I have a robellini also that we love. In the winter months hubby puts a tent-like structure around it consisting of 4 stakes in the ground wrapped with plastic surrounding the robellini. It looks great...but can someone please tell me what is the best tool to use when trimming a Sylvester. The bark is so tough.

Is a Sylvester the one in Jimbo's original post? And when you trim them, you trim the bark? Please explain what and why on the bark that needs it. This is all very enlightening.

Early thread with a lot of info on palms.
https://www.talkofthevillages.com/fo...lm-trees-9738/

THIS IS AN EXCELLENT LINK, Bogie.

Thank you. Much useful information. Particularly that you can buy Queen Palms much cheaper than I thought and they grow fast.

Seeing the way retailers R around here I suspect going to Ocala or Orlando may be less expensive.

Can someone post the names of the local nurseries I would like visit when I get there.

Not sure what you mean by "the way retailers R around here". Do the retailers in TV gouge you on price, service or what?

The landscaper at Fairfield told me about a palm called a Mule Palm. It's cold hardy and not unattractive. Queen plams are a waste of money, several have died in my neighborhood because of the recent cold Winters.

Based on experiences posted here some (not all) do I think so, yes.

What's your opinion?

There's always a few bad apples in every basket.
Don't agree if one guy overcharges in TV that one should rush to Ocala to by landscaping.

Sylvester
 

Here is a picture of our Sylvester. Fortunately, the Sumter county extension services here are very involved with the community. I signed up for a workshop on "managing your own yard" and am learning things that I wish I'd known prior to having the landscaping done.

(1) Don't put turf fertilizer under the canopy of the palm. Instead, use the 8-2-12 palm fertilizer on the grass and shrubs adjacent to the palm. I was told that in fact you can just use palm food on everything. The grass will love it and you won't be applying the wrong fertilizer to the palm.

(2) Be sure it is slow-release as is the "Lesco" fertilizer sold at John Deere. Apply at the rate of 1-1/2 lbs. per 100 sq. ft of canopy, three or four times per year from March to Sept. The palm roots grow horizontally and can extend out 50' from the trunk. Putting grass fertilizer on that space can be very detrimental to the palm.

As for GG's question about trimming, only one frond has fallen off in a year. My husband cut the bark to match the existing diamond cuts. It wasn't hard to do at all.

JoaniesMom/duffysmom info
 

JoaniesMom it looks like you have 2 curved Queen Palms which I think are very cool (no pun intended) if they survive the cold, and a Sylvester Palm in the background which will survive the cold.

duffysmom - FYI, a Mule Palm is a cross between a Queen and a Pindo Palm.

There are a few of us who post on here that are almost always positive. We are frequently disbelieved by some. There are some people that if you read back on their posts they NEVER have anything positive to say and some nearly all of their posts are negative. The negative posts seem to get the most impact, in my view.

In my opinion, there is NO reason to leave town to buy landscaping. We are getting to be quite a big town ourselves. I was watching the travel channel and see that we are in fact bigger than Pisa, Italy. I wonder how we compare with Ocala in size now that we are approaching 100K. folks.

If you don't want to have a landscaper do it for you, buy it at Lowes or Home Depot and hire some hourly wage person to plant it for you or plant it yourself. I think you have to have arc approval.

Dropping plants in the ground is not all there is to it. Good landscapers are also usually excellent design people and the same principles are used for exterior design as interior. Just throwing things in the ground looks very amateurish, if you don't know what you are doin'. My view only of course.

My favorite but doesn't work here
 

My favorite palm is the Phoenix Reclinata, but unfortunately they are not cold hardy enough to survive here in most locations. There are a couple around, Havana Country Club has one or two by the clubhouse and Lake Miona Rec Center has a big one near the entrance. Here's a couple pics of one I got for free (it was totally overgrown, hadn't been trimmed up at all, and the owner was going to pay someone to take it to the dump!) and paid a LOT to move it 4 miles to my yard in the St. Pete area. My neighbors couldn't believe it!

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Perhaps I wasn't clear, sorry, I was just looking to compare and shop, to spend/invest all this money on palms and other plantings I want to get a fair deal especially with several expensive palms.

I'm not interested in design services of a landscaper, I'll utilize a landscape architect I already lined up for that. :thumbup:

I'm not digging holes and planting, I may be a DIY guy but that's grunt work for younger backs. So I'll get quotes for installation from local landscapers to install most everything.

Wow! A Landscape architect!
Also, Boy Howdy!