I just received my Trachycarpus fortunei I ordered on E-Bay. I was shipped from Texas and arrived bare root in pretty good condition. I have priced them in Nurseries around here and a 4-5 ' palm could be as high as $200. This came to $91 with shipping and handling. I'm bringing it in at night for a few days until I can plant it in the ground.
Linda, it is beautiful! You must have been thrilled! It will be a wonderful addition to your garden.
Excellent!
These are before pics and after
I was so pleased with the E-Bay palm tree I ordered another.
Another veiw. The new ones are the two in the middle.
Beautiful Azorina! You must just be thrilled! What a perfect addition to your yard.
Nice. And so appropriate for the design of your house. My house has some Spanish features in front and I have toyed with attempting palms, but they are so expensive. This sounds like a cool option.
You know, I have a couple of palms in the front yard, and I don't even know what kind they are
Thank you Rarejem and Katie. A lot of plants took a big hit this winter, but the ground planted palm trees continued to grow albeit slower. These are tough low maintenance plants that grow about one foot a year but seem to grow faster once they are in the ground. The larger palm planted nearer the house is about 7 years old in the ground for 3 years and nearly 12 feet tall. (My only regret is that I didn't plant a palm sooner.) Ha Ha (Please excuse the ramblings of an incurable plant nut)
Not ramblings . . . good information. A foot a year seems a reasonable growth rate.
Irwells, those are nice palms.
Kathy
Linda, those look beautiful and are so perfect with your house! Kind of a Spanish/Mediterranean style. Maybe that will help you feel warmer when winter is late in leaving!
I love the tropical look and am hoping to keep myself within my zone and still have some cool plants like that. I bought a couple of palms this year, but I have not put them in the ground. I'm going to let them be in pots for awhile until they get big enough to fit into the border. I also have some banana trees - Musa basjoo and also 2 Musa lasiocarpa , one of which I grew from seed so it's still very small. I'm replacing one of my old red rhododendrons with the Musa basjoo.
Irwells, you really have the right weather for palms.
Actually, I'm a little surprised we can grow them here, I would have thought it would need to be zone 9, but I see more and more of them nowdays.
One of the best gardening books I've read lately is by David Francko and called Palms Won't Grow Here and other Myths. It is an excellent resource for which species of palms, Bamboos, bananas, yuccas, etc grow well in the temperate zones and include information on winter protection, microclimates, etc. Timber Press is the publisher.
Interestingly, on a recent trip to Bellingham, WA I took the family fossil hunting and found many, many fossilized palm leaves. There was a huge leaf on the side of a boulder, which, unfortunately, would have required heavy equipment to move. It was a complete fan! I was thrilled just to see it. So we know palms used to grow up here. Probably those days are returning (although it's hard to say when with how cold things have been overall lately.) I also found fossilized fern leaves, deciduous tree leaves, and juniper. It was so cool!
Linda, love your palms. Are you Julie's friend who has the beautiful bamboo jungle?
Are you going to be able to come to the Roundup in August?
Yep Lynn that be me! And my husband and I will be there. This years' abundant snowfall broke a lot of culms making my bamboo forest a disaster zone. (It needed thinning anyways and I always could use bamboo stakes?) I really felt like I was somewhere in Asia with a machete trying to reestablish some kinda order.
I am in love with bamboo, even though people think I am crazy to plant it. Ours isn't looking too good right now, either. The snow sure didn't do it any good. I am really looking forward to seeing your bamboo jungle someday!
I am glad you and your hubby are coming to the RU. Julie and Sharon are really working hard on it.
Even though I have had bamboo for 15 years I can't imagine having a garden without it. My whole yard is held up with bamboo stakes. I actually had it planted to provide a screen from the road and it has served the purpose very well. If I had it to do over again, I would be much more selective on the varieties to plant. We have a few serious runners and if we didn't mow or have a stream as a barrier, my yard would be over run.
This message was edited May 14, 2009 8:52 PM
I am listening!!!! and hopefully learning!
Pixy, Thanks for the recommendation on the book..will have to check it out! The tropical looking plants add such a nice and different dimension to the garden...would love to add more! Your fossil trip sounds fantastic! My family used to be really into rock/fossil hunting but have tapered off a lot as we don't go camping much any more (we camp at home now!). Hearing about your discoveries makes me yearn to go scouting again!
Linda, Lynn has the perfect place for a bamboo jungle...has the edge already started in fact... and we have promised her that once you feel like you have yours back to some semblance of order and feel like showing it off, we would try to talk you into letting us bring her over for a visit. We have both told her how glorious it is. Bamboo is DEFINITELY something that it is nice to learn from other's mistakes if at all possible! I planted my one bamboo plant in what I thought was a natural "pot"...cliff on one side and large cedar tree on the other. It stayed put for seven years, but stunned me completely when I was cleaning up behind that cedar tree last week and saw one stalk of bamboo behind it rather than in the front!
Honestly my bamboo is probably as much in order as it will really ever be! It kinda has a a mind of its own! It is a lot thinner and will be likely to fall more easily since it holds itself up. Last summer I gave it organic lawn food (first time ever) so I'm sure it will recover within a few years. I don't know if I am brave enough to give it another dose of fertilizer this year...... but oh well what the ??
Lynn and Julie,
I should probably mention that although my bamboo is as good as it gets my garden is not. I have been slow to get to all my garden beds this year. But, after all isn't a garden job security?
Lynn, did you happen to notice the gunnera in Azorina's picture? Good for another case of plant envy.
Well, I am off to bed as I think this weekend will be a bust your ___ one. I am also maddeningly far behind.
Just thought I would post a pic of a Chinese Windmill Palm ready to bloom.
Holy cow. I didn't know they bloomed. Are those the blossoms coming out of the base?
Linda, is that a current picture? Talk to you soon, by the way but am really beat with all that is happening in the yard this weekend.
Actually I have limbed it up and they are coming out of the upper crown. The previous picture was taken today. This one was taken on May 18th. This tree's growth seems to be in hyper drive at this time. Last year I only had one flower stalk.
Just a progress report.
How totally cool!
Very nice, Linda. Just googled info on the Windmill palms we seem to have acquied, thanks to a generous friend, and have started thinking they may move out of their pots.......a thought to mull around for a while until it settles. They sure do look nice right now in our "dog free" zone, however.
Thanks...Ain't it weird and wonderful. These palms are so hairy and stout they kinda look like the Neanderthals of the palm world.
Full bloom!
Do all palms bloom? If mine have I've missed it. I don't know what kind they are either.
I think most of the palms do bloom but this one " Trachycarpus fortunei is about 8 years old and I had just one bloom last year.
I guess this is the 5th summer for mine.
Linda, that is great! You must be thrilled!
Wow. I had no idea. That's crazy. Congrats!
I had no idea palms would be happy in the PNW. Are they ok left in the garden through the winter?
