Show us your Sabal

[TerdalFarm]

This time of year, our palms are looking about as good as they will all year. By next month, we'll be busy discussing how to keep them alive through winter (and I for one cannot wait for frost! ).
It is so darn hot I am stuck inside each afternoon. So, I thought I'd try to start a new idea: "show us your ___" where we do a different palm genus each week. We can share our photos. We might get ideas of new palms to try for next year out of it.

Please, "reply" with your photos of the palm genus of the week.

I'm starting with Sabal. No surprise -- I love Oklahoma's native palm genus. I took photos of my four little Sabal this morning. All survived our coldest winter lows ever -- -30 C (-22 F). All had electric heat tape, water bottles, hay for mulch; all but the S. palmetto also had a palm hut.

Photo one is my current favorite -- Sabal mexicana. Blue, costaplamate and fast growing. I bought two cheap in Ft. Worth Texas in 2009 and planted them in Spring 2010. One succumbed to winter 2011 but this one has come roaring back.

Photo 2 is what is left of the magnificent Sabal palmetto W bought for me in Spring 2010. The main plant died mysteriously in Fall 2010, but this little guy came back from the dead in Spring 2011.

Photo 3 shows the Sabal "Lou" from Amazing Gardens on the left and the free bonus NE Texas Sabal minor on the right.

<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Z ... site"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-MaH6 ... C_0002.JPG" height="531" width="800" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/terdalfarm ... te">August 2011 in the garden</a></td></tr></table>

<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/4 ... site"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-HhLZ ... C_0003.JPG" height="531" width="800" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/terdalfarm ... te">August 2011 in the garden</a></td></tr></table>

<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/W ... site"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-sjb7 ... C_0008.JPG" height="531" width="800" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/terdalfarm ... te">August 2011 in the garden</a></td></tr></table>

[igor.glukhovtsev]

Erik, very nice looking plants and a great idea! Unfortunately I don't have any sabals in my garden...yet Will be waiting until windmills pictures will show up!

[hardyjim]

Love the Blue Sabals...Sabal Lou,Brazoria and McCurtain are some of my favs!

[Cameron_z6a_N.S.]

Great idea, Erik!

Here's my Sabal, a S. minor "McCurtain":

[lucky1]

Sabal "Riverside" in foreground, Sabal "mexicana" (almost hidden).
This little Riverside is growing like mad, other sabals have only half the number of strap leaves of this guy.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/southslope/6014927665/" title="DSC04866 by edible_plum, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6026/601 ... 5cba2b.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="DSC04866"></a>

Barb

[TerdalFarm]

If Riverside is even faster than mexicana, I need to get one!

[lucky1]

I don't know anything about Riverside...do you?
Barb

[TimMAz6]

Nice Sabals........I couldn't grow a Sabal here with a fist full of 50's. Here's my 7 gal Sabal 'birmingham'. It looked pretty good after winter but it's grown a whole 2" since then. I guess our soil temps are just too cold. We need some heat up here.......send OKla's heat up here and we'll send you some cold/rain. Deal?

<img src=http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c309/ ... ly3112.jpg>

[TerdalFarm]

Barb,
Sabal "riverside" is a mystery, like Tim's "birmingham": nobody knows what it is!
Here is Phil's page on them:
http://www.junglemusic.net/palms/sabal-riverside.htm
Phil is from So Cal and so I assume he knows as much as anyone about them.

Part of why I like Sabal is the mystery. I want to know about my native palm, Sabal minor, and also these "riverside", "birmingham", "brazoria", "tamaulipas" etc.

And In Belize, the "bayleaf" (Sabal mauritiiformis) is threatened by--get this--the ecotourism industry.


Tim, nice size!

We have some nice NE winds (from Barb? If so, thanks!) now are cooler (we only got to 99.9 F today); hopefully the heat will blow your way.

My "birminghams" are from seed from Mike on HPS and are little but growing well.

--Erik

[lucky1]

Erik,
Will have to ask John, he gave me the Riverside.
And it wasn't until you said you loved the large strap leaves that I started looking at sabals more seriously.
You're right, they're lovely.

NE winds?
You're welcome.
Sounds like August is going to be brutally hot here...at least, hot for us, nothing like 106F.
Can't wait to wear a sweater again

?The S. mauritiformis is threatened by ecotourism?
How? Because people hike, destroying the seedlings?

Barb

[TerdalFarm]

Barb,
I'll do a proper thread on bayleaf palm and ecotourism this winter, when there is little else to do.
Here is a tease, a raw unedited video I took with a cell phone in Belize last winter:
http://youtu.be/wiOm5l1kuY8

In brief, it has become customary for tourists to be greeted in palapas roofed with leaves of mature bayleaf palms. More in a few months....
--Erik

[lucky1]

Ah, yes, I recall you mentioned from Belize last time that palms are used for the roofs.
Seems tourists EXPECT that.

As they say around here in the forest industry, wood is a renewable resource...assuming Belize has enough land base to plant them.
And then the complaint will be about monoculture...

Thanks for posting that.
Barb

[TerdalFarm]

Time for a new palm genus of the week, if there is interest. My vote is Trachycarpus.
I am busy with work, so I'd like a volunteer (Igor? Barb? Jim?) to start a new thread.

[Okanagan desert-palms]

Erik why do they have to use Bay palm fronds to roof the palapa? I have also watched construction of a few palapas and they use Cocos nucifera in Mexico and Costa Rica. Is it because they are set in their ways and won`t try other palm species to the same job? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZTG_iYiBYk

John

[TerdalFarm]

John,
Good question. If I can, I'll volunteer at the Belze Botanic garden on the topic.
Short answer: tradition says Sabal mauritiformis fronds harvested under a full moon last a decade or more in the rainforest. (Is that true?)
I suspect that leaves from Attelea cohune are nearly as good and more abundant. (Is that true?)
I'll do a full thread on this topic for the winter.
For now, can you show us your Sabal?
And start the new Trachycarpus thread?
Erik

[Okanagan desert-palms]

Erik I have a few Sabals planted and seedlings in pots. I`ll post soon when I get a new dig. camera. I sure hope attitudes change re: full moon Sabal Maurtiformis as palapa roofs. Superstition maybe the demise of said palm? Barb glad that S. riverside is doing well for you. I got those seeds because they were able to trunk in a desert climate. I thought they would be a good fit for us here. Slooow as molasses but someday.


John