Haha, I like the CA and Florida joke... I have been through this one for years and years. Both in the nursery environment and in the landscape design/installation. The way I see it, there are 2 real alternatives to Queen Palms: Phoenix Dactylifera and Mexican Fans. Dactylifera are very pricey to get some with any size but they are very reliable, elegant, and fit much better to the desert. Mexican Fans are a lot less expensive but will not stop growing ! They also don't have quite the canopy of Queens or Date palms. Queens are just a bit risk. Besides just the nutrients, excessive water usage, etc. they get a fungus which spread through neighborhoods and is a real pain to distinguish. Also, Queen Palms only have a healthy life expectancy of 15-25 years in most cases. If you are looking long term and want some nice shady palms, it may be worth investing in the Date Palms. Bismark Palms are great, we use them a lot, but they take a while to get the lazy/shady size and lack the greenery look that people are going for with the Queens . If you calculate the cost of a few Dactylifera over 10-20 years - and the QUeens. With all the water costs and fertilizers, and replacements, fungacides, etc etc. It makes a lot more sense here in the desert. Here is a link that might be useful: arizona landscaping blog

My neighbor has a few queen palms and she keeps them in the corner of her yard near 2 sides of the block wall fence. This seems to keep it warm enough in the winter as it's never really looked bad. They hang over the wall and shade the block wall in the summer which is really nice. Another plant not mentioned here if you're looking for a tropical look is banana trees. You can get some that are very cold tolerant, and even if they aren't, it's only the leaves that die in our winters here (afaik).

Nah, not really. What I did was waited until a Saturday, potted the popped ones, then waited a week and planted the one or two stragglers the next Saturday. Pretty much after that, I didn't have any that popped. However what you might do is something I just recently started. Take unpopped seeds, put them in water, if they floated, I pitched them. If they sank, I threw into a bucket with natural dirt from my back yard. Then I forget about them. I think I will check on them about April and see if anything is going on.

I now have 8 of them growing here in Lakeland. We're certainly a solid zone 9a, but definitely not close to a zone 10a like St. Petersburg, or the more southerly locales. Mine have grown pretty well with minimal care. They just sit out in the sun and put leaves out, not to mention the usual 20 feet of roots for a 2 foot plant. I've heard that they typically sucker early and often. My seeds were from a seller in Australia. I bought 35 seeds, but about 20 of them succumbed to mold. When you start them, make sure the dirt is barely moist.