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Chamaerhops Humilis in USDA zone 8


TonyDFW

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Chamaerhops Humilis in USDA zone 8
This is an example of why you should plant tte blue form “cerifera” for long term success in this plant zone. 
The image labeled Dallas 2020 exhibits my green form C. Humilis. It is 20 years old and grown from a seedling on-site. About 11 feet tall. Most winters the past 20 years in this Dallas location were zone 9 and 8b. 
In 2021 the February freeze low was 3F 
The green form was killed to the ground where as the cerifera only defoliated. The trunks remained intact. 
In December 2022 the low was 11F
The two growing seasons worth of growth was killed to the ground again. The cerifera in the background didn’t defóliate at this temp. 
Zone 8 folks should request the blue form from their local nurseries. Over the common green form. 
What are your observations if you grow this palm in zone 8? 🌴

C74CA23B-4EEB-4BEC-9CD7-A21F55D18A80.jpeg

942B925F-5A44-4389-8A42-BDE991E35A69.jpeg

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Both seem to do fine in this part of the world, zone 8b Vancouver Island. I have 2 small green ones and a Cerifera. The green ones weathered our most recent cold blast (-9.4C) without issue, the Cerifera had minor tip burn but is otherwise fine. There are two larger green forms and another Cerifera that I know of in my neighborhood (sorry no pics) that all look flawless after the freeze as far as I can tell. They grow at a fairly reasonable pace up here considering our cooler climate, but the green forms seems to grow at least double the speed of the Cerifera. They don't seem to require full sun here, as the other Cerifera in my neighborhood is in the shade of a few conifers, but I think good drainage is key for their success. Our Mediterranean-like climate seems to be good for them as they don't mind our winter rains and do perfectly fine in our dry summers without supplemental irrigation. Picture of my Cerifera after the recent freeze below.

image.thumb.jpeg.7b963924deafb9a929682110c40912b3.jpeg

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Zone 8b, Csb (Warm-summer Mediterranean climate). 1,940 annual sunshine hours 
Annual lows-> 19/20: -5.0C, 20/21: -5.5C, 21/22: -8.3C, 22/23: -9.4C, 23/24: 1.1C (so far!)

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NC zone 8.

I've never had an issue with the blue form, planted out at 3gal size.  They both saw a low of 11 and a couple days below freezing (2019?), with just a tarp over them to keep the freezing rain out of the crowns.

Green.... I've killed 4 out of the six I have planted.  They don't fare well in the winter and hate anything below 20.  Especially the 3 gallon "blue pot specials" that were available all over the place for a while.

Of the two green form I have left, one has been bullet proof so far (right next to the house, so fairly protected) and the other seems to start to show some light leaf damage at around 18.  I'm pretty sure this one will get smoked next time we are in the low teens.

Edited by Joe NC
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I’m surprised to see the picture with the burned cerifera next to the undamaged armata.  The hardiness is reversed in my yard.  I have more than a dozen large ceriferas and my observation is also that they are much hardier than the green and no damage into the single digits when wind is low.  This winter is the first time they have burned with a low of 10-11 and 24 hours of 15-25mph winds during that freeze.  The green versions trunk faster, but have lost a couple trunks over the years on them.  Interested to see if they die to the ground in this recent event.  I do suspect the green versions also come in hardier forms. My green forms are not partially beautiful in frond form (almost like they don’t completely open).  Have one cerifera that is that an ugly outlier too.  Lots of variation.

Edited by ryjohn
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I agree with @ShadyDanthe green ones are hardier in the PNW.  Winter moisture can cause some cosmetic damage to the blue ones, but the green ones will be fine.

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Here in my zone 8(b) we have long cool and wett winters and in my experiences of growing them over the past 16 years the cerifera is the hardier one....most winters the green ones are fine but in the few colder winters when temps drop below -6°C together with snow and daytemps barely above freezing for a prolonged period they suffer while I never saw any damage on my small cerifera. The vulcano form also seems a bit hardier then the "normal" geen form. Both cerifera and vulcano are much slower growing, cerifera is the slowest of them all. I lost quite a few protected green humilis during the 2010/2011 winter with a low of -12°C and many freezing nights/days for over two weeks. 

