[jojo]

Lovely John I hope it arrives in the same condition as the pic.

[kanaloa]

Figured I'd revive this thread as Spring is now upon us. We've been doing some major work in the backyard for the last several weeks. The frost around Easter set us back a bit, but we're back on track now. We've been putting several dozen flowers in the ground. I planted several cannas this weekend. And my 4 banana plants are really starting to perk up with the warmer (80F) temps.

Indoors I'm still nursing my heliconias - the cuttings I received from Puerto Rico have done great. The Traveller's Palms I received from Yamil there also are doing wonderful. I hope they get a good deal larger this summer.

I've also really gotten into palms lately, and even though I can't grow them all outside year round - I've still invested in several species. I'll just have to bring in a few of them in the winter.

This weekend I planted two 3' Majesty Palms, brought in a 7' Majesty into the foyer of the house, planted a 3' Coconut Palm (pot sunk into the ground), a 1.5' Windmill Palm, a 3' Chinese-fan Palm and soon I'll also (hopefully) have a 6-7' Christmas (Manila) Palm indoors in a 20" pot (see below).

<img src="http://www.pronetworks.org/main/images/blurb/manila_lg.jpg">

What's everyone else doing outdoors?

[Grav!ty]

Those are beautiful healthy looking plants John. Looks like your timing is right with getting them in

At this time of year over here it's not planting time and although I need to get quite a lot of stuff in, I'm holding off for early spring. At the moment I'm nursing a camphor tree (evergreen) which is at about 7 ft but had to trim it drastically recently to get new growth going in the right places...up. I need it as a large shade tree really in the long run where I am, and it grows at about a meter and half (4 to 5 ft) a year if it's tended well and fed and watered. I've mulched the ground around it well to retain moisture and have a good "bowl" dug around the stem for watering. I'm hoping it doesn't get hit by one of our "black frosts" during winter.

[kanaloa]

Oh I wish the above were mine, that's just a photo of the one I'm trying to get my hands on. I've found one locally, but I'm trying to have one shipped up from Florida. LOL, it's an obsession when I find one I want.

Graham I would love to live in a location near where you are. Most of the plants I really love to grow come from not far away, over on Madagascar.

[kanaloa]

OK, here's the size plant I'm getting. I put in my special order for a dual trunk one tonight. This one is great, but it's quadruple trunks and almost $400.

<img src="http://www.pronetworks.org/main/images/blurb/Palm2.jpg">

I'm excited... I always wanted a palm like this indoors.

Sorry for the pic quality... it's my cell camera.

[augie]

That's going inside? I guess it has to for the winter but won't you run out of ceiling eventually? BTW, the pic is great.

[Grav!ty]

Those are wonderfull looking plants John

I think the pot size and the amount of feeding one does can control the size quite nicely. Many indoor palms are species that don't grow very high anyway I think. I guess one could also trim the roots to control growth if necessary, pretty much like one bonzai's a plant.

A favorite indoor plant here is a ficus (wild fig tree) which grows huge in nature but in a pot gets to about 7 or 8 ft max and then levels of at that size

[jojo]

I didn't know the Benjamina fig got that big in the wild. wow! Mine is about 8 ft high and 8-9 ft across..
I've had it 25 yrs, and the guy I got it from had it for 10yrs. It does indeed not get bigger, nor do the trunks get much thicker. Its also quite the leave dropper

[Grav!ty]

I'm not sure of the exact species...but they get massive JoAnn. Here we know not to plant them near a swimming pool or too close to a building because their roots are known to break them

[kanaloa]

That's going inside? I guess it has to for the winter but won't you run out of ceiling eventually? BTW, the pic is great.

Yep, it's about 7.5' tall, can get up to probably 15-20' indoors. Our foyer goes to about 18' or so, maybe 20'. Originally we'd considered just putting it out in the main room, but since the ceiling is only 8', that became impossible. So it's home will be the foyer at the entry. It'll get good light there though, it's a south wall with two windows above.

Only negative is we already have a 6.5' majesty palm, but it should fit somewhere else now. We might even leave it in the foyer for now, put the Christmas Palm outdoors for the summer. I'm sure it'll enjoy the warm weather anyway. I'll post pics once we have it.

Graham, it's always awesome to see what BIG trees look like when they are small. Lots of folks grow the ficus here too. In fact we almost used them in the wedding with white lights. On the subject of small plants that get large (which they all do in time) I purchased a baby Christmas palm last week on eBay and it came yesterday in the mail. I was asking Natasha if she could guess what it was. She had no idea it was the same tree we're getting next week. LOL Here's the baby. In about 5-8 years, ideally it could be the same size as the one we're getting... but SC is far from idea for these trees. So that'll help slow their growth too.

<img src="http://www.pronetworks.org/main/images/blurb/d1_1.JPG">