Wes I'll take a ride down there next weekend and see what I can find. I can always use plenty of Trachy seeds 😀

Todd,
let me know. I can always send you some more seeds.

I think the cities in the Okanagan Valley should have these Washingtonia filifera used as temporary summer street trees. You know, large (ish) specimen in big planters on a boulevard etc that can be set out by the parks board and stored for winter. They'd love the summer that you guys get there, plenty of heat and sun.

Cheers, Barrie.

Barrie,
Great idea.
They'd look so good in those big exposed aggregate planters.
Maybe it'd catch on if one community did it.

Barb

Great idea Barrie. I guess I could make up an info package for W.filifera and M.Basjoos and go down to the parks dept. They mostly have things planted like flowers and Canna lillies. Cost and close mindedness re: palms, bananas will be the biggest hurdle to having this happen. I can hear it now "but we`ve always done it this way" .Maybe if I donate about 10 of my W.filifera and get the city to buy another 10 or more larger ones and show em pics of Victoria,Nanaimo.Tswwassen,Salt Spring Island, Vancouver public plantings. Maybe worth a shot.

John

John and Barb ... these are tremendous palms, worthy of some showing in even some small scale in a high profile area. I know what you mean when you say "but we`ve always done it this way". I've dealt (albeit indirectly) with Parksville city council on Vancouver Island. It's a very affluent community here and certainly capable of authorizing expendatures for sizeable public gardens. My spokesperson was very ardent but was unsuccessfull in perseuding council on public palm plantings in conjuction with a "community in blooms" project. (what better chance)
I'm not sure what the hold up was dispite many other cities already on the band wagon. Funny how some old fuddy-duds can say ... "ohh, there not native here!", while all the nurseries in town sell palms and a million other non native plants.
I don't know what the best approach is for your communties are but even some assistance / input to the parks board people might be the kicker. Rudy Pinkowski did this for Vancouver back in the 80's and look at the English Bay area of the city now ... the Canadian riviera!

Best of luck and Cheers, Barrie.

Don't we (Kelowna or Vernon or ? ) have a sister city in California?
That might be a convincing angle. 😉

Barrie, there's always a fuddy duddy in every crowd; just a matter of finding someone like you did,
who will keep their feet to the fire...or find an advocate in the parks department.

Vernon's entrance and exit highways are awful (compared to Kelowna's gorgeous landscaping).
Our council squabbled over who was looking after the landscaping on the medians and divided highway near the Scales.
They couldn't reach consensus, so...they let the plants die.
I was appalled at this stupidity.

The only argument I could think of is where would they be kept to overwinter?

Great idea Barrie!
Barb

Barb ... when I lived on the BC mainland, Delta had an arrangment with some local greenhouses to store some of their summer plantings. Hoewlings Nursery alone had 47 acres under glass back then, who knows what they have now, and that's just one operation!
A small fee by one of the local greenhouse could certanly be arranged (you'd think) for a half dozen or more Washingtonia filifera. Shame about the highway plantings in Kelowna. Maybe some tough, low maintenance Yucca elata or such things would eliminate the problem of who's in charge of what.
There's no scripted method as to what works other than persistance and a sympathetic ear of someone in command.

Cheers, Barrie.

Barrie,
It's Vernon that allowed its median plants to die.
Kelowna's are lovely.

A citizen's committee could easily shame local government into some progress in Vernon.
I can just see myself and my friends' old fat rear ends sticking into highway traffic 😕 🙄 🙄
Barb

did you just stick'em in the dirt?

What's the benefit or advantage to the hurricane cut? Is it less of a demand for the tree to maintain fewer fronds while the palm roots in after planting?

Cheers, Barrie.

Exactly. Sabals will die if you leave the fronds on. These are all dug from farms and root pruned, so the crown must be cut off.

Not necessarily. I have about 20 tall Sabals in my yard and many were planted with full or almost full fronds and none has died so far in several years, except one may be in trouble as it was planted with very weakened fronds that looked sick yellow-green.