Palm trees

I wanted to stop at the Palm Arboretum to walk around and see some of the varieties of palm trees. Most people associate palms with tropical locales, but the most popular sticker for South Carolina has a palm on it. There are tons of palms here in Florida, but Barbara mentioned that only one or two were actually native.

The Palm Arboretum was on the bay side of St. Pete's and had a nice brick walkway meandering thru numbered beds. Almost every palm had a plaque in front of it with the common name, scientific name, and some growing information so you could almost use the place as a window shop for what you might want to plant.

Even with all the variations, they all kind of looked the same which I thought was strange because if they were cacti my mind wouldn't lump them together. My favorite palm was twenty feet of just fronds with no real tree trunk.

the coolest part was watching two woodpeckers work on one of the palm trees going after insects. I've never been so close to any type of woodpecker and it was interesting to watch them work. I probably wouldn't have even guessed that woodpeckers even use palm trees. Aaron commented that it seemed like a lot of work for not a lot of food, but grubs are very nutritious.

There are more palms in our future as we head to the Keys, but I can still only identify the saw palmetto.