Dbyral, Where do you live? I'm very impressed by what is in your garden!!! Are you in Kansas? If you are then...yes I'm really impressed!!! Congratulations on you plants and your Plumeria...I'm waiting for one more shipment from So/Ca. soon...Hopefuly my hubby will be at work!!! LOL so I can mingel them in to my aready existing collection!!! LOL I tried to see where you lived by clicking on to your screen name but didn't let me see where you live...but we do share the same birthday!!! Happy belated Birthday!!! Thanks again for your posting!!! You even made me laugh out loud!!! I feel your pain because I too have many palms in the ground as well as in pots... I just went on a road trip to southern Florida with my mother...she didn't realize what she was getting into with me ina rented van...down in Florida visiting Lowes and Home Depot!!! Christmas for me!!! It was like Thelma and Louise visiting FL....only I could't see out of the rearview mirror!!! LOL anyway...I had to do all of the same repotting after my trip...thank GOD for hot tubs!!! Laura

M Hello anyone. Here are my experiences. I live in San Diego, California and after the wild fires destroyed my entire house, I rebuilt and re-landscaped with palm trees. After knowing nothing about those plants and some failures, I now have a palm tree "forest" in my front yard. So...king palms look magnificant in "singles"; avoid washingtonians because in a few years they will too tall to cut/trim. Avoid queen palms because they must be trimmed when they get tall. Windmill palms are trouble free but must be trimmed after they reach 15' high or so. I went to Target garden center and purchased several kentia palms (3 plants in each pot) for $19 each and took them home and very very carefully seperated them individually and planted them outside as understory palms. The first 20 months they grew slowly but didn't burn and were fine. Now the sun doesn't bother them at all and they are growing faster and faster. Kentia palms and king palms grow wonderfully and somewhat fast indoors as house plants. Have them but never over water them. Use palm fertilizer and occasionally fish fertilizer. Beautiful house plants....then move them outside when too large and acclimate them and put them into the ground in your landscaping. A good outdoor palm is the fox tail palm...it also is self -cleaning. But good house palms for fast beautiful growth are kentia, king, and cat palms.

My furnace died on Thanksgiving. Luckily I had a 20 year old electric spave heater because I didn't get my new furnace until the following Monday. My most tropical palms saw some temperatures in the mid 50s but came through fine.

I did not mean to offend anyone, natives are good but you can't just plant them and leave them. I think you would have to do a fair bit of research regarding the best natives for your situation. You cant just stereotype them, give them the same treatment and expect them to look good. I did not tell nickyz to forget natives, just reconsider where they are to be planted. Palms (natives) do not cause the same leaf (and root) problems as other plants near pools to that would be the best option for this situation. On the gold coast I imagine that you can grow a very pleasing tropical native garden. If you do choose natives, you have to look after them. A really good book to get started is "Starting out with natives" by John Wrigley and Murray Fagg.