Great pics dixieboy!I dident know north carolina was that good for growing palms.I realize your near the coast,but what zone are you considered?You might have told this before and I just missed it.You have a great looking yard,nice palms,and I also like the agave,it fits in with the palms.I have 6 agaves in pots,I dont know if there cold hardy.Im tyring one in the ground to find out.I wanted to ask you what type of soil do you have,sand or did you admind with something.Why I ask is because all your plants look like there very happy.I dident know sabal minors actually grew a trunk,I never seen one with a trunk.What is your trick with keeping your palms so happy,do you buy palm fertilizer spikes or something else,let me know,because I find this product that says amazing palm growth,on the net,It says it will make them grow supper fast and Its suppost to be stuff you have around the house.Its called extreme palm growth,its like 50dollars for these secret formulas,I dont believe the hype.What do you do and have you heard of this stuff?Once again great landscape looks very tropical.

Really good rescue and FYI, that sabal minor is different than the ones sold at Lowes or nurseries as cold weather palms. It is called a Hatterus Palm (still classified a s. minor from what I read). However they are far more dramatic in palm size and attractiveness. One palm frod can easily excede 6 feet whereas the minors on the market are a much smaller variety.

The one you have pictures close to your house looks like its swampy at least part of the year. When I saw them in swamps this summer they were huge and happy. What beauties.

We just consider ourselves as zone 8 here, maybe a tad better but that's it. The immediate coast from Hatteras southward are the tops. The plant in the middle of the needle palms in pic #3 is yucca rostrada. We have some nice sabal minors in the immediate area but nothing compared to those in south Louisiana & east Texas.
Our soil right here is black coastal lowland composition & mostly i use triple ten regular garden type food with some organic matter but i don't feed my plants that heavy, it just takes patience. Thank you for the compliments!

The zone map shows the whole NC coast as 8, yet the SE section of the state is well known to grow many palm varieties easily whereas in the north of NC some palms they died back occationally.

Here's a few more pics, i took the first three this morn in our community, the next two are minors with my friend Gary Hollar standing beside & kneeling by some that i have found in the immediate area through the years.
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Wow, It's you live in a really nice area dixieboy. Your yard looks great, couldn't look nicer. Those S. minors are some of the nicest I've ever seen.

The one in the first photo has a really clean trunk, did you strip it?

Very Very nice beach house looking style... very nice property and most important nice palms!!! are thoes mexican fan palms or cali fan palms? or somethin diff... they have huge fat trunks! the whole area is looking beautiful, great job and keep 'em coming!

The Cape Hatterus variety of the sabal minor are really awesome. Thanks for having your friend stand in front so everyone could grasp the scale on why the sabal minors we have from the stores are contrastly a different smaller variety. Some people are trying to guess what they are because they are rare. Just a note to anyone, they love swampy water.

How did yopu ever dig one up (rescue it) - weren't the roots 10 feet deep? I saw a 2 leaf baby in the wild with 14" roots.

Thank you, no, the trunk was pretty well clean when i transplanted it. The minor didn't hardly skip a beat!

Thank you very much, the only true robusta i've seen in this state is the one in Wilmington that i posted. All others are the mix of the two species.

If you will reread my post you're see that i got it from a eroding shore line, that means to say that most of the roots were exposed with just a few hang'in on. If i didn't get to it when i did it would have been a gonner in a short period of time.
Notice the third & fourth pic from the bottom, they are on high dry ground & they are found in both wet & dry situations here. Thanks

Very nice pics. Those sabal minors are probably over 15-20 years old!

These were set out when no bigger than straplings, 35 years old or more.
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Wow, for a 35 year old plant they are pretty small, but for a 35 year old sabal minor they look fantastic. Very nice leaves, and a very sizeable trunk too.
Thanks for sharing your pics!

Keep the pics coming Dixie,

These palms are impressive and I like the huge leaves. I hope my baby one grows.

I never tire of seeing your pics Carl. I was down south a month ago and snagged some of your one of your other favorites, spanish moss. I'm trying it on my crape myrtle but I don't expect it to live since I just put it on in October. I'm also trying to overwinter some inside so I have it next year.

I did the same exact thing as you, only I put the spanish moss on my trees today. Im definately not expecting it to survive the winter, but I just want to see how much it can handle. I also only have a little bit on the trees, and plenty left which will stay inside. If it lasts for most of the winter, Im definately sure I can manage to find a way to protect it to survive an entire winter, but if it dies after the first snow, then Ill have to face the facts that they cant grow here without some type of serious protection. My plan is to lay the remainder of my spanish moss on my trees in may (after nesting season for the birds so they dont steal as much) and let it grow during the summer and bring it inside aroudn this time of the year.

I don't know if you saw my post on the other board or not but there's a way of keep'in it alive where it is out of range. I think there's info by just go'in to google & typing 'spanish moss information' or something to that affect. Thanks!

It's amazing just how much S.minor can spread in a wet area. I live near the Tensaw River in south Alabama and during the winter when the cypress trees are bare you can look down from the I-65 bridge and see palmettos completely covering the forest floor.

Farther away from the river in the drier areas the Saw Palmetto (Serenoa) becomes more common.

The first three pics are Sabal minor (one of me collecting seeds ; ), the last is of Serenoa repens.

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Noth'in better than gett'in out in the woods during winter & see what can be found. These are some minors i found years ago. Gary is 6'4".
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These are close by our place on my cousins property.
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Nice little hide-away i found in my boat.
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I'm 6'2".
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Howdy to you Southerners:)
great shots guys,

The hatterus palms (s. minors) look like they grow larger in the swamp areas. What are winters like by you Dixie?

Friendly note to Spainsh Moss lovers,
Please look up spanish moss - its sooo ez to grow. During droughts its goes dormant (or cold) and just mist it a few days and it comes back. It likes 3/4 sun and humidity. It can't take our cold in zone 7 and should be brought indoors by Dec.
I will post pics of mine in NY.

I really don't know how to answer your question but normally it's mild & sometimes we get the unusual! Last winter we went down to 20.5 degrees twice & what seems like a bunch of like 22 or 23's. Nothing as mild like Florida i assure you! lol

Yeah, to find the best S.minors you definitely need some long rubber boots, the wetter it is the more they like it. Winter is best since the gators and skeeters aren't as active ;) I'm near the tip of the FL panhandle so it sometimes can get into the upper-teens here with mid-20's being more typical. I think the climate here is pretty much identical to the Wilmington area of NC.

Dixie,

You answered well. I was just wondering what winter is like in those areas where the palms are thriving. I pretty much have an idea its mild with significant cold snaps, but nothing like the witness of a resident who lives there. lol.

The time our cold air gets (teens) to you its moderated up about 12*, therefore you have some winters that pass by as a 8b-9a and the coldest are 8a.

Speaking of climate, as long as we have one that allows me to look out our bedroom window & have this view, i'm a happy camper!! lol
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Not sure what that has to do with climate but...

If you like that view; when I was visiting NC, I saw a Christian Church with a view that would change your landscape forever. It was Heavenly.