Cool-Hardy Palms

[SoulofthePlace]

In addition to cold-hardy palms, there should also be a category for cool-hardy palms. Cold hardy means palms that can handle below 33F or +1C but cool hardy palms should be able to handle 35F (+2C) to 70F (+21C) or rather anything below 70s for extended periods of time or year-round and grow without any heat, where heat or hot could be considered as 30C (86F) and above. There are many climates such as cool oceanic and tropical highland places plenty around the world where it never gets any frost nor hot weather either. Bogota, Azores, Antsirabe, SF Bay, Lord Howe Island, New Zealand etc. just to name very few have those kind of climates.

[PalmatierMeg]

Juania australis

Lepidorrhachis mooreana

Dictyocaryum lamarckianum

Ceroxylon spp

[DiegoGM]

I live in a cool climate too. Sometimes it is a little difficult to find palms for this climates due the lack of real heat. We enjoy a climate with no great differences between day and night temperatures. In this climates it is possible to grow all COLD hardy palms, but it is no possible to grow palms wich demands constant hight temperatures. What about borderline palms¿ 

For me this works

Rhopalostylis sapida

Rhopalostylis baueri

Ceroxylon, all of them

Juania australis (expensive and difficult to maintain and found)

Hedyscepe carterburyana

Lepidorrachis mooreana (almost imposibleto find)

Most chamaedoreas (specially costaricana and seifrizii)

Caryota maxima

Howea fosteriana

Howea belmoreana

Parajubea species

Archontophoenix cunninghamiana

Ravenea glauca

 

There are other like Chambeyronia, ravenea rivularis, archontophoenix purpurea, etc that are possible to grow but can be a bit hard in some places.

 

[SoulofthePlace]

Hola, I did not know your climate is cool as well. It is in the North-West of Spain, Galicia, this is we have a GALICIA channel on TV. Interesting to know that Galicia has a col climate even during summer? Perhaps the coastal areas only? I saw it as zone 10 in hardiness maps for Europe.

Thanks for providing a great list of cool tolerant palms. Some of them I already tried to grow and they died. Rhopalostylis is one of them. It did not grow no matter what I tried. Perhaps my climate is a bit to "SOMETHING ELSE" in summer? Because we can get 25C in summer and almost no rain for 3 months. It is a black island and it heats up and dries up a bit. Surrounded by black stones everywhere. There is no sea mist here like you may have in Galicia. Except near the coast for first 50 meters. Which makes it more difficult to grow. It's a cool climate but can become a bit warm and on the dry side in summer.

I also had 14 Ceroxylon quindiuensis seedlings, but they all declined and the one remaining on the window sill indoors is kind of showing signs of stress. Perhaps the issue is (also?) with soil and not the climate. We don't have a native soil herein this area, so we purchase bagged soil and truck full of soil from elsewhere and the soil  quality is not good, mostly stones, rocks and clay. Yet potted palms all get planted in the store-purchased bagged soil mix. It is a mix of €1 bagged soil, plus perlite and peat (turf).

I don't like hard-to-grow and maintain palms and am eliminating those. I wonder if the following are also good to grow in a cool climate:

Archontophoenix alexandrae, Archontophoenix maxima, Archontophoenix cunninghamiana Illawarra, also Pritchardia hillebrandii, Pritchardia h. blue moon.

My favourite palm still remains Washingtonia robusta and W. filibusta which are growing fine.

[SoulofthePlace]

12 hours ago, PalmatierMeg said:

Juania australis

Lepidorrhachis mooreana

Dictyocaryum lamarckianum

Ceroxylon spp

Do you perhaps have seeds available of Dictyocaryum lamarckianum?

[DiegoGM]

Rhopalostylis and Ceroxylon must be possible to grow in your place, but they need SHADE for the first years. If not, they will be stressed and possibly die. I recomend you to try again and plant it in a shady area, and dont forget to water it on summer! I promised they are very easy palms in a cool climate with this advises.

And yes, Coastal Galicia has a mild summers. Max 25 and min 15 in july. Max 14 and min 6 in january. The rest are temperate but they suffer more temperature differences.

All archontophoenix should be ok for you, but remember, shade and water in the first years.

[SoulofthePlace]

DiegoGM: Juania australis seeds: https://www.rarepalmseeds.com/juania-australis?search=juania

Thanks, I will try Rhopalostylis again and will place my remaining Ceroxylon Q. in the more shade.

[PalmatierMeg]

On 3/23/2020 at 2:26 PM, SoulofthePlace said:

Do you perhaps have seeds available of Dictyocaryum lamarckianum?

No. Cool tolerant palms are impossible for me to grow in FL swelter.

[ahosey01]

If I lived in a cool climate like Bogota or Antananarivo or something and wasn’t directly in a flight path, I’d grow a forest of Ceroxylon quindiuense.

[SoulofthePlace]

Ceroxylon quindiuense seedling (1 out of 14 survived) likes to grow on the window never touched by Sun's rays. It grows very slowly and I have no idea where I will plant it to later on. Probably somewhere in the woods among trees in an almost full shade.

I found Beccariophoenix alfredii another candidate for growing in a coolish climate. Also Areca catechu, Ptychosperma elegans and Veitchia arecina, Hyophorbes as well. Probably Sabals too. I am going to also try Roystonea regia and Cocothrinax barbadensis if they germinate. During summer we usually have a drought and almost no rain, so the weather becomes not perfect for Ceroxylon quindiuense during summer, but also in January there have been droughts here as well for weeks. What drought or rain does not kill, wind and coolness does or the combination of some of those. The Cuban palms don't care about it all and even if extremely slow growing they are withnstanding Azores. Bismarckia gets its fronds messed up by wind and looks ugly. Actually most tropical palms here look not their best because of wind and coolness so the fronds often look like fish bones. I also tried Dypsis (baronii?) but the only seeding that germinated has perished in the ideal condition in the garage (with roof window). No wonder people like to grow hands-off palms such as Butias, Trachycarpus, Washingtonias.

What constantly fail to survive and do not like to grow here are: Pritchardia pacifica, Lipstick palm, Adonidia merillii, Carpoxylon macrospermum and probably Satakentia liukiuensis. The latter one seedling survived and is even growing a bit with constant heat and water spraying in the garage.

Edited July 23, 2020 by SoulofthePlace