The less reputable nursery may have not told you that the ones they exhibit were grown in a greenhouse. It's not so much shade they need in AZ but more water, humidity and a deeper and richer soil. In habitat (Queensland Australia) they grow in full sun but the climate is monsoonal tropical and the soil is deep so that, in the dry season, the roots can reach the water table. If you really want to grow them (and who in nontropical areas DOESN'T?) dig a deep hole (and as wide as you can) through the hardpan and fill it with organic material and water the heck outta them. Your water may also be a problem, unless it's free of salts.
Also--and I'm probably about to talk you out of the pursuit here--be sure you don't plant them too deep. Even here in FL they sometimes languish and eventually die because their bases(juncture of stem and roots) are planted too deep.

"be sure you don't plant them too deep"

I bought 10 each 4 ft tall, bare root Foxtails in Feb with 2 or 3 well-leaved fronds. Potted them up and they immdiately lost their leaves, ended up with 10 pots of poles.

In past 2 or 3 weeks, 7 poles have deployed into leaves, with new spears pushing up vigorously.

After seeing your "too deep" comment, I checked. All the active Foxtails are sorta high in the soil, showing up to 1/2 inch of root. Not intended that way, but the soil settled a bit.

And sure enough, the 3 that have not deployed their poles into leaves were noticeably lower in the dirt. I removed a layer of dirt to expose 1/2" of their roots, so we'll see if that kicks their leaves into deployment (which can happen overnight, amazingly fast).

Hey Unautre,

I have about 14 Foxtail palm seedlings in pots right now. It took 4 months to germinate them but now they are all 12-15 inches tall and I did plant the seed close to the top of the soil in most of them. Now I need to go take a look at them again and make sure some of the shorter seedlings are too deeply buried.

I have about 30 Washingtonia "Filabusta" seedlings that I need to upgrade into one gallon pots this weekend. They are in a community tub now and they need more room to grow.

thanks for info

rlriffle_FL_zone10, do you have an in pics of a properly planted foxtail.

csj111, alas, no. I have 10,000 slides but have yet to go digital--and no scanner.

A properly planted foxtail will show the basal bulge of the trunk ABOVE the soil line, or even a few roots below that swelling. Bulge above should DO it though.

I am in the Phoenix area and have had a foxtail palm outside in my yard for years... Its in part shade, not so much to protect from the sun, but to protect from frost..

I have seen people in Phoenix grow then in full sun to part shade...foxtails in sun likes lot of water... foxtails are slow to recover from damage from a freeze or heavy frost, but given the protection of other trees, moderates the cold..

Foxtails that were grown in full sun are ok to plant in full sun, but if grown under shade or in a greenhouse its best to let them adjust to the sun over time... I have found foxtails slow to recover from any damage, too much sun or cold....

I just happened to be at Selby Gardens in Sarasota the other day, and snapped a Foxtail properly planted.

This one is mature, but basically you want the trunk planted "high and dry". From your book, Bob, it mentions that Foxtails are native to rocky soils in northern Australia that are very well draining, from what I remember.

That's a great photo, cfkingfish!

Hi to everyone - My foxtail is 10 metres tall - fair enough I live in Queensland, but the soil conditions are at best very poor.

We are on the top of a headland, the first 50cm or so is sand and then a couple of metres of clay sitting ontop of bedrock.

The palm gets no special watering and has grown four metres in the past two years.

It gets full sun all day and that doesn't seem to phase it. The only problem you will have is cold - but with ingenuity and some bales of straw you should be able to keep the worst off them.

I have 2 foxtail palms in 24in boxes. How do I plant them? I mean, what is the correct procedure? And what is the correct soil mixtures? I am from California and these palms will be in full sun light.

Do these palms not adjust well to being transplanted to a new pot? I recently bought one about 4 feet high that had one frond and one spear that looked stunted in growth for 4.99 so I was quick to buy it. Once repotted, the fronds are getting brown.

Planted a dozen of Lowes $10.00 foxtails about two months ago in Cape Coral. Digging into this hardpack ground is way too much trouble for my lazy butt. I found it simpler to stand them up on the grass and pack a couple of bags of soil around them. Adding cypress mulch around the soil locked everything in place. They're shooting up like weeds!

TWO ADVANTAGES: 1) Perfect drainage, as long as you don't push the dirt above the root crown. 2) They start out in the landscape a foot taller than putting them in the ground. To date, they're all still alive, and each has produced an average of four new fronds.

I discovered this method 2 years ago when I had to plant 250 areca palms (12" tall) around the yard perimeter for privacy, and was too lazy to dig 250 holes. The arecas are all about 10 feet tall now and none of them died. This also worked out for the larger palms in the yard, including coconuts, adonidias and canary island date palms. Neighbors questioned my sanity, telling me that I was killing all the trees. Now I'm amazed at all the new above-ground trees that are being planted in the neighborhood.

If I could figure out a way to insert images into this reply, the photos would say it better than I can.

Uploaded a photo of surface-planted palms to this URL:

Here is a link that might be useful: Surface-planted Palms

Can anyone help me...I have become the owner of a huge pod of seeds from a fox tail palm tree. I think they are seeds....or are they the fruit of this tree? They are a clump with a washing basket full of round fruit like things. They started to fall off so I put them in a basket and left them in the sun. Someone told me that they have to dry out. Is this true? They are all going soft and are turning from an orangy colour to a rotting black colour........Please help me, if would really like to foster them.