Small palms - Spindles, especially triples, Bottles, Thrinax and Cocothrinax species (since many are natives), European Fans.

Medium size palms - Foxtails, especially doubles and triples, Teddy Bears, Window Palms

Large palms - Kings, Picabeens, Solitares

There are probably dozens more, but these are the ones I can say I've used extensively in landscape design and are also easy and fast to grow.

Hi
I think if it were me and had the room I'd go for the
rare types. If they are easy and fast growing they automaticly bring a much lower price like everything else in the world.?? There is a lot of competition
Ones that consistantly bring very high prices are royals ,Coconuts .and Dates .Bismarks Of course they want them large ,well grown but good lord are they willing to spend the money on them.lol
All the ones mentioned are available at most box stores and who could compete with them.??
Of course with the rare and slow growing better prices but of course much tougher to produce and much smaller market I'm sure. Even with these there are several nurseries producing them so suspect most of the market is mail order?? gary

Gary - let me save you some money. No one ever got rich on selling just rare palms. Go ask Jeff Searles the question. Yeah, he grows some of the rarest ones around, but stuff like Arboricola and Plumbago pay the bills.

In terms of the palms you mention, there are already too many growers with fields of Royals, Coconuts, and Dates. Royal prices have been coming down, Coconuts are throwaways and can be purchased as cheaply as Queens, and the only real expensive Date palms are already 10 years old.

Yes, HD and Lowes have Spindles and Bottles, but it's rare that anyone else does. However, neither of the big box stores have any of the other palms I mentioned.

To be honest, the best palm anyone can grow for investment is the Foxtail. It has become the replacement of choice for both Queens and Washingtonias throughout the three southern counties. They grow fast, seed is plentiful, and the need is escalating for this particular palm. If I had an acre to spare, I'd pack it with Foxtails in the ground and several dozen doubles and triples in big cans. There's a 401k for you!

Thank you both for your advice!

Foxtail Palms are one of my favorites, and my husband likes them too. It is a plus that they are self-cleaning, thornless and fast-growing. I'll start looking for seeds/seedlings soon. There are some real beauties outside Ruby Tuesday's in Stuart that I've been admiring.

Anyone know of a good source, or have a mature tree that you'd be willing to trade/sell seed from, in season?

I have some rarer palms such as "Flamethrowers" but those I'd rather keep(G).

Does anyone need Areca seedlings? There are countless ones coming up in our yard from the neighbor's huge hedge. You dig 'em, you can have them!

Lisa

I'm betting carpoxylons are going to be the new rage.

To get more information try contacting your extionsion office. They usually have some one who works with professional grows. You can pick their brain too. Good Luck.

I have a friend who offers me about 3000 seeds each year on foxtails. Every time I go over there, if I want to pick them up there is probably close to 1000 each time. I have thought about growqing liners just for this very reason. I have watched the large palm market for the last 20 years and you see things come and go. Something like a 25 foot royal wholesales at about $325MOL which for me doesn't seem worth growing all that time and absorbing the cost of digging and preparing for sale. Canaries have always been the big money large palms up this way, but they are rather slow growing. The happening plant today is P. silvestris. There are some really attractive blue ones out there now and they grow much much faster than canaries, AND they wholesale fopr a little more at about $245 per foot of stem so you can grow $1500 palms in about 8 years, which isn't bad. If you space them out right, you can place some faster growing foxtails between the dates and double up your crop the way they do with queens and robeliniis now.

fawnridge
Your about 25 years too late saving me money lol On a grow area 30x75 If I were to go commercial it would be orchids or water plants not landscape anyway.
Personally I don't see how Searles sells anything .Ridiculouly over priced. It is a great place to look around and see some of the rarities. I bought all my rarities from Palms and Gardens but I'm far too old for palms lol My only remaining palm project is an attempt to Bonsai some queens . 9 years old and still under 6 feet!!!
Can't wait to see if they seed this summer proof that the only thing different is the size.
Palms are for patient people with lots of space.!!
Lisa good luck with whatever you decide even if you don't sell them you will have the the pleasure of watching them grow. I always gave away my extras ..You think that's why I never got rich ??lol

Of course, you could always put cycads in the ground and breed them for seed production. As long as you don't choose Cycas species, you won't have the scale problems some people have, and if you have a good way to get rid of the scales on sagos (which you can pick upo for free these days) an acre of ground with a planting of 6 to 1 females to males will, on averge produce $60,000 worth of seeds each and every year, and you still get to keep the plants. More rare species can produce even more money for a smnaller space. I have several plants in 7 gallon containers that produce $500 worth of seeds each pot, a zamia in a 25 gallon pot that produced $1000 worth of seeds and another zamia in a 25 that produced $2500 worth of seeds one year.(I was giving it a reast last year) Just another thought, especially for anyone with smaller places to grow in, and you don't have to dig or lift any plants.

Cycadjungle, aren't most/all cycads poisonous? I do love how they look, and the long history behind them, but after seeing so many deaths at the Pet ER from Cardboard Palm seed toxicicity, I decided not to have any on my property.

Selling seeds sounds *great,* but not if my beloved dogs are in danger from playing with, gnawing seeds or foliage.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I admit to being a real newbie as far as Palms/Cycads.

