You can grow Flamethrower palms (Chambeyronia macrocarpa) as a container plant!

Eccentric plants are what the tropics do best, and it's rare for these big personalities to do well in tiny containers in northern climates. Fortunately, the majestic Flamethrower palm is an exception. This slow-growing palm gets its name for the red color its fronds get as they unfurl. Here's mine on Long Island, NY. For a place where ANY palm tree looks out of place, the vivid color on this one is really special!

What is it like to grow a Flamethrower Palm?

I purchased my Chambeyronia macrocarpa from a plant sale in Orlando, FL in March of 2018 (photo below). That was 4 and a half years ago and the palm is still in the same pot size. It's safe to say this palm is slow! When I lived in Florida and in South Carolina (photo below) it would grow 2 new fronds a year. 

March 2018

March 2018

The photos below from my balcony in South Carolina are from January 2021, about a year and a half ago.

Jan 2021

Growth Rate

This is my first summer growing a Flamethrower palm in NY, and I only had 1 new frond open up. I know that sounds painfully slow; however, each new frond is MUCH bigger than the last. (At least 50% larger!)

Out of the dozens of palm trees I'm growing, the Flamethrower palm grows a lot wider than it does tall. This palm only holds 3 or 4 fronds at a time, so I'd argue that this palm changes shape and size more dramatically when a single frond unfurls than palms that throw 5-10 fronds out a summer.

My favorite thing about this palm is the low maintenance. They prefer shade during the sunniest part of the day, but don't mind direct morning or evening sun. It can also handle cool weather. In South Carolina, it was exposed to nights in the 30s and plenty of dry afternoons in the 50s. This palm does not handle winter wind well. My South Carolina apartment balcony was on the 4th floor and the fronds were tattered after the cooler months. Chambeyronia macrocarpa also will not tolerate below-freezing temperatures. It's a good choice for northern gardeners because it's cool and dry tolerant so it'll do okay inside the house during the winter months. 

How long does the color last?

You'll see images of this gorgeous palm in full color on the internet, but I think it's important to manage your expectations about how long the color lasts. the emerging spear stays completely green until it's about to unfurl (which happens nearly overnight!). 

Here's a photo below from September 17th. You'll notice the huge spear is still completely green.

This spear took so long to unfurl I thought my otherwise healthy palm was sick. But 3 days later, on September 20th we got our first taste of color. 

And every day the color got better and better! 

The palm frond completely unfurled about a week later and remains red. When it's all said and done, I'll get to enjoy the red color for a little less than a month before it changes over to a deep green color. 

Before and After Summer GLOW up.

Patience is a virtue most gardeners share & time is better than any fertilizer, but you might be surprised at how much a garden can grow in a short period of time. 

I established the garden at my parents house on Staten Island years ago, but I've only been gardening on Long Island since May. Below is a comparison of the two. You'll see a compare and contrast of the Staten Island garden over the past several years & how much things have changed in just a few months on Long Island. 

If time isn't on your side, don't be discouraged. A LOT can change in the garden in just a few months.

Staten Island Yard: Over the years

Below you'll see how quickly my Trachycarpus fortunei grew the past few years. The winter of 2017-2018 almost killed them even with protection. Temperatures dropped close to 0F. They have since recovered beautifully. Here's a view of that recovery! I literally could cry looking at the first photo. Now I laugh because it was a VERY awkward phase post cold snap for the tropicals.

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

What I love about gardening with potted plants is how easily you can mix and match combinations. Every season looks a little different than the last and if one potted plant isn't performing well, all you have to do is swap it with something else. A lot easier than digging a shrub up! 

2019

2022

This year I decided to place all my biggest palms in the pool area. There's power in numbers and it makes a much bigger impact to have a lot of cool plants close together than spreading them out. 

2022

Farewell to my 1st summer garden on Long Island!

Wow that went fast! Tomorrow is the autumn equinox -the moment when the sun's rays shine equally on both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. This weekend will be the first one that days are shorter than nights, and it won't be long before temperatures start to get cold too! 

It's a bitter-sweet time of year ... bitter cold on the way, but sweet blooms to enjoy. Actually, late summer and early fall are my favorite parts of the year to enjoy the garden. The tropical plants are at their fullest and the weather is gorgeous! 

This year the plants grew especially fast. Long Island saw its hottest August on record and much of the first half of September has been in the 80s. Although most of the island was hit hard by drought, my neighborhood was one of the lucky few that saw persistent pop-up storms. 

Here's how it all started! I was still living in South Carolina when I took this photo and had automatically timed sprinklers on to keep the plants watered while I was gone.

All the plants were as happy as can be! 

The KING of the summer was my Viente Cohol banana plant. I've tried growing the hardy musa basjoo bananas for many years and have never had impressive growth on them, but the tropical bananas shoot up like magic. It's against the south side of my house where it receives a ton of water and blazing hot sunshine. This particular variety is quick to produce fruit. I'm hoping to get a lot of banana fruit next year!

