Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Today at Heathcote Botanical Gardens of Fort Pierce Florida, Brandan and I exposed 1 European Fan Palm ( Chamaerops humilis ) and 1 Pygmy Date Palm ( Phoenix roebelenii ) that were knocked over ( probably during a hurricane ). Both of these Palm Trees can grow up to 15 feet and should be placed 8-10 feet apart when planting. These Palms are drought tolerant making them great for xeriscaping. The one thing about these Palm Trees is that they are covered in very sharp spines so I recommend protection and caution when handling or trimming them.

When walking by these unique Palms you could barely see their trunks. So, I dug out around the trunks to give the effect that they were hovering across the ground. We also trimmed them up a bit to make them look better. There were Cardboard Palms (Zamia furfuracea ) sprouting up all over the place and Oyster Plants ( Tradescantia spathacea ) were everywhere. There were a few Date Palms( Pheonix reclinata ) that sprouted up, we removed them too. We dug up the Cardboard Palms and potted them and we pulled up the Oyster Plants and through them into the dump pile. We also trimmed some of the other Palm Trees that were in the area and pulled up a bunch of Boston Ferns too. We made a nice path that wasn't there before that allows you to walk behind the scenes. It looks very good if you ask me. The following are pictures of today's adventure.


Here are the before pictures of the European Fan Palm Tree.





This is after I dug the Palm Tree out to reveal the trunk.



These are the before pictures of the second Pygmy Date Palm Tree. You can barely see the trunk. Half of it is under ground completely.







These are the after pictures of the Pygmy Date Palm Tree that was completely under ground.





Finally this is a picture that captures both of the newly exposed Palm Trees.



I hope you enjoyed the pictures, see you again next time! Have a great day!


1 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like the fronds on that palm tree. Weird that they grew that way.