Go jim go.
What's In Your Garden, Part 5
I'm back from the plant expo. There were tons of plants and all were very reasonable. On the down side there was only one booth with orchids and only one that I was interested in buying. Unfortunately it was already sold. It was a nice terrestial in a 5 gallon pot for 10 dollars. I did find some coontie palms (cycads in reality) and bought 15 of them in three gallon pots for 5 dollars each. Then I met my neighbor who had just bought 3 yards of pine bark mulch for 10 dollars and then discovered it was not in bags but loose. All he had was an suv. So I bought the mulch from him and they filled my truck with it. He hauled the coonties home for me. Normally mulch goes for about 20 dollars a yard and a 3 gallon coontie is about 8 dollars. Not a bad haul. By far the highlights of the show were huge beautiful palms. My personal favorite was a large triple spindle palm in a giant pot that they were selling for $250. For that price I would have to have had 20 of my cloest friends along to haul it out of the building and get it in my truck. What a specimen it was. Unfortunately, I forgot the camera.
Jim
Jim
Can't wait to see the palms in situ surrounded by mulch!
well, the good soldiers are waking up. Looks like my plumies did not get bitten so hard that the tops whithered and rotted away. They are striking new branches out at the top. That meansd I'll get flowers this year, right Hetty?
the smaller ginger types are also coming out of the ground all over the place. The big lobster claws etc are still debating the issue but I'm sure they will come along soon.
the bananas don't want to give up just yet. The central core is shooting out of the main plant. I think this happens when they haven't had any fruit yet as the ones that did don't do that.
My bottle palms are alive and kicking from the core up. The ones out front they have brown spots on the new growth which might be burns from the Christmas lights I surrounded them with but at least they are alive.
Fred, I doubt the burns on your bottle palm leaves ar a result of Christmas lights. Rather, I suspect it is caused by potassium deficiency. It is difficult for many zone 10 palms to take up potassium during the colder months. I have a bag of 0-0-63 fertilizer that I put around my palms every fall in November. I also put magnesium at the same time. In January, I'll repeat the process. It really helps with the spotting.
Another tip is that high nitrogen lawn fertilizer too close to palms is a bad thing. It encourges them to grow faster than they can absorb potassium. This will cause the orangish flecks to appear on the leaves.
Jim
Jim,
I've never had any spotting on any of my palms. The center is now opening where I had wrapped a net of Christmas lights (not twinkling) around. The other bottle palms in pots, which I took into shelter after the first freeze, look fine. The only difference is the lights.
I use palm fertilizer once a year which I buy where the landscapers buy. 0-0-63 must be potent stuff though. I'll have to see if I can find that somewhere. The bottle palms are not near any lawn.
Take a look at the reclinata behind the bottle palm. It looks positively luscious and couldn't have cared less about the cold. Same with the queens. Note that I cut the ends of the dried up brown branches off the bottle. I'm trying two methods. One is just the ends and the other the whole branch. I don't know if I'm doing more harm by cutting then to just leave them alone to look ugly.
a closer look at the newly opened bottle palm frond.
It's the spacing of the spots that has me thinking I burned the unopened frond with lights that remained on for several long nights. If they touched the stem it must have gotten too hot and they dried out like this. Next time I'll be more careful and have the lights twinkle so as not to get too hot too long in any one spot. What I may do is wrap the palm first and then surround it with lights.
This is a palm which was not wrapped with lights.
fred
This message was edited Feb 24, 2009 4:24 PM
Reclinatas and queens are a lot more cold hardy than bottle palms. They will not show the spotting like the more tropical plants. Looking at the picture, I'm sticking with the diagnosis of potassium deficiency. It will clear up with the warmer temperatures.
Jim
Jim, went hunting for potassium today. Nothing at HD or Lowe's. Found 4 lb bags at Naples Fertilizer at 0-0-60. It's Muriate of Potash at $6 for the four pounds. Since 75% of all US potash is mined in FL, you'd think it would be cheap here but the Hi-Yield product comes from TX.
Now how much do I give each bottle palm? A pound?
fred
I bought a 50 lb bag at Lesco. I would give each tree 4 lbs. mixed with 2 lbs. of magnesium. Do that about 4 times a year. It is especially important in the fall. Spindle, royal, queen, areca and coconut palms are also noted for this problem. As to the production, I think you are thinking of Florida's phosphorus mining. We do produce most of the world's supply of that. That's why the middle number on a bag of fertilizer to be used in Florida is irrelevant. Potassium mostly comes from dry lake beds in the far west and in Canada and is easily leached out of our sandy soil.
