San Jose ca royal palm.

That’s absolutely awesome! That’s big for a SF Bay Area Royal Palm. But, if it’s going to grow anywhere it would be the south bay, as it receives lots of heat during the summer.

I know Jim in Los Altos (from the palm society) has Royal palms.

It can be done here...but the drought really isnt a good time to try. I just hang on to my tiny rainforest in back and all the rest of the yards are dry type gardens. Aloes and succulent plants. Or the Mango yard since they are not big water needy plants.

Did you read the post on the palm board of the guy in Oakland on a southwest hill that he says never has frost and stays above 40f who is growing coconut palm? He says it made it through last winter. I had one in a pot die on me indoors!

I remember Warren Dolby (one of the original founders of The Palm Society) had one in the ground for 3 years back in the 1980’s. He had an amazing palm garden in the Oakland Hills. His very tall Ficus lyrata and 12 ft tall plumeria was extremely impressive, also. I wish I had a digital camera back in 1984 when I joined The International Palm Society. Unfortunately, his big house with many of the palms were destroyed in the Oakland Hills fire back in 1991.

I forgot to say: I went back to 2008 on Google Maps and saw this Royal palm when it was only ~7 ft tall. What’s really funny, I lived about a mile from where this palm is planted back from: 1980 to 1982.

Jim Dent posted that back then Home Depot in San Jose had Royal palms for sale. I remember the local one here for a few years had big Bizmarckia and Hawaiian tree ferns for sale. Then,they stopped and these days pretty much are mostly Altman succulents for the exotics.
I was sent some seedling Dypsis palms- D. pembena 2 years ago and last summer planted them out. Look good so far. I think quite a few of the Dypsis could be trialed in the best parts of the bay area.
Let's hope the rains hold up this winter.

I grew Dypsis baronii in Fremont well. My friend had a large one in Berkeley, it was big. He dug it up and moved to SD. It moved very easy even at 7 ft tall with dozens of trunks.

I know Dypsis ambositrae, utilis, onilahensis and decipiens do very well up there. I’m sure there’s others that probably grow up there, also. D. decipiens is most likely the hardiest. It tolerates temps to 20 degrees without damage.

Stan,

I’m not sure why HD stopped selling Royal palms (especially here). They grow very well here. I still see Hyophorbe lagenicaulis (Bottle palms) for sale at Lowe’s, though. They’re expensive.

I hope your plants are doing well! I see it was 34 degrees there this morning. That’s really cold for early December in Hayward. My mom said it was pouring rain in Hayward yesterday. At least you got rain. We’re not getting any rain here. Maybe a few showers here on Sunday.

I was also sent D.lanceolata. Its so far done well in a pot outside. Grown quite a bit from the sprouted seed it was.
Plenty cold this morning..not cold enough for a freeze with all the water still dripping off the plants. The long range is upper 30's and 40's.
Last December was so much warmer,that my Mango had buds on it to near the new year. None of that this winter.

I heard Dypsis lanceolata is hardy to freezing for a short while. It should grow well in Hayward.

Yes, it definitely was much warmer last year than this year, so far. It was 70 degrees here today, lows in the low 50’s. Absolutely no rain here, not sure if we’ll get any here in San Diego anytime soon.

More rain today. Nothing heavy just normal bay area type rains. None of that atmospheric river stuff this time.

We had a few very light showers last night. According to the news .03 of an inch, so very light. It would’ve been nice to receive at least a .25 of an inch!

Almost a week later and the storms are still rolling in one after another. Even purple Bougainvillea has lost their blooms. Most winters lately they were all year bloomers.

You’re so lucky to be getting the rain.

Old fashioned cold rains that are making tons of snow up in Tahoe land.

6 inches of snow on Mt. Laguna (@6k feet) today. It’s really chilly here, only 57 degrees today! Brrr!

Correction- the purple bougs are still in flower. Except for the one on Tennyson that threw me off. This might be the coldest stretch of low 30's for the winter this week. Funny but my Howea is opening a new frond.Sapote are still fruiting. GW is subtle sometimes.

It’s strange because with all the cooler than normal weather so many of my plants are growing. My longan and lychee trees are putting out new growth. Maybe the plants know something we don’t know. 😂