Carving of late has taken a backward step, work consumes every available minute leaving me with a very tired body but the brain is always active during the daily commute thinking of new ideas or methods to use in my carvings.
It just struck me a few days ago that a carving should not be restricted to just timbers that you would associate with a regular tree but what if I were to use the outer casing of the seed pod from a Queen Palm. Here in Southern California Queen Palms are one of the basic choices for the landscaped garden and you often see the fruit hanging from the stem like large green grapes before they ripen to a bright orange. The seed casing is a single 24-30 inch leaf that protrudes up from the main stem until it splits open to reveal the small flowers that will eventually produce the fruit. While the fruit is developing the casing is starting to dry out, this you can observe by the color change. The leaf starts out as a silvery green color but as the moisture retracks the color changes to a pale silvery sand shade and the casing twists like a propeller.

I’m fortunate enough to witness this event in my own garden where I have several varieties of palm tree including the queen palm. During one of the “Tidy the garden weekends,” which I rarely do, apart from cutting the lawn, my wife is the expert with the garden. It was time to remove all the old palm fronds that had started to accumulate and being of a height where you had to get the ladder out, it was of course my job to do. I had noticed the accumulation of palm seeds that had already changed to orange and had started dropping onto the driveway causing a mass of flies to gather and feast on the fruit. I’ve been told that the actual fruit is edible but have not tried it myself and to be honest have no desire to anyway. Continue reading The Queen Palm (Syagrus romanzoffiana) →