Queen Palm

It was brushing on the top of my roof, had to cut it, it measure twenty feet!

did the wind blow it over?
how did it wind up on top of the truck?

FoF: I think that's just a single frond.

In a related note I got home to find the wind had snapped one my king palms new leaves in half. The bad news: it was it's only leaf (insert sad emoticon face here because I'm too bummed to remember how to do it).

No, I laid it on top of the truck to show its length, I cut it, as it was brushing on the shingles.

Queens do get big! I've got three huge specimens on my property.
Glad I've got enough of a canopy that it sort of protects my yard from the heavy wind we just had. Boy did it blow! My CIDPs helped protect the yard I'm sure. They're so big they dwarf everything around them.

Terry, here are the sad emoticons... sorry for your loss. So does that mean the King is dead?

Simple :(
Advanced =-(
Angry >=-(

King not dead. Just humbled. It pushes a new spear every 5-6 weeks in the summer. It's back to having a mostly brown leaf and a long spear.

Edric

Thats one long frond. I had one that I measured at 16 1/2 ft and I thought that was long. That must be some canopy on that queen.

This message was edited Mar 28, 2007 10:04 PM

edric ,Do you know what time it is ???
It`s time you got the RUST cut out of the Ute .
We get put off the road for that . Sorry M8 .
Oh yeah , Nice Big Palm .

I don't understand, ,Do you know what time it is ???
It`s time you got the RUST cut out of the Ute .
We get put off the road for that.

Aussie saying .
Probably don`t mean anything in Umerica .

I think Edric, It's Aussie slang for it's time to wash and clean the pickup truck.
Anybody ever white wash the trunk of a Queen to give it a Royal look?- i would if i had one!

The truth is BayAreaTropics,
Here on the Gold Coast ,
Queens are considered a Pest .
You can`t buy them from nurseries
or plant them in New Estates .Total ban .
But white wash does sound like a good idea .
Some one here on DG should give it a try . lol

If they treat Queens with such contempt, what do they think about Washingtonias? Those should be banned here. I pull them as weeds constantly.

Are kings/bangalows/piccabeens considered invasive there?

Queens are on the verge of becoming a pest here in FL. It's very strange to see hundreds of nutrient deficient, half dead queens in people's yards and on commercial properties while "wild" queens in vacant land are thriving. Wonder if it has to due with thier ability to acclimate if grown from seed in our nutrient poor soil or if the thousands of yards of fill used to raise building sites is much poorer quality than our native soil.

Chris

osideterry
I think contempt is a very strong word .
If you have a particular fast growing PEST in your yard .
Taking over every square inch of growing space you have .
Would you treat it as a friend ?
I think not . They drop Up to 4000 seeds per year .
90 % of them grow . I have a perfect example of it in my garden .
I will take some Pics later today when the sun rises .
The local Council spend Millions of $ every year
cutting them down and removing them .
Insurance risk if they just fall down .
Another thing is they ALL carry seed , No males .

I have one queen and it blooms almost every month during growing season. I just wait for the bees to clear, and then cut the inflorescence off. Don't know what I'll do when my 16ft extension ladder is too short for the job.

The Chain Saw can always reach .

Don`t get me wrong . I still like them .
On my 40 Birthday I planted 40 of them as an investment .
So far cutting and removal costs have cost me over $4000 .
The Pic. I will take later is where one of the big ones were 2 yrs ago .

I understand the tree is worthless, I only paid 9.95 for it at Wal-Mart in 1997.

I know Queens are not the most in-demand of the palms, but the bigs ones I have in my back yard help provide a shady canopy for the nice palms I do love, including my new Kentia, a freshly-transplanted roebellini and some clivia that we will soon be transplanting as well. The good news about Queens, at least here in So Cal is they are at least kind of showy and nice-looking. We don't have the invasiveness that you describe in Australia. I am amazed to learn they are like weeds over there.

This is a Pic . of the 30 That I dug up yesterday .
The tallest one on Milk crate was 16 foot long .
I will mulch them down and get SOME use out of them .

You have a lot of Zone 6-9 folks seething about now, ginger749. Imagine someone working for years in hopes to see their trachy starting to form a trunk, and you are ripping queens out of the ground like I pull milkweed and dandylions. That said, a similar ban on queens in California and Florida would probably get people at least planting more kings and royals, which would be an improvement.

osideterry
As you can see by My delay in posting these Pics .
I did have a long Good think about showing these pics .
But in the interest of World Wide knowledge ,
I decided to show them .
Sincerely hope they don’t offend to many folk .

On the ground you can see how I killed large parent tree .
Chain saw hole and 1/2 a cup of Round Up in wound .
Only takes 3 months to die .
Then another 2 years to rot and fall down .
Wonderfull mulch from dead stump .

Oh my... and here I'm trying really hard to save two queen's that someone gave to us!! LOL Oh well, I like my queen palms and the two established ones I have are looking very good! I'll certainly plant different kinds of palms when I get to that point in my landscaping but I won't take out my queens!