to old bottles of poppers. Certainly an ecclectic collection of urban mulch, wouldn't you say?

Windmill Al Dente, Anyone?

I was really anxious to see the results of my brother-in-law's Windmill palm after spending its third winter - fully protected - in the barren winter tundra of Northern Ohio. The 3 year old palm had fared well the previous two winters, and according to my brother-in-law (Paul) , who had taken a few peaks during the long (and still going) winter, it was doing well. Needless to say I was a little startled when I peeked inside the enclosure to see what looked like the remnants of Union General Sherman's scortched earth policy. I think the poor devil has been cooked.

It seems that Paul, in an attempt to "really" protect it this winter, packed the plastic enclosure with straw, in addition to the 100 watt bulb which burned continuously since October. There's very little green left on the once impressive specimen, and EVERYTHING coming out of the middle was wet and moldy...but firm (read: a glimmer of hope).

We unpacked the poor thing and are keeping our fingers crossed that although it looks to be cooked on the outside, there's still a little spunk left on the inside.

Boy do I ever feel sorry for Paul.

Palms in the Arctic

Well, that might be stretching it a bit, but I am heading back to my native northern Ohio (USDA zone 5b – practically the Arctic Tundra) for the weekend and am quite anxious to see the Windmill Palm my brother-in-law planted 3 years ago next to his swimming pool. As of last Fall it was doing quite well, and hadn’t been used for fuel by any of the small bands of Eskimo who inhabit the far north.

I have to add that my brother in law – who is a carpenter by trade – puts me to shame every year with the high quality pavilions he constructs around this palm. My back yard palm hut looks like something Jed Clampett would have built, and his is closer to resembling a creation by by Scotty off the USS Enterprise. Will take my camera and see if I can grab a shot or two.

Palms Can’t Grow Here!

I wanted to relay a recent conversation I had with a fellow at the gym who informed me – after finding out that I had a collection of palms in my yard – that “palms can’t grow in DC. It’s too cold.”

After offering real life examples, like my own yard, of palms that grow in DC, I also pointed out that palms exist in other parts of the world, where many knee-jerk skeptics might think impossible: Russia, Scotland, the Pacific Northwest, Northern France.

I still don’t think he believed me.

Windmill Palm Update

A younger windmill palm that had endured its first unprotected DC Winter (a cold one this year) is maintaining its green fronds but has not shown any other signs of life since losing its central growth spear. This is just an update – I haven’t given up on it yet.

But while I’m on the topic of sickly plants, my recently purchased European Fan Palm (C. Humilis) which arrived with a moldy central growth spear is starting to show signs of leaf wilt. I’m giving it one or two more weeks and then calling the nursery to send a replacement.

Easter in Alaska?

It's a good thing that I'm a very goal driven person, because it makes the fact that I've set a new personal record this Spring in pulling in the tropical plants off my front porch to avoid an unwelcomed hard freeze - I think last night marked the 6th time that's happened this Spring. Like much of the rest of the country, Spring here has been put on hold. The outdoor palms which have been fertilized already and were basking in 80 degree temperatures just a few weeks ago are in shock. The S. Minor, above, seems relatively unfazed, but is used to being bathed in a sea of mulit-colored phlox this time of year. Some of the colors are visible through the dusting of snow that arrived Easter morning. The Windmill palm below (T. Fortunei) is in the midst of sending up 2 new spears, and seems equally unfazed.

Several of the larger, cold-damaged fronds of the Mexican Fan Palm out in the back yard, were a little weighted down by the wet snow, but the plant itself is unfazed. At this point, the coldest temperature I've recorded in my back yard is 29 degrees during this cold snap, which means we suffered much less than parts of the deep South.

Sans Freeze in NW DC

Despite vastly conflicting forecasts of fwhether or not it would freeze, I hauled in a number of my most tender tropical palms from the front porch last night. They spent the night in the living room. The official low in my back yard was a balmy 34 degrees F, several important degrees warmer than predicted by the local weather guys. I think we'll get the real thing tonight, though, as this freeze is setting records even into the deep South.

To Freeze, or Not to Freeze, That is the Question!

Wow, I'm so glad I'm not a grower with a Spring strawberry crop in the field right now trying to decipher to what extent I needed to worry about this "freeze." It seems that the very guys who are absolutley convinced that the earth will be one degree warmer 50 years from now have widely divergent opinions about how cold it's going to get tonight and the next few nights, or apparently whether or not we're going to get a freeze at all. Here are two different scenarios for Washington DC low temperatures over the next few days:

The Weather Channel vs Washington's WJLA TV
Friday 33 vs 29
Saturday 33 vs 27
Sunday 35 vs 30
Monday 37 vs 31


Quite a difference in predictions. For any non-agricultural readers, there is a huge difference in the few degrees between freezing and not-freezing, at least in the plant world. One scenario has no freeze at all, the other has a hard freeze for four nights in a row. Thank god for my desk job, and heating cables for my palms.

Kamikaze Coconut

I have a 2 year old Coconut Palm that seems to be looking for a way out. Of life, that is. I think I just made an executive decision to leave it out overnight for the next three days and see if Mother Nature relieves me of this burden. If it lives through these nights of near freezing, or below freezing temperatures - hell, it deserves to live. And get an upgrade in pots.

Near Record Low Temps Approaching

So of course everything I own is outside already, including some true tropicals like my Coconut Palm, Triangle Palm, and Mystery Palm - it's a mystery because although it's rather large, and I've had it for 4 years, I'm not quite sure what it is, but will post a picture and hope to discover its identity from one of the readers. So, tomorrow after work, they're all coming back in the house. Again.

My other fear is the new and impressive growth on the Mexican Fan Palm. I'm hoping these lows don't set me back too far.

European Fan Palm Looking Terminal

Ok, I'm going out on a limb here because I promised myself to never again rush to judgement about whether or not a palm was dead just because its central spear was rotten. The European Fan palm I received, and planted in my front yard last week, had a central spear that was mushy, moldy and rotten. Didn't notice that until after it was planted. So I called the nursery that sent it to me and they recommended that I give it three weeks to see if life still remained.

Now I'm an optimist, and very hopeful for this plant, but a few of the other fronds have since pulled off, and the leaves themselves seem to be shriveling. I don't think it's looking particularly positive for this palm, but time will tell.

On another note, leaving for a quick business trip today to Denver. Have read about some of the hardier species of palms growing in the high plains of Colorado, but have never seen anything of the sort in Denver. Will keep my eyes peeled and camera ready.