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Same experience here, Humilis more vulnerable to rot and leaf damage in our cool/wet climate compared to Cerifera and Vulcano.

Humilis is by far the fastest growing of the three. 

Damage starts at about -10C/14F especially during long periods of cold weather. They never seem to grow large trunks in this climate
but stay shrubby.  

Chamaerops Humilis

Humilis1.JPG

 

Chamaerops Cerifera

Cerifera1.JPG

Chamaerops Vulcano

Vulcano1.JPG

Edited by Marco67
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Here in 8b Southern Alabama, I lost two different small green ones over the past two year, I gave them peroxide, they grow slow and then just die at the end of summer. 
 

this winter I just had spear pull on my bigger green one, the fronds surrounding the spear pulled trunk are declining. I’m sure it will probably just die like the others. It seems to stay too wet. Maybe it’s my soil idk. 
 

 

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7 minutes ago, Jtee said:

Here in 8b Southern Alabama, I lost two different small green ones over the past two year, I gave them peroxide, they grow slow and then just die at the end of summer. 
 

this winter I just had spear pull on my bigger green one, the fronds surrounding the spear pulled trunk are declining. I’m sure it will probably just die like the others. It seems to stay too wet. Maybe it’s my soil idk. 
 

 

That's interesting, in my coastal zone 8b here in SC they're basically considered bullet proof

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I had 2 green forms in the ground that had grown to about 4 ft clear trunk size and were well established.  They had survived winters into the mid and low teens with any issues.  Then Feb. 2021 came and despite frost protection that freeze killed one and froze the other back to the ground.  The still living one is making a slow recovery but Mother Nature set its progress back 10 years.  My recorded low temp was -2 F. Waco Regional Airport, 5 miles away recorded -6 F.  It was below freezing for multiple days as well.  I live on the NW side near Waco, TX.  Transition Zone 8a/8b.  Of course I lost other palms as well.  If Mr. Blue form is more cold hardy then that is the way to go.  That was a painful lesson.  Thanks for the post @TonyDFW

jimmyt

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Lost my green to the ground in zone 8a DFW in the December ‘22 dry freeze. Low was 10.9 degrees. Very disappointing relative to how these are billed. Lot of larger more mature examples really look like crap around here too. Wont grow again. IMHO bad risk to appeal ratio. Worth having if indestructible, not worth having to baby and protect.

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18 minutes ago, DAVEinMB said:

That's interesting, in my coastal zone 8b here in SC they're basically considered bullet proof

They grow fine around here as well. 

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Interesting, subject...they're a guy here in Montreal,he been experimenting for a while with different methods of wrapping palms up for our brutal zone 5 winter. 

Chamaerops humilis is still being sold by him, but it's website, is now listing it as a palm that must be brought indoors for the winter. 

I'm guessing it has to do with the high humidity inside the enclosure. 

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Here in 7b/8a.. my cerifera has outperformed the green form. I've seen several green forms around town but they do damage nearly every year.. the only cerifera that I have seen are the 2 I added to my yard. and they are indeed more leaf hardy. 

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6 hours ago, DAVEinMB said:

That's interesting, in my coastal zone 8b here in SC they're basically considered bullet proof

I would think they would be bulletproof here also seeing how we usually don’t get cold enough to kill them, my robustas have outperformed my chamaerops easily. 
On a side note, I also had spear pull on 2 saw palmettos and they are in decline, this surprised me seeing how they are native maybe 30 miles from me. 
 

now that I think about it, it’s a very rare palm in these parts, I can only think of 3 others in town.  2 of them are two streets down from me, and they look just fine. I rarely ever see them in the Florida panhandle either. 

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52 minutes ago, Jtee said:On a side note, I also had spear pull on 2 saw palmettos and they are in decline, this surprised me seeing how they are native maybe 30 miles from me. . 

Saw palmettos have very low bud hardiness considering they are extremely leaf hardy.  Mine didn’t even leaf burn in this recent brutally windy 10F freeze but the soon they will spear pull worse than any other palm in the yard.  When they pull it usually takes out the four or five newest fronds with the pull and they rarely come back from that (at least on that trunk.  But they can sucker at any frond connection on the trunk

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Here is an image of the green form before it was killed to the ground in 2021. It was grown from a seedling and thrived for  2 decades. The second images is of the cerifera when it was young and small. 