Jim
JIm, you are correct. I was mixing up Muriate of Potash (potassium chloride) with phosphorus. Never was any good at chemistry. Being that I need so much of it I had better find a place where they sell bigger quantities. These 4 lbs bags don't do the trick.
BTW you may be a bit generous on my bottle palms as they are rather young but I'll give them plenty. My Royals can certainly use the full amount.
Fred
PS is this what you mean at Lesco? 052679 - 0-0-62 MOP PLASTIC FL
They have two pickup places here in Naples. I can order on line and pick up but an address still escapes me. I guess I can call them in the morning. They also have: 001547 0-0-62 WHITE MOP . I found the address too.
This message was edited Feb 26, 2009 1:30 AM
This message was edited Feb 26, 2009 8:45 AM
Jim,
got 50 lb bags of potash and magnesium (epsom salt) at this Lesco place. Price is pretty much the same as retail in small bags. $1.40 & $1.08 respectively. You'd think they'd price the stuff better in volume. I guess this falls into the same category as other 'wholesale' outfits who charge either the same or more as retail. They sell to the trade and the trade simply pays and marks things up as needed. I found this to be the case in plumbing, electrical and lumber places. Sometimes they charged substantially more then retail at the wholesale level.
When I had all my construction done here, the trade guys would send me here or there because they had everything not because they had good prices. For their own jobs at home they shop at HD as you can tell on the weekends. :-)
Fred
I have had good and bad luck at Lesco. You just have to hit them on the right day.
I was in a local nursery yesterday and spotted a small (about four feet) screw pine for $49.00. I know I said I was not going to get one but for $49.00 I may give it a try. I'll stop by tomorrow and see if it is still there. I feel like Kathy swearing off orchids and then showing us her purchases the next day.
Jim
I have over a hundred different things in my garden
here is one of my favorites
Gorgeous GW. Is that a Brownea?
Jim
Well, temptation was too much and for $49.00, I'll roll the dice. I don't have it planted yet but this is where it will be. This fellow is about 6 feet tall and I got the one growing on a slant on purpose as I want to get a rock for it to rest on. I'll post another picture when it is ready to grow. For now, here is my Madagascar screw pine.
Jim
Washingtonian palms against a Florida sky.
Jim
Edited for typo.
This message was edited Feb 27, 2009 9:27 PM
Here is a papaya tree against the same sky.
Jim
I've been squeezing lemons until my wrist hurts and I still have this in the yard.
Jim
I just noticed the papaya tree didn't make it. I'll try again.
Jim
Azaleas anyone?
Jim
The backyard fountain from one of the gardens as the sun sets.
Jim
Will you look at these lemons!! Nice!!!
The Papaya looks great. Most of the time you see much smaller plants in people's yard - visiting tropical areas.
I've got muscovy ducks and a pair of iguanas parading around. When they are not ranging around the backyard they are hanging out in a tree that overhangs the lake. Also, a parrot condo in the shefflera tree. The backyard looks like Jurraisic Park! There are parrot hunters who drive around with nets. One person drives and the other nets from the back of a truck. They steal young parrots out of trees to sell. Drive over peoples' lawns causing all kinds of damage. Imagine what we don't have to deal with further north. And speaking of north...lots of Canadians in Miami at this time of year. Poor folks are so sunburned!
Can't complain about the weather. Seventies day and night it seems. Breezy and dry. I've been here since the 14th and not a drop of rain.
Hope everyone is getting on well with their gardens and orchids. I sure am missing mine.
Laurel
Jim,
you must be closer to the water as your garden looks quite lush after the cold wave. Your screw pine should be fine if mine can survive and grow. My tree will eventually drop all of its current growth which is brown at each frond. Looks a mess and they are falling off already. This happened once before and within a year the tree looked great again. In the meantime it's a constant process of picking up the droppings.
On the matter of cold or freezing of plants - I keep checking for signs of life on the baby trees I had put put. The tababuia is sending growth out of the tree stem itself. So that is fine. The top is dried up and dead but the new branches will form their own crown, eventually.
