Paul, i am so jealous! Here you are worrying about getting ANOTHER COCONUT PALM! while i am here waiting to see if my xmas palm isnt too damaged because of low 40's and waiting to bring all my palms out for good so they wont fry up.......i didnt know you had a pool? is this a new addition to the new house? Let me know if you see any coconut palms that are not babies but with some mature fronds that are a few feet tall and that are resonably priced....i might have you get one for me and send it up here! i will pay you of course (through paypal) lol :)

Brian there are small cocos all over here...what price is good? Here's a nursery in east Orlando...pretty much all they stock are cocos, royals, bizs, and fox. They just dont have the inbetween size that i want. I'll get a photo of my fruiting coco when I get home tonight.

Paul, I don't know too much about prices especially coco's but how much are a 5 or 6 footer going for down there? I am looking for one that has all or mostly mature fronds but is still smalle enough to be shipped up here by ups.... If you don't mind of course. Yeah post some updated pics of yours! .....what other palms have you planted since you been down there?

Brian, a 5 footer might be $20 or $30 at HD/Lowes? Been a while since I've looked at potted palms LOL. One thing I know about Lowes is you can talk to the Garden Manager and they can order you ANY palm tree that ANY Lowes in the US has access to. For example, when I lived in Chicago my local Lowes could get me any palm, and it would come in their periodic delivery...just need to let them know ahead of time. This way it'd save you on shipping costs from my end.

My house already had the pool, but it was all Queens surrounding it. I'm going for the more uncommon look of coconuts. Only planted the 1 coco since I moved here actually...the house as it was had 14 palms on a .40 acre lot so not a ton of room to plant more. I do want to rip out the Queens in the front yard and replace with Medjools and also some foxtails or kings.

Here's a couple pics I took tonight off my i-Phone of my cocos nucifera. Figure another 6 months and I should have large and ripe coconuts ready to eat or germinate. I lost a few lower fronds in the bad winter we had. Full recovery expected by July.

Looking good paul! Hopefully u will be able to germinate some of them seeds and you can have a coconut palm family lol....I am gonna check with the lowes in orland park, I know mike has been in contact with the manager plus I buy a lot of their garden stuff too. I will let u know.....I don't even know how much it would cost to ship 1 up here, so if I can save the shipping that would be good.

All the lowes down here stock b&b Xmas palms .. Run around $130 maybe. Since they're so small it should be relatvely easy for you to move around etc. I'd ask your lowes about these too if you need more. Good luck with yours I'm sure it'll make a nice comeback this summer. Just keep it warm now and enough sunlight.

wow it must be global warming. ten or fifteen years ago there were probably very few coconut palms in central Florida. I used to look all over Disney World for one,and they didn't even attempt them. Now I hear Disney has some near a heated lagoon.

Paul, i called lowes today (orland park) and they are calling me back....they are gonna make sure their growers in south florida have a coco palm in stock that is about 5 or 6 feet tall, if they do they are gonna ship it up here to me.... and the best is no shipping charges! dont know the price but they said around possibly $25 i will keep u updated.

Not so much global warming as it is heat island. This winter rural areas surrounding orlando fell to as low as 13f (Plymouth,fl) but Orlando only hit 30 on both freeze events. Amazing.

Brian that'd be awesome to get it for $25!

spataro51 I have bought them for $7 on the side of the road. I had two green Malayans that I got for $14(5FT)and one was stolen and the other is growing fine.I have palms that are worth more but I guess they wanted a coconut.

It is amazing what is being grown in Orlando now. I lived there for a few years in the early 90's and all my attenpts at growing Caryota, Veitchia, Cocos, Woodyetia, Roystonea, all ended in freezing failure.

How old was the coco when it flowered?

I've had the palm 14 months and it started flowering last august.

the entire age I'm not sure...maybe 4 years??

That's pretty good-very good. I don't expect my indoor coco will ever flower,but I suppose stranger things have happened.
What do you think are the most cold tolerant-the Gold or Green Malay,or one of the tall Jamaicans? is the last grown anywhere in soufla?
One last question(And most important for me!) for you Floridian's-or any readers in the tropics-which of the coco's seem's to do the best potted or in shade?

It got down to 13 in Plymouth? I guess that's why when I was in the area in Feb. all the mature queens and pygmy dates were completely brown and by all appearances dead. Compare this to some large Cocos around Orlando, many with little to no damage from this past winter. The metro area is certainly a full zone warmer than outlying areas (north or south). I'm pretty sure I read that Marco Island even got down to 31, as low as the Orlando Exec. Airport during the freezes!

Anyways, Jamaican Talls are generally believed to be the most cold tolerant variety of coconut, while golden malayans are the most sensitive of the common varieties. My little golden malayan lives up to it's name every winter by turning bright yellow from the chill. I think there are actually Jamaican Tall sprouts on ebay.
-Michael

I read in the sentinel back in early feb that the lowest temp of the year for central fla was recorded in plymouth at 13f. I couldn't believe it, a full 17 degrees cooler than the metro area just miles away!

Jamaican talls do exist in SoFlo but LY has killed many. They are a couple degrees better than malayans or maypans, but LY will get them in south fla before the cold does.

stan- I have a potted green Malayan that does great here. I left it out this winter unprotected and is barely scratched at 28f. No frost though since in my screened in pool area. NorCal will NEED to be kept dry in the cool winters. Semi shade may be okay, try fir at least 6 hours sun per day though if possible.

wow, I'm surprised yours are still alive...
my roomie and I went up to Palm beach County a month or so ago and just above Boca every single coconut was dead from this past winters cold. One of the reasons I like living down here in a zone 11 instead of a zone 9... lol
Friend of mine said Disney lost a bunch of them too.

The only zone 11 in the state are the Keys. Ft Lauderdale and coastal Broward are a solid 10b however most winters. I noticed the heavy damage in Palm Beach County too. Not dead however, just not very attractive at the moment. St lucie north of West Palm seemed to have fared much better as I saw little damage there. Hit and miss I suppose, but lakes and heat island played a major role this past winter. The unprotected cocos in my area are damaged nonetheless but personally haven't seen a single dead one yet. My unprotected spindles and crotons were just fine too.

Hey guys,

That green Malayan of yours Paul looks pretty good considering the beating you guys had this past winter. I am surprised the coconuts didn't drop. Anyway, there is a good one sheet publication that used to be put out by the Florida Extension Service (they used to send me a lot of good palm info over here to Texas) called, "Treating Cold Damaged Ornamental Palms" that has some really good info on bringing them back from the brink after a hard winter. As far as cold hardiness is concerned, I believe the Mexican Tall is probably the most cold hardy for the Rio Grande Valley as well as Florida, being hardy down to about 27F when it is an established adult palm, as opposed to the Jamaican Tall being hardy down to 28F. The Indian Tall from Central inland parts of India is probably the most cold hardy of all coconut palms. My best guess is that it is hardy down to 26F. If only we could get them over here.
For those of you interested in seeing some nice looking Texas coconut palms in Brownsville, look up this address on Google Earth: 2278 S. Indiana Ave., Brownsville, TX. There are four good looking coconuts in the front yard of this house, with the largest about 25ft. tall in overall heighth. I have seen a couple in Brownville that are about 35ft. tall, with a few coconuts on them. More would produce coconuts in the Valley if the lawn care/tree trimming crews would quit cutting off the flower spikes when they emerge from the crown and if the homeowners and business owners there would water them more since it is a semi arid climate.

These Fl. cold temps normally are for just few hours before daybreak. Cocos have been made availble alot more over last 15 yrs. with Home Depot and Lowes, coming to central Fl.