6E9A299A-B05C-4708-897A-A0107FA51B3F.jpeg

2A860490-3CCA-46E2-916D-A02913FC1095.jpeg

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There are not a lot of Chamaerops humilis in the Jackson, Mississippi metro area, which is borderline 8A/8B.  I don't have any, and I don't know enough about them to tell the difference between the cerifera and other varieties. Regardless, the few I see around the neighborhood seem to take our worst cold snaps in stride without visible damage.

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5 hours ago, TonyDFW said:

Here is an image of the green form before it was killed to the ground in 2021. It was grown from a seedling and thrived for  2 decades. The second images is of the cerifera when it was young and small. 

6E9A299A-B05C-4708-897A-A0107FA51B3F.jpeg

2A860490-3CCA-46E2-916D-A02913FC1095.jpeg

They do grow a lot faster in your climate then in mine, mine is 16 years in the ground and not half the size of your 20year old plant in your picture.  My biggest trunk is maybe 1.6m high.

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I find it strange that the green form is not as tolerant to wett winter conditions then the cerifera. I have seen wild Chamaerops (green form) thriving in wet winter conditions in the wild. In southern spain I have found a wild population that grow in open spots in the forest with their feet in the water during most times of the year, especially in the wintermonths but they rarely see any freezing temps in their natural habitiat.  I have only find wild populations not far from the sea... C. cerifera on the other hand grows high up in the atlas mountains away from the sea where it gets much colder.   I will look if I can find any pictures of those wild humilis growing in wet conditions 

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18 hours ago, Marco67 said:

Same experience here, Humilis more vulnerable to rot and leaf damage in our cool/wet climate compared to Cerifera and Vulcano.

Humilis is by far the fastest growing of the three. 

Damage starts at about -10C/14F especially during long periods of cold weather. They never seem to grow large trunks in this climate
but stay shrubby.  

Chamaerops Humilis

Humilis1.JPG

 

Chamaerops Cerifera

Cerifera1.JPG

Chamaerops Vulcano

Vulcano1.JPG

My survivor is trunking...Biggest stem is now around 1.6m. (no stems on the plant when I planted it) .on this plant I only lost one small trunk over the years.....C. vulcano is also trunking over here but they are slow.

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10 hours ago, kristof p said:

 

I find it strange that the green form is not as tolerant to wett winter conditions then the cerifera. I have seen wild Chamaerops (green form) thriving in wet winter conditions in the wild

 

If you read above those of us in the Pacific Northwest which has a Mediterranean climate with wet winters have found the green to be hardier to cold and wet conditions. Same observations as you. 
 

My climate isn’t cold enough to kill them but I have seen some cosmetic damage on blue ones before whereas the green usually are flawless when spring arrives. 

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10 hours ago, kristof p said:

My survivor is trunking...Biggest stem is now around 1.6m. (no stems on the plant when I planted it) .on this plant I only lost one small trunk over the years.....C. vulcano is also trunking over here but they are slow.

Never lost one of them. In bad winters they die back but regrow from side shoots. The trunking part is the first part that succumbs to rot unfortunately. 

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11 minutes ago, Marco67 said:

Never lost one of them. In bad winters they die back but regrow from side shoots. The trunking part is the first part that succumbs to rot unfortunately. 

Yes, I’ve never seen any frond damage from cold or anything, we also don’t get cold enough to kill them, our last few winters here have been at least a 9a but when I have lost my chamaerops it started with the trunks. Not sure where it went wrong. We don’t get snow, we don’t get ice but sometimes we get frost in the mornings. 

Edited by Jtee
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Green form Chamaerops - Central Alabama, 80+ hrs below freezing with lows of 13F, 10.2F, and 14F - >90% foliar burn. 

Survived, but protected with heat cable wrapped spirally around the trunks into the crown, and frost cloth shoved / wrapped around the trunk and growing point. 

 

The lows for the past 3 years have been around 15/16 to 22F with no burn or damage. 

I think in this event it was likely the duration of cold that did the most damage. 

 

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20 minutes ago, Dartolution said:

Green form Chamaerops - Central Alabama, 80+ hrs below freezing with lows of 13F, 10.2F, and 14F - >90% foliar burn. 