Gary and Ricky,
We are young enough to grow Palms. But, is it more sensible to grow them in containers? I did not think that digging them up/burlapping would be a cost borne by the seller.

How does it work, usually?

Say I have 100 mature Palms in the ground. I assumed that the buyer would dig and transport them?

Cycadjungle, please decipher the price code- what does MOL mean? Are they priced by height or age or spread? Sorry to ask dumb questions, but where better to find experts that ate willing to tolerate fools, than here on friendly GW?

Many thanks for your patience!

Lisa

Like in most situations, whether you are talking about plant costs or real estate, MOL means, more or less. In this case, the $325 was an average price, because some will sell for more and some will sell for less. Every plant is going to be sold differently. So lets say we area talking about royals. In this case they have two ways to price. Over all height (which is what I quoted) and then a higher price that is estimated at feet of grey wood, which if you remember they have a green crownshaft, so in that way of pricing, it would be the hight of the stem and only the grey part and not including the crownshaft. Big growing dates as they are still smaller might sell in over all height, but when they get about 2 to 5 feet of stem, then they are sold as feet of stem, This price will also vary quite a bit on who is selling them.
On cycads, yes ALL parts of cycads are poisonous. Animals rarely have a problem with eating this stuff, but for some reason the furfuraceas seem to cause the majority of the problems with small animals. If you did grow cycads for seeds, you would want to fence that off from any of your animals. It is certainly not for everyone and fortunately for me, it isn't, because I do pretty well with seeds right now.
As far as deciding what to sell, you can sell palms in containers and in the ground. If you sell them in containers, you have a lot more upkeep, which you wanted to avoid, and they don't grow as fast or as big as they would in the ground. Normal wholesale prices WOULD BE the price where you prepare them for sale and even load them on the trucks that go out. When the time is right to sell them, you will either have to buy or rent equipment. You can however sell a whole field to a broker for a reduced price, if you are really trying to avoid the real work of having a tree nursery, but many times that will be about half the regular price, which may be good enough for you.
A bit of advise would be, the nursery business is not an easy one. If someone wants to throw a bunch of palms out in the yard and then all of a sudden make a pile of money on them without really working too hard, there isn't a whole lot of that happening out in the real world. Even if you have a good product at a good price, there is no guarantee that you will sell the product. It helps to know people and get set up with people who want the product before you put it up for sale, which also takes a lot of work and marketing. I can tell you from experience, if you go up to business people with something that you just need to get rid of, they will take major advantage of you just about every time. At least palms are easier to sell than cycads. The majority of the people who really know cycads would probably say that I am at least in the top 5, for cycad growers in the world, and still, after 22 years of growing, I still have a hard time just being able to pay my basic bills and have enough to buy a load of soil once a year, fertilizer, and containers, yet alone having a little extra do to anything special.

Lisa - If you are going to become a major nursery and sell to the larger landscapers, then grow your stock in the ground because it will be easier and cost you less. The larger landscapers are equipped for digging, the smaller ones and your retail customers are not.

I would recommend containers.

Ditto Junglegal. Stock up now so you have some ready when the craze hits.

WOW...carpoxylons are absolutely stunning.

A friend of mine around the corner gets weekly (atleast) offers via business cards shoved in his doorway, etc., of $600-$800 for his aprox 15 yr old Canary Island Date Palm (looks like a huge pineapple with a stem) growing in his front yard. I'm sure thats not info you could base your business on, but I'm guessing there must be a market for them since so many different places seem to be after his.

If they're offering to pay him $600 - $800, digging it up themselves, planting a new baby palm of his choosing in it's place and repairing any sod damage...I wonder how much *they* get for'm.

Acoreana, I was told that the huge Palms used in the Garden's Mall plantings cost $6000 and up, each!

I've seen large Palms at Excalibur for $3500. One that price was a Ponytail(huge), I'm not sure what the other was.

$600-to $800 sounds way too low.

I'm going to start collecting large containers now, and get seeds/seedlings in season.

Lisa

Lisa, I have a big pot you can have. It's 18" high and 23" wide.

Lisa - I have lots of 7 gallon and 15 gallon cans that you can have. I also have a Spindle palm in full bloom. You're welcome to the seeds when they're ripe.

Foxtails don't bloom very often, but there are hundreds in our community. I'll keep my eyes open for seeds.

AAACCKKK!!! No wonders!

He loves that thing and wouldn't part with it - I'm gonna tell'm about your info and start calling it his 401k, he'll get a kick out of that.

I'm liking your business plan more & more...

How many could I fit on my .17 acres...hmmmmmm...just kidding!

Lisa,

Check botanicalauctions.com. They have 115 foxtail seeds on there right now for $8. I believe these auctions are run by the Florida Nursery Growers Association. Lots of other seeds there too.

Bill

Lisa are you only considering retailing/wholesaling in your local area, throughout the state, region, etc? Supplying the regional market with fast growing palms that have a tropical appeal (like the Mule Palm, Canary Date, Silver Litoralis Queens, etc) push the zone limits, are rare, very tropical looking, and can be marketed beyond Florida. Just some thoughts.