Date: Saturday March 1, 2008 at 10:00 am

Location:

• Seabreeze Palms (239-560-1422)
• 16789 McGregor Blvd, Fort Myers 33908
• Corner of John Morris Road & McGregor Blvd heading towards Sanibel
• View Google^TM Map

Discussion Topic: Fertilization of Landscape Palms - Latest IFAS recommendations.

SureGro Slow Release In-Ground Palm Special (8-2-12) will be for sale @ $20/#50 bag (Pre-order reservations required - email SW_FL_PalmCycad@hotmail.com), any remaining bags will be available to attendees)

Agenda

• 9:30 am - Arrive @ Seabreeze Palms and browse the nursery
• 10:00 am - Introductions & Announcements
• 10:20am - Palm Fertilizer Discussion

Auction

Please bring plants for auction (No washingtonias, queen or Christmas palms, please). In additional to palms and cycads, unusual/rare plants of other genera are welcome. Quality/rarer plants may be auctioned on a 50% to owner & 50% to chapter or outright donated. Please have the name of the plant, and your name on a tag or paper.

1. Bill & Robin Blain
2. Derek Batke - Amazon Exotics

• $5 donation to cover sub sandwiches & sodas.
• Additional side dishes, salads, and deserts, are welcome.
• If possible, RSVP by email SW_FL_PalmCycad@hotmail.com so that we will know how much food to order.

Additional Information

Name Badges

If you have a name badge from another group, please wear it. Noting where you are from and your screen name if you are a webboard participant, will help everyone put names to the faces.

Details

Our meeting will begin at Seabreeze Palms, one of Fort Myers newest nurseries, owned by Justen Dobbs & Derek Batke. They specialize in rare palms and other unusual items such as landscape wood carvings. Justen, born and raised in Orange County, CA., moved to Florida Sept. 2007. He has been growing palms for almost 5 years, and had 202 species in his collection in California. He likes to germinate palms from seed, and has brought many of his palms with him for the nursery. He was on the board of the Palm Society of Southern California for a couple of years and wrote articles for their journal.

Derek has lived in SW Florida almost all of his life. He has been a landscaper for almost 20 years. After growing a few varieties of rare palms in his yard in Fort Myers, he decided to take his hobby further and begin a nursery. He has Raphia, Kentiopsis oliviformis, Cyrotostachys renda, Sabal sp. 'Lisa', Pinanga, Latania vershaffeltii, Dypsis sp. 'Orange Crush', Dypsis onilahensis, Chambeyronia hookeri and macrocarpa are among the palms we will see.

Justen & Derek frequent the PalmTalk.org webboard. The Sabal sp. 'Lisa' topic has been quite popular. They have a few of the Sabal sp. 'Lisa' available for sale.

Bill & Robin Blain have been collection palms, bamboo and other tropicals for over 18 years. Four years ago, they moved from their McGregor Blvd home to the Iona-McGregor area. It is amazing to see how Bill transformed a full sun shelly lot to a lush tropical garden. Although Bill enjoys growing Caribbean Palms such as Copernicia, Coccothrinax, Pseudophoenix, his collection also includes different Pritchardia species, Satakentia, Kentiopsis, Corypha, Licuala, and many others totaling around 100 different species and hybrids in the ground.

A plant raffle or auction is held at most meetings. Everyone is encouraged to bring plants (doesn't have to be a palm) or a horticultural item (fertilizer, books, garden item, etc.). To avoid annual dues, we need members to support the raffle by bringing items and buying raffle tickets.

Guests are welcome to attend meetings -- with no obligation to join. Only those completing the Membership Application form and remitting the $10 fee will remain on the mailing list.