Survived, but protected with heat cable wrapped spirally around the trunks into the crown, and frost cloth shoved / wrapped around the trunk and growing point. 

 

The lows for the past 3 years have been around 15/16 to 22F with no burn or damage. 

I think in this event it was likely the duration of cold that did the most damage. 

 

It had to be the duration of the cold, mine saw a low of 13 but I have no leaf damage, just spear pull. 

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6 hours ago, Jtee said:

It had to be the duration of the cold, mine saw a low of 13 but I have no leaf damage, just spear pull. 

Could it be the lack of any true cold preceding this event? If they were actively growing, is this what one would see, damage wise?

My green med does not show any leaf damage until below 10f.  Consecutive nights of 10/13/14 are not uncommon in my yard a lot of years. 

That December freeze was kind of early. 

Many meds survived North Texas winters with solid week(s) of below freezing before 2021.  They also had the warmest winter recorded  prior to that event (2/2021). 

 

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They seem to be pretty bulletproof here. They don't care about anything. I have had and still have many of them and my biggest one is growing in pure clay with sun only up until noon and it is growing and growing and growing. It became so bushy that I had to make a hard trim back. It made it through the toughest winters we can have. I only lost seedlings to extreme cold but even most of them make it through. They can take drought and swamp. No issue at all. I even rescued a declining old Chamaerops that was grown inside an office all its life and when I planted it out it started to thrive facing every condition we can possibly have. Blue version or green one don't make much of a difference for me. I only feel like the blue ones can make it through exceptionally cold winters at a smaller size and better recovery, but not sure because most of the ones I have are the green form. All the green forms I have also look different, with my biggest one having very white undersides on the leaves. All of this in a Northern latitude wet-winter climate. But they are native to the Mediterranean, which is not SO far from here.

Edited by Hortulanus

Yes it's me Hortulanus 😂

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I drove by a green form in my neighborhood today that survived, but is probably 75% burned. The coldest temperature that it experienced this season was about 11oF or 12oF. The palm is about 30 years old and has experienced multiple temperatures below 10oF in its lifetime.

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6 hours ago, Hortulanus said:

They seem to be pretty bulletproof here. They don't care about anything. I have had and still have many of them and my biggest one is growing in pure clay with sun only up until noon and it is growing and growing and growing. It became so bushy that I had to make a hard trim back. It made it through the toughest winters we can have. I only lost seedlings to extreme cold but even most of them make it through. They can take drought and swamp. No issue at all. I even rescued a declining old Chamaerops that was grown inside an office all its life and when I planted it out it started to thrive facing every condition we can possibly have. Blue version or green one don't make much of a difference for me. I only feel like the blue ones can make it through exceptionally cold winters at a smaller size and better recovery, but not sure because most of the ones I have are the green form. All the green forms I have also look different, with my biggest one having very white undersides on the leaves. All of this in a Northern latitude wet-winter climate. But they are native to the Mediterranean, which is not SO far from here.

did they survive the 2010 horror winter without protection? 

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13 hours ago, kristof p said:

did they survive the 2010 horror winter without protection? 

I don't think I had it back then, but I defenitely know one plant in the area that did. I don't even remember exactly where it was. But I was walking around with friends sometime after that winter and I saw someone having Chamaerops stumps in his garden and I thought "Oh damn they're dead". I forgot about them and 1 or 2 years later I walked by to see them fully recovered (The original stems!). But mine have also seen very bad winters. Last time in Feb. 2021 where even my biggest one got defoliated but regrew from the original stems and that in the coldest and rainiest summer I've ever seen here in my lifetime.

Yes it's me Hortulanus 😂

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21 hours ago, jwitt said:

Could it be the lack of any true cold preceding this event? If they were actively growing, is this what one would see, damage wise?

My green med does not show any leaf damage until below 10f.  Consecutive nights of 10/13/14 are not uncommon in my yard a lot of years. 

That December freeze was kind of early. 

Many meds survived North Texas winters with solid week(s) of below freezing before 2021.  They also had the warmest winter recorded  prior to that event (2/2021). 

