Below is the fourth, and concluding, installment of our survey of palms you should consider planting at the start of the rainy season: Livistona benthamii is a water-loving species native to Australia and New Guinea. It requires shade when young and light shade when older. As it grows, the brown trunk develops an attractive pattern…
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Here is the third installment of our survey of palms you should consider planting at the start of the rainy season: Copernicia macroglossa, the Cuban Petticoat Palm, is noted for the distinctive skirt of old leaves that persists around the trunk of the plant for many years. Like many species in its genus, C. macroglossa…
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We continue with our survey of palms you should consider planting at the start of the rainy season: Chelyocarpus chuco, a native of Bolivia and Brazil, is still uncommon locally. It produces glossy, circular palmate leaves and grow to 30-40 ft. in southern Florida. Seedlings need light shade, but older plants handle full sun. This…
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The rainy season is just around the corner. We know that in southern Florida May 20 marks the usual beginning of the rainiest part of the year, but why? Heat and humidity build throughout the spring until they reach the point of generating rainfall without the intervention of a cold front. The dew point is…
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Things are not always as they seem. Take the popular cashew. It looks for all the world like a nut, it is used culinarily as a nut, and just about everybody calls it a nut. But it’s really a seed, and a strange one, at that. The cashew tree, Anacardium occidentale, is an attractive, mid-sized tree…
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