Germinating Palm Seeds and Bird of Paradise

[smkydbr]

Greetings,
I am trying to grow palm trees and giant bird of Paradise from seed. I have not had a ton of luck, I have tried a few different things with the seeds and only have about a 10% success rate. Any pointers would be great. I live in Southern California and this is a list of seeds that I have.

Queen Palm
King Palms
Foxtail palms
Fishtale Palms
Giant Bird of Paradise

Thanks for any information you can give me. I have access to tons of good seeds for Giant Bird and Queen Palms if anyone helps me out would be willing to mail some.

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[GardenGeek]

I may not be able to compare them because i have tried only queen palm and it grew very easily from seeds. Just water them properly and don't give too much warmth i mean keep in shady places more than the sunny places, although a little sun is also required
As you mentioned you have lots of seeds of queen palms so you should go for it now.

[smkydbr]

I may not be able to compare them because i have tried only queen palm and it grew very easily from seeds. Just water them properly and don't give too much warmth i mean keep in shady places more than the sunny places, although a little sun is also required
As you mentioned you have lots of seeds of queen palms so you should go for it now.

I will give it a try when we warm up a bit. Have you heard about using tupperware or other similar continer and setting them on top the back of a fridge or water heater where the average tempature stays about 80ish. I have had some fungal problems with this.

[smkydbr]

I have doing some growing and having some success, I have also been doing a ton of reading and have found some great info I thought I would share.
http://www.junglemusic.net/palms/index.htm found a ton here, great information and great prices on palms.
http://www.banana-tree.com/ They are great, good customer service and I got the seeds I wanted cheaply.

So I bought a bunch of small liners and I have been planting in them in a small greenhouse I built for about 10$, I want to see if keeping the seeds at a higher day time temperature and regulated night time temps helps with the germination. Still kinda bummed about my King Kong palms still not germinating. Also glad to be getting my tax return so I can build the retaining wall and start planting some of the other palms Iam growing in pots. Well thats my two cents today.


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[greenthumb]

I had a terrible time germinating Bird of Paradise (Strelitzia) seeds. I tried and tried and couldn't ever get them to germinate. I had been covering the seeds with germination mix, and that was my problem. Once I just surface-sowed the seeds (simply pressing them into the germination mix and leaving the top half of the seed exposed to light) I got great germination.
It also helps to take a nail file or some other small file and nick the seed coat. This will allow the seed to imbibe water and you'll get much quicker germination.

Sorry, I can't offer any help on the palm seeds.

[davidbkeegan]

It also helps to take a nail file or some other small file and nick the seed coat. This will allow the seed to imbibe water and you'll get much quicker germination.

I have tried this with great results, unfortunately not with palms or birds of paradise