Planting HUGE King Palms & a Tour in John’s Garden

[@mjt2582]

Love this channel. Never change, Gary

[@bigg368]

I'd plant trachycarpus fortunei in those circular tree holes around the pool.

[@CARTELfromHELL]

All beautiful specimens! Loved the ending! Would these Kings do well at Oakwood lake where the old Manteca Waterslides was located?

[@ScaryHairyGary]

I’m rather sure they would out there. My dad tried to partner with Budge Brown, the owner of Oakwood, who was supposedly a poor potato farmer, and as legend had it, they needed fill for the freeway and started digging and found high-quality sand. So he started selling sand. As they started digging the sand out the water table filled in the hole and created the lake With relatively freshwater filtered through the sand. He started a little resort there and made enough money to take a vacation to Hawaii where he slid down the natural lava tubes, which gave him the idea to build the first original concrete waterslides that I enjoyed as a kid in the 70s. This is when my dad met up with him. he was the first to do it and I believe he may have been the first to build the plastic ones as he converted the whole park ultimately to plastic but he did keep the really super fast concrete one running for quite some time overlapping with the plastic as I recall My dad talked to lots of city councils trying to get waterslides put in in the late 1970s all around the Bay Area, but it was such a new concept that nobody would bite off on it and he was basically ahead of his time. I was really disappointed because I wanted to be the kid of the dad who owned the first Bay Area waterslide park. Never happened though.

[@Betty599]

Gary, that was crazy planting those king palm. Love your KZbin. I do have 3 years old 2 Jacaranda trees in Paso Robles Ca. zone 8b. elevation 2000. It survives three days of snow in Feb 2023. Plus I also have Sphaeropteris Australian palm, also survive three days of snow without protection. Also lot of subtropical fruit trees on the property. Just for your info.

[@ScaryHairyGary]

that is cool. pushing the envelope

[@rnospotter8740]

I live in Reno zone 7a 😢 I really wish we could grow all these plants without protection here, but at least we have some plants that look somewhat tropical that lower zones can’t even grow 😅

[@theomoffat9485]

That ending was too epic! did he pay extra for the show!?

[@ScaryHairyGary]

No, he paid for the palms but got the show for free.

[@tonyz376]

. Hey Gary, I've been meaning to ask you this question, but now I have a bridge with this video. I usually associate the jacaranda tree with southern California, which leads me to ask: What is the variety of palm that is in front of The Brady Bunch house? Apparently when HGTV bought the house a few years ago and remodeled it to look like the opening credits of the TV show, the house as it stood didn't have the palm, but a neighbor nearby had one so they bought it from them. Curious to know what kind it is. The tree is right next to the front door at the entrance to the house.

[@ScaryHairyGary]

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphaeropteris_cooperi

[@tonyz376]

@@ScaryHairyGaryThanks Gary - I knew you'd know what that plant was.