Chamaerops var ‘cerifera’

[ryjohn]

Chamaerops ‘cerifera’ has very underrated hardiness.  Few species are more leaf/bud hardy here in north Louisiana—Needle palm, Sabal minor variants, and maybe Trachycarpus (which struggles due to heat here).  Four or five winters of 7B really only resulted in minor leaf burn and no loss of trunks.  The green cultivar by comparison was total defoliation and loss of 20-100% of trunks.  Cerifera is leaf hardier than the trunking Sabals, a Washington filifera, Brahea, Butia, Serenoa, nannohrops, and Jubaea.

 

and my hardiest green version (little trunk loss but routine 100% foliage burn).  Unfortunately this particular specimen has some sort of frond form that is sort of an ugly “never-fully-opens look”.

 

Silver Serenoa repens for comparison… much less bud and leaf hardy but recovers fast from suckers

[Zone7Bpalmguy]

1 hour ago, ryjohn said:

Chamaerops ‘cerifera’ has very underrated hardiness.  Few species are more leaf/bud hardy here in north Louisiana—Needle palm, Sabal minor variants, and maybe Trachycarpus (which struggles due to heat here).  Four or five winters of 7B really only resulted in minor leaf burn and no loss of trunks.  The green cultivar by comparison was total defoliation and loss of 20-100% of trunks.  Cerifera is leaf hardier than the trunking Sabals, a Washington filifera, Brahea, Butia, Serenoa, nannohrops, and Jubaea.

 

and my hardiest green version (little trunk loss but routine 100% foliage burn).  Unfortunately this particular specimen has some sort of frond form that is sort of an ugly “never-fully-opens look”.

 

Silver Serenoa repens for comparison… much less bud and leaf hardy but recovers fast from suckers

Those ceriferas are hard to find, outside of applying for a second mortgage. I'd love to have one again. Yours looks great. I do have a silver saw and it's proven very hardy so far for me. 

[KPoff]

33 minutes ago, Zone7Bpalmguy said:

Those ceriferas are hard to find, outside of applying for a second mortgage. I'd love to have one again. Yours looks great. I do have a silver saw and it's proven very hardy so far for me. 

@Zone7Bpalmguy PDN nursery has the for sale and will mail. Not big plants but I’ve got a few from them. If you’re ever in Tucson, AZ they have lots of big ones at nurseries there as well. I got a 15 gallon at a nursery in Tucson and it was like $150 I think.

[ryjohn]

1 hour ago, Zone7Bpalmguy said:

Those ceriferas are hard to find, outside of applying for a second mortgage. I'd love to have one again. Yours looks great. I do have a silver saw and it's proven very hardy so far for me. 

Back in the 2006-2009 range they used to have hardy palms in 3 gallon blue pots at Home Depot and Lowe’s— mostly ceriferas, needle palms, and Sabal minors.  They were maybe $14.99 to $21.99 regular price and if you waited till late in the season you could get them for 70% off.  I bought them by the truck load for $5-$7.  There were some 5 and 15 gallons too, and some Serenoa and Butia as well.  Have some mass plantings of them elsewhere

[Zone7Bpalmguy]

13 hours ago, KPoff said:

@Zone7Bpalmguy PDN nursery has the for sale and will mail. Not big plants but I’ve got a few from them. If you’re ever in Tucson, AZ they have lots of big ones at nurseries there as well. I got a 15 gallon at a nursery in Tucson and it was like $150 I think.

Thanks @KPoff, I was hoping to find one in the 3g size. Maybe a future trip to Florida could merit one.  Sounds like a heckuva deal on that 15g one! I used to have one at a previous residence and I never protected it. We had a minus 1'F and I think it killed the main trunk but side shoots survived. I never got to see the progress of it as we moved in the latter parts of  spring.

[Zone7Bpalmguy]

12 hours ago, ryjohn said:

Back in the 2006-2009 range they used to have hardy palms in 3 gallon blue pots at Home Depot and Lowe’s— mostly ceriferas, needle palms, and Sabal minors.  They were maybe $14.99 to $21.99 regular price and if you waited till late in the season you could get them for 70% off.  I bought them by the truck load for $5-$7.  There were some 5 and 15 gallons too, and some Serenoa and Butia as well.  Have some mass plantings of them elsewhere

Yes I remember those years. In fact that was how I got my only cerifera. Do they still sell those blue pot plants anymore? I've never seen any here or in parts of Georgia. I need to get me a cerifera next year. My one problem is, I'm running out of prime real estate for warm microclimates, lol.

[KPoff]

1 hour ago, Zone7Bpalmguy said:

Thanks @KPoff, I was hoping to find one in the 3g size. Maybe a future trip to Florida could merit one.  Sounds like a heckuva deal on that 15g one! I used to have one at a previous residence and I never protected it. We had a minus 1'F and I think it killed the main trunk but side shoots survived. I never got to see the progress of it as we moved in the latter parts of  spring.

@Zone7Bpalmguy yeah I was pretty excited about that find in Tucson. They had probably 100 of them that size, it was a massive nursery. I planted it in the ground in March. I’m not sure if I sited it the best as south side space is gone. It’s on the east side so in the summer it gets 5-6 hours of sun but in the winter it will only get 3 hours or so. We will see I guess. It’s enough that it grew well all summer. I’m in 8A west Texas so I think I have a good chance of keeping it alive here but we will see. It’s well established going into winter anyways and we are still 80s for highs and 60s for low so it’s got another month or so probably to get established before typical first frost here.

[Ben G.]

On 10/10/2025 at 4:45 PM, ryjohn said:

Chamaerops ‘cerifera’ has very underrated hardiness.  Few species are more leaf/bud hardy here in north Louisiana—Needle palm, Sabal minor variants, and maybe Trachycarpus (which struggles due to heat here).  Four or five winters of 7B really only resulted in minor leaf burn and no loss of trunks.  The green cultivar by comparison was total defoliation and loss of 20-100% of trunks.  Cerifera is leaf hardier than the trunking Sabals, a Washington filifera, Brahea, Butia, Serenoa, nannohrops, and Jubaea.

 

and my hardiest green version (little trunk loss but routine 100% foliage burn).  Unfortunately this particular specimen has some sort of frond form that is sort of an ugly “never-fully-opens look”.

 

Silver Serenoa repens for comparison… much less bud and leaf hardy but recovers fast from suckers

Yours is one of the biggest ceriferas that I have seen. I really like them a lot, but mine is still quite small. I planted it in the ground in Oklahoma twice before finally bringing it with me when I moved to Texas. Both times I put it in the ground in Oklahoma though, it got slammed with below zero temps. I covered it but didn't heat it. So, it survived but lost most of its size both times.

Here is my favorite cerifera in the area here, at SeaWorld San Antonio:

[Ben G.]

Same palm with me for scale at 6'2".

[TropicsEnjoyer]

1 hour ago, Ben G. said:

Same palm with me for scale at 6'2".

That’s amazing. It almost looks fake, the color is so blue like a bismarckia. Would love to have one of those one day.

[ryjohn]

Whew that one is a beaut!  I transplanted that large one in the picture from my garden in Oregon 19 years ago when it was much smaller.  So they do transplant well