Palm trees for the Okanagan!

[Okanagan desert-palms]

I just got a call from the manager of the local Rona store here. They are bringing in Sabal minor,Needle palm T. fortunei spring 2011. Yippee!!! "FINALLY" cold hardy palms for the Okanagan. It`s been a long time coming and it finally happened. Now many more people will be exposed to our hobby. I`ll have to work on Y. rostrata and Y.brevifolia among others next.


John

[Paul Ont]

John- That's awesome. Do you have an email contact for Rona? If so, I would love to get it to try to 'persuade' them to carry the palms in S. Ontario too!

[Cameron_z6a_N.S.]

That's great! If only something like that happened here in NS

[Okanagan desert-palms]

Thanks guys. Paul I went onto www.rona.ca. then went to contact page fired them off two email`s a week apart to head office in Ontario. In turn must have been sent to the local store here for the nursery manager.Super nice guy by the way. Squeeky wheel gets the grease I guess.

John

[TerdalFarm]

A new trick I used this year was to become a Facebook friend with a local nursery. I started commenting on their wall, all complimentary about how well the plants they had sold me over the years had done. I then linked to the YouTube of the needle palms here in the Tulsa area (another thread) on [u]their [/u]FB wall. Within a month, they had prime-quality large needle palms for sale!
So, if your local plant store does Facebook, you might want to try that method as well. --Erik

[lucky1]

Excellent news folks!
Thanks John for staying with it.

Can you please pick up 2 Needles for me at RONA Kelowna in Spring (I'll be too busy to get down there come March).

We Canadians should all use John's RONA link and fire off an email, stating our city, and that we'd like tropical stuff here too.
Now...if HD comes through also, we'll have a lot of palms to buy.

Erik...as long as they don't visit, huh?

Barb

[ScottyON]

You're one step a head of me Paul!! Let me know if you get the email contact. I have been bugging the lady at Rona in Kingston for 2 years to carry them. They just look at me like im stupid when I ask!

[Okanagan desert-palms]

Great idea Erik using facebook. Barb I will be my pleasure to buy some needle palms for you next spring. I`ll know better what sizes when I meet the manager in Feb/March. Here are pics from the nursery supplier for Rona.
http://www.costafarms.com/Public/PlantL ... 4&Letter=R
http://www.costafarms.com/Public/PlantL ... 5&Letter=S
One more on my wish list.
http://www.costafarms.com/Public/PlantL ... 2&Letter=P

John

[lucky1]

That's appreciated, thanks John.

Oooooh, that Toddy Palm is a nice one.
Looks like a CIDP.
I fired off an email to your RONA link (the more emails, the better!)

Is there a RONA in Kingston, Scotty?
If not, you've got a perfect excuse to come out west for a vacation and take home some palms next spring.

Barb

[Jay-Admin]

That's awesome John. Some y.rostratas and y.brevifolia would be sweet.

[oppalm]

proactive palm people. just think of what a great world this would be if we could palms trees growing coast to coast and north to south. well OK maybe thats a pipe dream.

[lucky1]

Yes, Jay, let's hope RONA brings in yuccas too.
We'll have to start saving our $$ now for that.

Kent...palm trees growing coast to coast, and north to south...in OUR lifetime is what I'd add.

This article was just released...too bad I'm 5 miles from the lake.
John and Jay are fortunate beside that huge Lake Okanagan.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/featur ... 01123.html

Barb

[TerdalFarm]

That is an interesting article, Barb--I hadn't seen that one.
No nearby lakes, but I have a couple farm ponds!
I used to SCUBA dive in Lake Tenkiller as it was warm in Summer. It still is, but now is filled with algae, a results of Phosphorus pollution. Lawsuits about the source have gone all the way to the U.S. supreme court. Basically, the poultry industry (e.g., Tyson) blames the plant nursery production industry (e.g., Tri-B); the latter blame chicken manure. Both are big business around here.
I just wish Tri-B started growing containerized Sabal minor palms in my neck of the world
--Erik

[Okanagan desert-palms]

Thanks, Scott,Jay,Barb, Erik,Kent, for your comments. Having the S.minors,needle palms,T fortunei carried by by Rona stores.The fact they have them for sale in a big box store will add a lot of credibility to the gardeners who never thought of planting a palm tree. Yucca`s will be the next step. Too bad Costa nursery farms doesn`t carry Y.rostrata,Joshua trees ect.

John

[ScottyON]

Yeah Barb... Rona is like 5 min from my house. We just got a new Lowes here and we have a big Home Depot all within 5km... HD doesn't carry anything good and same with Rona. maybe Lowes will??

[lucky1]

Hey Scotty, try John's RONA head office link.
The more emails they get about needle palms, etc. the more they'll be willing to stock them...maybe throughout Canada?

Let's give RONA a shot, as John said they were agreeable and very interested in the concept.
No Lowe's here yet (heard there might be one in Alberta).
HD is everywhere, that's where I found the two 7-foot Foxtails (that I thought were Fishtails).

As I said earlier, Vernon RONA (my town) has nada, they use their GH for ... ugh .... storage. Sacrilege!!!!
Whereas the Kelowna RONA (John's and Jay's town), has their GH full to the rafters with palms and cactus etc etc. (just not a wider variety of palms).
Independent store owners can be convinced to "get on board" by their head office, no doubt.

Here's John's RONA head office link again..."contact us" is at top right of page.
http://www.rona.ca/content/home

Please let us know if you get anywhere with the other big box stores.
Barb

[ScottyON]

I sent him off an email tonight. I'll let you know when I hear back!

[lucky1]

We're all workin' on it...
http://www.palmsnorth.com/forum/viewtop ... 6&start=15

Doubt they'll come in small, though, when they do get stocked.
Barb