What is the true hardiness of the chamaerops humilis at different stages of its life,I'm asking this as I bought one with 40cm main trunk and 30cm secondary trunks and as I live in south Wales UK I get snow in winter should I cover to protect?

Every palm is waaay more sensitive as young to cold.

Here it was after the first winter in early spring. Needed little to no protection then and really I only did due to it being freshly planted in September of 2016. 

 

 

Here is my chamaerops in a z7A after 1.5 winters here. Essentially right before it got BAD. 

 

 

Here it is a few weeks ago to the left of the sabal minor(which isnt doing well). Still going (looking a little better now) and even put off seed this year!

 

All in all Id say Chamaerops humilis is a solid extremely hardy palm! If you take care of it, place it better than I did and have a decent 7B-8A+ climate you should be golden. Im going to be trying another one with better placement and see how it does. 

9 hours ago, palm789 said:

What is the true hardiness of the chamaerops humilis at different stages of its life,I'm asking this as I bought one with 40cm main trunk and 30cm secondary trunks and as I live in south Wales UK I get snow in winter should I cover to protect?

I have 2 planted at different sites in Z8A(Texas).  They have been there for around 10 years.  Temperature gets down to low teens every year for extended time periods.  This year all the way down to 8 degrees F(-13 degrees C).  Burns the lower leaves but no damage to the crown or trunk.  No protection provided.  In the spring it will flush out again and look great.  No doubt the hardiness climbs as the palm matures and the root system develops.  I feel that 2 full winters are needed before any level of hardiness can be considered. So if it is this cold or worse in Wales I would winter protect for a couple of years at least to be safe.

@palm789 I'm not sure where exactly you're at in South Wales, but judging by average temperatures it should be fine.  The average low in January around Swansea is 40F and Bristol is 37F.  If it doesn't go below 15F-20F, probably bulletproof there.

26 minutes ago, kinzyjr said:

@palm789 I'm not sure where exactly you're at in South Wales, but judging by average temperatures it should be fine.  The average low in January around Swansea is 40F and Bristol is 37F.  If it doesn't go below 15F-20F, probably bulletproof there.

 

I have found that a good specimen doesnt really mind 15-20F. Infact it wasnt until they saw extended temps with lows dipping to near or single digits that my chamaerops started to stress. For instance the final picture I sent was after it saw something like 250 hours bellow freezing with at least half of that at or bellow 20. 10-12F for extended periods was what defoliated it sadly and even got a spear to pull. But if your area can stay above 15F and only briefly go bellow that it "should" be bullet proof. If their average lows are truly that high Id say it would be easy to grow there. 

Edited May 3, 20188 yr by mdsonofthesouth

Healthy and established true blue med fans from morocco won't burn until 10F or so. Green meds will burn around 12-15F, completely defoliate at 10F and will start loosing trunks at 8-10F. I've had one year fresh dug green med fans that lost 18-24" trunks at 12-15F because they were not super healthy. 

True Cerifera from morocco origin won't loose trunks at 8F and I have heard out in west Texas and NM survive low single digits and come back.

Volcano are substantially less hardy than green med fans FYI.

I live in north west Wales on the Mawddach estuary and have a Chamaerops which is a lot smaller than yours that is never protected. However I only get -5c in a normal winter,-8C in 2010. What sort of winter temperatures do  you get. 

Yes, green european forms are less cold hardy than african blue/silver forms ( cerifera ). Especially in a dry climates.

Yes I should have said mine is a Cerifera, which is supposedly a few degrees harder.  However it does rain a lot in Wales which it doesn't seem to mind, but it does wash the blue off.

Their coldhardiness seems to be as variable as their appearance. My green form experienced -11C this winter and many days below 0C. It was protected but I left its two suckers unwrapped to see what happens. Long story short: nothing – not even minor leaf burn. I was quite surprised to say the least. It does have red flower pouches, so there may be some argentea blood in it.

Edited May 4, 20188 yr by Flow

i have a suspicion that the vulcano form is hardiest because i never saw any cold damage on any vulcano, they always look pristine afterwinter when the others look ratty and have spearpull and spots