We love planting garden combinations that cause visitors to have a moment of cognitive dissonance. One of those moments in the garden currently is illustrated in the combination of Picea orientalis with Sabal ‘DeFuniak’. I remember a visitor once commenting that they didn’t like it that we had planted cactus with ferns, since they found it not appropriate. I explained that in the wild, I had encountered the two growing together many times. Often, these subconscious personal biases creep into our judgements about what looks appropriate. The same is true when it comes to dress or appearance of other members of our species.
Any guesses on what species Sabal “Defuniak” is? Have the fronds been winter hardy so far?
There seems to be concensus that Sabal palmetto is involved. Some folks proposed S. bermudiana genes to be involved, but our hardiness trials do not indicate any genes from a less hardy species. Some folks think that either S. minor of S. minor ver. louisiana is involved. We can rule out other of these without a DNA test.