So I watched an old video tour of Fairfield Gardens on YouTube and saw some really awesome Copernicia, which of course led me down a palmpedia rabbit hole looking at more of these and I'm trying to convince myself that there's at least one or two I could zone push here, but to my question. ...

Palmpedia says most of them like a "dry tropical climate." What exactly does that mean? In my mind, dry and tropical are kind of opposites. 

The tropics is the area between the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer. Within that area there is anything from deserts to rainforests. So there are plenty of "dry tropical climates".

Hola, no they aren't opposites. The Sahara is in the tropics or maybe subtropics and it is very very very dry.  Think Tropics in the latitude sense, and not how wet a region is.  Average annual rainfall dictates if a place is very dry, dry, humid, wet, etc.  So across Cuba, and the rest of the Caribbean (technically in the subtropics), you have a range of rainfall distribution that affects the vegegation that grows there.

Ciao

 

So just to dumb it down for me, they probably wouldn't be happy here (East Mississippi, on a zone 8a/8b border) due to our insanely humid summers and due to our winters, I'd have to keep it in a pot - and these things grow so slow I'd be looking at strap leaves for the rest of my life, right? 😂😭

Correct, if it would grow at all.  

8 minutes ago, Darold Petty said:

Correct, if it would grow at all.  

Someone really should invent HGH or anabolic steroids for plants... But knowing my luck it'd leech into the grass and I'd still end up with small palms and 20 ft high Bermuda grass every time it rained. 

5 hours ago, JohnAndSancho said:

So I watched an old video tour of Fairfield Gardens on YouTube and saw some really awesome Copernicia

Did you mean "Fairchild Gardens" in Coral Gables, FL?  They have some awesome Copernicia there.  If you're on the edge of 8b/9a you could try Copernicia alba.  They're the most cold hardy of the Copernicias - they're not from the tropics.  They have reportedly survived mid teens in Gainesville, FL.  I had one survive 9°F Palmageddon in San Antonio with protection.

7 minutes ago, Fusca said:

Did you mean "Fairchild Gardens" in Coral Gables, FL?  They have some awesome Copernicia there.  If you're on the edge of 8b/9a you could try Copernicia alba.  They're the most cold hardy of the Copernicias - they're not from the tropics.  They have reportedly survived mid teens in Gainesville, FL.  I had one survive 9°F Palmageddon in San Antonio with protection.

Lol yes. My phone autocorrected it to Fairfield, and now I have PTSD from managing a Fairfield Inn again. It was an old Summer Rayne Oakes video, and the Rigida just looked so freaking cool to me, almost alien. It'd be cool but I mean, even 5 gallon size plants still just look like clumps of grass. I'd be better off looking for some Butia seeds or sprouts - maybe I'll ask the local guy again when I go to pick up Sancho's prescription, but there's a non zero chance I get shot at if I ring his doorbell again 😂