The poinciana shows nothing on the stem and the top is completely dried up but at ground level I see new growth. So I guess I'll be getting a poinciana bush. The same with the geiger trees. The young cassias look great and domehow ignored the cold while the bigger trees for which I paid $125 are pretty miserable but a few branches do have new growth appearing. It seems that some branches dried up while others are green but at least the trees are not dead.
The palms are a different story. About half of my 65 Christmas palms (Veitchia merrillii or Adonidia merrillii) are dead and brown to the ground. The others still have some green and may survive to grow again. The ones in the open are dead while those under the protection of the cabbage palms seem to hang on to life. We'll see what makes it in a month or two. The arecas look a mess but all of them have green at their bottom and I suspect they will send out brand new shoots pretty soon.
My pudica also look dead as doornails and have mushy tops as do many plumerias. Today I will cut the soft areas and spray the ends with a pruning solution. The baby crotons which are now just little sticks in the ground seem to be alive, at least most of them. I see little green growth buds here and there. Crotons seem to be tough survivors after shedding all their leaves.
Most of my poinsettias are just dried up sticks now. I'll trim them back and hope that new growth will appear one of these days.
My little nursery of cuttings is doing well. Don't know if they have any roots yet but many of the little sticks show growth appearing. So something is keeping them alive.
On a personal note, I'm up at 3am having finished sleeping at 1:30am. Don't know what's going on with my body but I just started taking a high blood pressure pill and had a strong cup of McDonald's latte last night. The combination almost knocked me out. I felt light headed and ready to faint. I got home, sat down and promptly fell asleep in a chair. DW says I was snoring like a pig. At 9pm I then went to bed dead tired. I had delivered 5 cases of grapefruit to a food for the hungry place earlier yesterday and my back was also killing me. So how come caffein knocks me out? Wierd. Anyway, I'm fine now and all finished sleeping. :-) Strange things are happening as you get older. I have a physical coming up and will have to discuss this caffein thing. Even two weeks ago when I had a Cuban cup of coffee and was not on any medicine, I got something like a hot flash and had to go outside and sit in some fresh air. I mean it was wierd. I guess the caffeine makes my system go into overtime and I love a good cup of coffee.
So much for babbling on in the middle of the night. Just hear an animal scream outside. Something must have caught something.
Fred
PS got a rebate check for almost $1500 from my home ins. company yesterday. It's a reward for doing all house openings with hurricane resistant glass. Of course, it'll take me 10 years to recover but in the meantime these doors are much better insulators and very secure. Here are the doors to the patio which are done now.
Gee, I thought I was writing in the FL chit-chat forum. Sorry about that.
Fred
No problem , Fred, your post are enjoyed. I'm not fond of the big sliders on the back of my house either but replacements will have to wait as I just replaced the heat pump.
I do have some delayed browning of freeze affected plants but it is mostly top burn and only the duranta seems to have died. Hap was nice enough to send some seeds so I'll see if I can get them to grow.
Meanwhile the lychee tree is looking to put out some fruit this year. Here is what's going on:
Jim
My garden yesterday.
My lychee and mango used to look like that and along came a cousin of boojum's white blanket. No lychee or mango this year for us.
Jim, don't faint when they give you a price on those hurricane doors. They sure are solid though. You can bang on them with your fists and it might as well be a solid wall.
I cut most of the pudica down to about 6 inches above the ground. The plumeria held about a foot of healthy tissue above ground level. That stuff sure stinks when it rots. I sealed the cuts with pruning spray and now can only wait to see what happens.
fred
I can't believe we had another cold front come through this morning. It started raining and blowing about 7:00 AM and it rained all the way to church. On the way home it had pretty much ended but the temps have been falling all day. They are calling for a low of 45 tonight but tomorrow it dips to 39. Therefore, tomorrow afternoon the orchids visit the garage for a couple of days. I thought we were over this nonsense.
Jim
Global warming......
Great thought Ursula. I'll submit your name for a Nobel Prize.
Jim
:-)
Boo, all of our snow finally melted. But expect more or at least a lot of cold between now and the middle of May. I can't believe it got up to 70° this afternoon after temps down to 25° this morning!
Donna
Wow! Nice and warm!
The orchids are tucked into the garage and the cover is on the BBQ. Something just ain't right about this weather.
Jim