 

Angel trumpets aka Brugmansia are one of my favorite summer blooms. The fragrance is out of this world! The pink Brugmansia in the photo above was a $5 plant on clearance last March. It was just a pot with soil. The entire plant above the ground was dead so everything you see in the photo has grown since spring. An incredible feat! Literally from 0 feet to 8 feet tall in just a few months! 

This yellow potted Brugmansia started off much larger but is actually shorter than the pink brugmansia I planted in the ground.

In late summer, I started a raised garden bed. The fall crops were all destroyed by caterpillars sadly, but I did get a huge crop of tomatoes and eggplant! 

You'll usually find Philodendron gloriosum (left) & Philodendron cordatum (right) as a tiny expensive house plant, but they're anything but small when you set them outside! Philodendron cordatum is usually sold as a tiny trailing houseplant, but it's true form is quite large 

I grow many palm trees, but one of my favorites is Hydriastele Beguinii. It's having a bit of an awkward year, but next year it will look much nicer. The frond leaflets are fused together which is a really unique feature you don't see in most palms! 

I prefer foliage over flowers, but some tropical blooms are too iconic not to grow! Night-blooming cereus only blooms a few times a summer. Usually, I will get a flush of about 3-6 gigantic blooms all in one night once a month through the summer. The flowers open up after the sun sets and reach their peak around midnight. By dawn, they're gone! I'm not exaggerating. 

Speaking of beautiful blooms. My garden wouldn't be complete without Plumeria! Plumeria Melody has the nicest shape of all the plumerias I'm growing.

Plumeria divine is a must for northern gardeners. It's a frequent bloomer and stays nice and small! 

Oddly this plumeria divine doesn't have it's usual shape and flower form. I love it regardless! 

If you're looking even smaller, give Desert Rose a try. A ridiculously generous bloomer that is PERFECT for a sunny tabletop where most flowers would wilt. These love the heat and humidity and don't mind drying out from time to time.

As far as vines go, Allamanda does the trick! They take on a more shrubby habit than mandevilla and have larger flowers. I can't think of a more pure yellow flower for pots and planters. It blooms NONSTOP!

Thunbergia grandiflora is a gorgeous plant that I have been enjoying a lot. It's a late bloomer and not as prolific as Mandevilla. I love them for their uniqueness. Literally, no one else has them on Long Island. But if you're looking for bang for your buck, stick to Mandevilla! 

Of course a Long Island garden wouldn't be complete without hydrangeas. I don't make the rules!

I can't say no to a rose plant on end-of-the-year clearance either! 

Thanks for looking and happy Autumn!

Moving hundreds of plants from South Carolina to New York!

Start spreading the news - I'm back in New York full-time! When I started this blog 10 years ago, I was just finishing high school and entering college. I went away to school (less than an hour away), so it was easy to keep up with my quirky garden hobby at my parents' house and share my ramblings on this page. You all have helped inspire me to keep gardening even when I moved south after college to start my career in Meteorology in Florida and later, South Carolina. I had a ton of fun gardening down there for 6 years (pics below!)

Florida 2019

Florida 2019

Florida 2019

South Carolina 2021

It was tough to go back and forth to New York to bring the tropical plants inside the house over the winter and cover up the outdoor palms. I still managed as you can see with all the blog posts after 2017. But now things are going to get a lot busier in the NY garden! This summer I started a new job as a meteorologist on Long Island. Now you'll be able to see two of my tropical yards, one on Long Island and one on Staten Island!

How to move with your plants

This was the trailer that carried all my plants. It was 10 feet wide and 20 feet long and PACKED with plants

Before I show you what I've been up to this summer in the garden, let me give you a little look back at the move. In South Carolina, I had a 4th-floor apartment and a balcony filled with hundreds of tropical plants. You can imagine it was tough bringing those plants down the stairs, in a trailer, and halfway across the east coast. Here are a few photos of what it looked like! 

Also, a heads up: certain plants cannot be moved between certain state lines to reduce the spread of diseases (like citrus for Florida). When I left Florida, I had a certificate from the Florida Department of Agriculture to go with my plants to prove they were pest free and that I wasn't carrying any plants illegally. 

A few years ago, I was able to get a moving company to bring my plants to my new place, but this go around none of the moving companies were willing to move plants on their trucks. This means the best option right now is to rent a truck and drive it yourself. Most truck rentals are not climate-controlled in the storage section, so you'll ideally want to drive your plants at night during the summer months and through above-freezing temperatures in the wintertime.

The plumeria were beginning to bloom so I had to protect them with paper towels and tape.

All the plants survived the move! And as you can see below they were a lot of plants! They made a mess though because nearly every single glass pot broke along the way. A leaf blower was a good investment!