Northern NC vs Southern NC & Carolinas Weather

[Sue at the Rock]

Originally Posted by muslim12

palm trees in NC are everywhere but not naturally outside of the coast. they certainly aren't extremely wide spread but they are here. for the person who said we can grow windmill palms in Wilmington lol. windmill palms grow all the way in the mountains and are cold hardy to sub zero temps I believe. here in Raleigh the most common palms are sabal minor sabal palms and windmill s being the most common. sable palms are grown a lot here in my part of wake county I even saw a subway that had 5 medium sized sabal palms growing outside unfortunately they where killed this winter as where many other sabal palms but I also saw many sabal palms that survived this winter .many businesses grow palms here. places like restaurants and gas stations tend to be the businesses that seem to grow the most palms. palms in Raleigh are widely grown but not indigenous to the area. as for charlotte the majority of palms there are windmills also sabal palms are grown there also but Raleigh seems to grow more of those than charlotte although I saw a restaurant in concord with 4 large sabal palms that looked extremely healthy. I love seeing palms and as more people move here many more palms are planted as people like experimenting with them here. charlotte tends to be less humid than Raleigh for instance look at today Raleigh had a lower temp than charlotte but had higher humidity versus charlotte having less humidity but a hotter temp. g8rcat nice seeing you here its been a while since I last posted in the forums at all but I still check every day.

It's misleading to say palm trees are everywhere. They are tropical plants that need tropical conditions to easily grow. A determined gardener can grow them indoors. When I lived in Charleston (and was a Clemson Master Gardener) the only palms that were indigenous and could take a frost is the palmetto. The others will die outdoors in winter.

[rnc2mbfl]

I know that this thread is pretty old but I have to laugh at its premise.
The idea that Raleigh and Charlotte have appreciably different Winters because Raleigh is a bit further north makes me chuckle. Any slight differences that may be a result of Charlotte being further south are probably mitigated by its elevation above sea level being more than twice that of Raleigh.
If there is a comparison to be made on climate, it would be comparing the highlands to the lower coastal plain. That's really the only comparison in NC that's going to yield any significant differences in Winter weather. Even then the SE coastal areas of NC will still have a Winter season with brown grass, some freezing temps and even the occasional Winter weather storm.