 

I think it may have been lacking any true cold, I want to say we had a couple nights go down to 28 or 30 degrees. Day time temps don’t go below 50 all that often. We had a lot of nice shorts and t shirt weather before the Christmas freeze hit. Everything was still growing just fine then got zapped hard especially with two days where it never got above freezing. 
 

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17 minutes ago, Hortulanus said:

I don't think I had it back then, but I defenitely know one plant in the area that did. I don't even remember exactly where it was. But I was walking around with friends sometime after that winter and I saw someone having Chamaerops stumps in his garden and I thought "Oh damn they're dead". I forgot about them and 1 or 2 years later I walked by to see them fully recovered (The original stems!). But mine have also seen very bad winters. Last time in Feb. 2021 where even my biggest one got defoliated but regrew from the original stems and that in the coldest and rainiest summer I've ever seen here in my lifetime.

2010 was real horror. this was the coldest winter I have seen so far in my life... all my smaller Butia's and some Chamaerops were killed and they all had some kind of protection. Many other species also perished after december 2010. After the 2010 event I stopped experimenting, And a few years later I moved out of my parents home wich is sadly the place were I planted all my exotics and since then I don't have a garden anymore but I am thinking to do some new plantings in their garden. They love their palms and because almost all the trachycarpus and some other stuff are bigg now their is lot's of room free for new experiments. I still have some surprise 2010 survivers growing. Most winters since 2010 have been mostly 9a with lows of -3 to -5°C. Last winter for example the lowest temperature was around -0°C... Climate is definitely changing but you only need one good zone 8 winter like mine in 2010 to kill a lot of stuff, even Chamaerops. 

 

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I have both, the green form is hardy around Amsterdam. In the coldest winter it can lose the large trunk, but this is very rare since 2012. I also have a cerifera with 4 trunks since 2 years. It easily takes the endless autumn and winterrains without losing much of it’s color. 

9D414A81-28D8-4541-9176-8A3A5C72D472.jpeg

Edited by Axel Amsterdam
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4 minutes ago, Axel Amsterdam said:

I have both, the green form is hardy around Amsterdam. In the coldest winter it can lose the large trunk, but this is very rare since 2012. I also have a cerifera with 4 trunks since 2 years. It easily takes the endless autumn and winterrains without losing much of it’s color. 

9D414A81-28D8-4541-9176-8A3A5C72D472.jpeg

a very nice specimen!

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1 hour ago, kristof p said:

2010 was real horror. this was the coldest winter I have seen so far in my life... all my smaller Butia's and some Chamaerops were killed and they all had some kind of protection. Many other species also perished after december 2010. After the 2010 event I stopped experimenting, And a few years later I moved out of my parents home wich is sadly the place were I planted all my exotics and since then I don't have a garden anymore but I am thinking to do some new plantings in their garden. They love their palms and because almost all the trachycarpus and some other stuff are bigg now their is lot's of room free for new experiments. I still have some surprise 2010 survivers growing. Most winters since 2010 have been mostly 9a with lows of -3 to -5°C. Last winter for example the lowest temperature was around -0°C... Climate is definitely changing but you only need one good zone 8 winter like mine in 2010 to kill a lot of stuff, even Chamaerops. 

 

Same here. In 2010 I didn't have much planted out, because I was still argueing with the family about what gets planted. The garden was very neglected but still I wasn't allowed to plant what I wanted. That changed more and more as I just did it and everything started to look better because of it. I can't quite remember what I had in the ground in 2010 already except for Trachys, Yuccas and a Redwood. The thing is that 2009 and 2010 get mixed up in my head because I remember them both as horror events. Most winters here are also 9a and lately as you've mentioned even 9b. But my Chamaerops has seen 8a winters for sure. In my experience they are very very winter hardy. In the 2009/2010 winters even some more or less native plants around the city died. Brown hedges and such. Chamaerops are not as common as Trachys here and they are smaller so when they're not faceing the street you can't spot them so it's hard to decide how the pictures of 30+ years old specimens look. But we have Trachys still growing from the 1960s, going through the winter of 1978, which is I believe the worst in recent history around here.

Yes it's me Hortulanus 😂

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9 minutes ago, Axel Amsterdam said:

Didnt Dusseldorf go below -6,7c in the recent years? Not even in 2018? and 2021?

Yes in December 2022, why?

Yes it's me Hortulanus 😂

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