Great photos! The white bird of paradise is amazing.

Those are cool, thanks for sharing

Tallafl, those aren't White Birds (S. nicolai), they are Ravenala madagascariensis (Traveler's palm)--even more impressive under glass in the North! My question is what is the plant that is pictured in the photo directly about the Traveler's Palm?? I can't decide if it's a cycad, phoenix date or Chilean Wine palm. Thanks for posting.

Above the travelers palm is a phoenix date palm. It had a REALLY thick trunk!

Very nice wxman,thanks for posting these,I spent a little time in my tiny g/house today,the humid warm earthy air is nice to breath this time of year!
Not much longer to go now,should be a fun year,are you planting any other palms this spring/summer?

I am going to plant a parajubaea torallyi. :)

Got a street name on that?also,did the Ae Ae have any pups?you should have snagged one with what those go for (-; very cool nanar!when they are full grown they are incredibly beautiful,hands down my favorite banana plant! I think if you search the banana thread under Ae Ae you could find the pics of someone in Florida with them like 15' tall, if I rememeber correctly the fruit are striped green and white lengthwise, wicked!

The street name is Bolivian Mountain Coconut. The AEAE didn't have any pups that I noticed, and am sure security would have nabbed me if I tried to dig one up!

I was just kidding about the Ae Ae they are cool bananaa though,you should look at the post on the banana forum with the pics of the big Ae Ae,unbelievable,such beautiful nanars,I could not afford them so I had to settle for Canna stuttgart,oh well.
Whats going on up there?you did a great job getting you palms through the winter,your a pro now!did you guys ever get rid of all that snow?I remember a pic earlier in the winter where it looked like you guys had to tunnel out to your car or the street,what ever happened after the flood when all that water got in your Butia?

The snow is finally starting to melt here. Not fast enough, as there are plenty of piles and about 2 inches everywhere else, but it is noticeably less than it was during the heart of winter. Being my first winter on getting palms to go through the winter, I think I did a fairly good job. My backyard washingtonia robusta burned severely because of a GFI malfunction back in December. Learned my lesson there to not use GFI's because they are unreliable and trip easy. The butia is fine, the water all went away the next day and never returned. The combination of heavy rain and rapid snowmelt that day caused that problem. My cycas revoluta is starting to bronze on some of the fronds, which is weird because it handled -15F just fine earlier in the winter with the same protection and 5F caused some burning the other week. Probably because I lost some of that deep snowpack as insulation. Oh well, I hope it flushes this spring so it looks good again by early summer. I'm also anxious to see how my 10 musa basjoo overwintered their first winter in the ground. Hoping there's not many casualties with them. How much money per month are you spending on heating all your structures? I was considering erecting a greenhouse sort of like yours over my backyard washingtonia and butia next winter and try to heat it to 55 to 60F and see if I can continue getting them to grow all winter.... a sort of experiment.

Awsome pics! Makes me want to to take a trip to our 2 green house here in the city! wxman81 your not far if your ever in town theres the licoln park conservatory and the one I prefer ( the on I prefer ) the garfield park conservatory.

Wxman,I think that you should go for it if you want to, I don't really know how much extra it would be,in my opinion the amount of growth you may get would not be worth all the effort and extra cost,I have learned this through experience(the hard way)the past few years and after trying 5 or 6 different protection methods,I will lean more towards something simple like leaf cages because its not just providing heat to the air but also keeping the soil warm.

Hey wxman,check out these pics of Musa Ae Ae,I especialy like the stripped bananas! This is definitely one I would like to get at sometime,gotta be my favorite banana plant and would look really cool with Rowe red banana planted in front of it!

Here is a link that might be useful: Musa Ae Ae

I love the look of that banana! I wish I lived in a warmer climate so I could grow that outside!!

They are awesome,I have seen 2'-3'plants go for $300 on e-bay!
I guess I will just have to settle for my canna stuttgart

Here is a link that might be useful: Canna Stuttgart