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Palm Trees, Cycads, Bromeliads and other Tropical Plants
Dictyosperma album
Hurricane Palm
Welcome to palm-trees.org. Here you will find pictures, mostly of my palm trees, cycads, bromeliads and other
tropical plants, but also I will include related galleries of interest to palm tree enthusiasts. The related galleries Kew, Eden, Palmetum, etc., contain pictures of many types of palm trees not commonly seen in cultivation and over time I will be adding information for all palm tree types making an extensive resource for education and information gathering purposes.
It is my intention to create a new gallery of palm tree pictures for my own collection each month illustrating the palms' growth
rates and any other changes to my plants throughout the seasons. Most of my palm trees are quite
small at the moment, so over time it will be possible to observe the entire life cycle from
seed or seedling to mature plant. It will also illustrate germination times as well as show
how my palm collection grows or changes over time. The galleries will also contain general
information about each of the palm trees and other tropical plants pictured.
The palms, cycads and tropical plants sections, which have now been added, have a separate
gallery for each plant, which includes more specific information about the actual plants pictured.
This view illustrates how the individual plant changes over time and includes information about palm tree care including any
changes to the plant, be it re-potting, change of environment or changes to feeding and watering regime.
Cyrtostachys renda
Sealing Wax Palm
At the moment and for the foreseeable future, most of my own collection is focused on smaller species of palms. This is partly due to a lack of space, but also due to my wanting to grow tropical plants as pot plants, which can either be easily protected from winter temperatures or used as houseplants. Whilst there are already many palms widely available for use as houseplants, that have been tried and tested for many years, there is an abundance of smaller palm species that are still relatively rare in cultivation and becoming less common in habitat. Whilst I certainly don't condone rogue seed collection of endangered palm species, there are often seeds or plants available through legitimate sources, which may provide the only chance for the ongoing survival for some palms.
In the future, as well as the monthly updates, I intend to build up an extensive online catalogue of palm trees, cycads, bromeliads and tropical plants, including photos, descriptions, habitat information and status, availability and cultural information, which will grow into a useful reference point for anyone interested in growing tropical plants.
Ravenea moorei
Hopefully you will find some of the existing information here useful and be able to learn from my successes
and failures. Any feedback about the website or the plants would be greatly appreciated, so
please feel free to contact me (Corey) with your thoughts or questions. I am always open to suggestions and recommendations and will endeavour to help with any questions people may have.
Any return visitors to the site will have noticed a new (hopefully improved) layout, which I have designed based on feedback from visitors to the site and will hopefully prove to be less awkward at smaller screen resolutions. For those interested in or in the process of designing their own website, I would also be glad to help, if I am able, with any site design difficulties people may have.
Thank you for taking the time to visit The Palm Haven.
I highly recommend that anyone with an interest in palm trees takes the time to visit The International Palm Society and their online forum Palm Talk. I have found the forum, particularly, to be an invaluable resource, with many like minded people, some with many years of palm growing experience and all of whom very willing to share their knowledge.
Palm Trees Of The Month
I thought it might be fun to have a Palm Tree Of The Month section, with a picture and a little information, which may expose people to Palm species that they have not previously encountered. Due to copyright issues, I will only use Palm species of which I already have photo's, but as I intend to increase my collection of Palm photo's over time, this shouldn't prove to be too limiting.
November 2008 Palm Tree Of The Month - Bismarckia nobilis (Bismarck Palm)
Bismarckia nobilis
Bismarck Palm
Bismarckia nobilis comes from open grassland areas of Northern and Western Madagascar, where it grows in full sun from an early age. In habitat, mature specimens usually reach 18m (60') with a sturdy, up to 450nn (18") dia., smooth, light brown or grey trunk. The trunk has a slight basal flare and indentations caused by former leaf bases, although the leaves are persistent on newer parts of the trunk. The crown is large and impressive up to 7.5m (25') and almost spherical. It consists of many palmate (fan shaped) leaves up to 3m (10') across on sparsely armed, 1.8m (6') long petioles. Leaf colour is variable between individuals, ranging from light green to silvery blue or occasionally darker blue. The blue forms often produce dark red or bronze coloured leaves when young. Mature specimens are fairly drought tolerant and can survive light frosts with temperatures down to -5°C (23°F) for short periods. They are also not too fussy about soil type, growing in some fairly poor soils, although good drainage is necessary. Bismarckia nobilis is a dioecious species, having separate male and female plants, which can't generally be determined until they flower. Their impressive appearance and adaptability make them a useful specimen palm for larger gardens or landscaping projects and the bluer forms fit in well with Xeriscapes. With good nutrient supply and regular moisture growth rate can be fairly fast at all stages of development.
This picture was taken during my April 2007 visit to The Palmetum De Santa Cruz in Tenerife. The Palmetum has had a mixed history, losing several species due to lack of funding, but an injection of new funds over the past 18-24 months, as well as plant and seed donations from various private collectors have helped to get the Palmetum back on track and it is now home to over 400 species again.
Bismarckia nobilis is becoming a popular landscape palm in many areas and is fairly widely available, occasionally even through mainstream stores. Seeds are usually available from Rare Palm Seeds or Ortanique, both of whom offer an international mail order service for many palm species via their online stores.
Site News: 24th April 2008
The "Palms" section of the site has now been replaced with the palm trees database that I have been working on. Whilst the database is still incomplete, it already features many more species that the old palms section. For those still wanting to view the archived pages, there is a link at the bottom of the new page.
Site News: 3rd August 2007
Some visitors to the site may have noticed that the Palms, Cycads and Tropical sections of the site have not had June or July updates yet. There are a few reasons for this, but these areas are the most lengthy, by far, to maintain, but get fairly minimal use by visitors to the site. For the most part there is usually little change to report from month to month for most plants and what information is given is usually apparent from the photo. Rather than spend the time to do this each month, I will add the photos without new information, so that the plants can still be seen by species, rather than the gallery view, but I will also add a journal (I don't care for the term blog) for the entire collection, detailing any noteworthy changes. Hopefully this will free up some time, allowing me to add more information to other species in the related galleries.
I also intend to add the various species from the related galleries to the palms, cycads and tropical sections, which will make it easier to find pictures and information on specific species.
Finally, I have been making some general page layout changes, which make the site more suitable for visitors with high screen resolutions. All of the main index pages are changed and a few galleries, but it will be an ongoing process over the coming months to get everything into the new format. As always, any feedback or suggestions are welcomed.
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