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Some palms can even survive in the Chicagoland area, Ive seen em planted. They need to be covered some times, but they can survive.
Well yeah, if you bring them inside for the winter. There are businesses in my neighborhood that do this (and Chicago puts a bunch out by the Lake). My neighbor puts a couple palms out in his yard every year. He said it's no sweat, but he owns a landscaping company...
I don't really understand the fascination so many on here seem to have for palm trees. I find them fairly undesirable overall. I understand that "emotionally" they signify "the tropics" and warm weather when northerners are on winter vacation, or home if you're from a native/semi-native region, but otherwise what's the big deal? There are threads about palms all the time on here!
I don't really understand the fascination so many on here seem to have for palm trees. I find them fairly undesirable overall. I understand that "emotionally" they signify "the tropics" and warm weather when northerners are on winter vacation, or home if you're from a native/semi-native region, but otherwise what's the big deal? There are threads about palms all the time on here!
I can't stand palm trees, personally. They're messy and they're magnets for stinging insects. Not to mention they don't provide much shade. The house I grew up in had 6 of them on the property, and it was not much fun having to trim those things every year. I almost always got stung by wasps who loved to build their nests in the dead fronds, and I'm allergic to bees and wasps.
I much prefer the Coniferous evergreens, Maples, and Oaks that are common where I live now.
Well yeah, if you bring them inside for the winter. There are businesses in my neighborhood that do this (and Chicago puts a bunch out by the Lake). My neighbor puts a couple palms out in his yard every year. He said it's no sweat, but he owns a landscaping company...
I don't really understand the fascination so many on here seem to have for palm trees. I find them fairly undesirable overall. I understand that "emotionally" they signify "the tropics" and warm weather when northerners are on winter vacation, or home if you're from a native/semi-native region, but otherwise what's the big deal? There are threads about palms all the time on here!
No, these palms were cold hardy down to zone 4. I dont remember the type, but they were only about 10-12' tall with just 2-3 fronds per palm, had smooth trunks, kinda strange looking. They wrapped them a few days in the winter when it would be sub-zero wind chills, but they survived uncovered, even in the snow.
But commonly? I don't think so. Where are all the palms in Seattle?
You can keep palms in the UK, I know someone who has them on private property. That doesn't mean that England is a good environment for palms.
I've seen palms as ornamental plants in a lot of different residential neighborhoods in Seattle--there's some palms in some parks as well. I think though generally, that's it's more something the a lot of people feel looks out of place for the region. There's palms along parts of the waterfronts in Victoria and Vancouver(English Bay on the south of Stanley Park has a lot of palms)--I think Victoria might actually have more than the other cities(fairly mild year round). Part of it also though is having a few palms in BC is a novelty to the rest of Canada as southwestern BC has a rep as Canada's "Banana Belt".
I grew up in Santa Cruz, where there were plenty of palm trees in places, but even then it's mostly just something planted near the beach, certain commercial areas, or occasionally in residential yards. But in general you're able to grow palms up and down the West Coast, though it starts looking stranger(and less types will grow) as you get further north. Northern California doesn't have palms trees as frequently as Southern California---where they seem to be everywhere, but in part that's just due to the image that Southern California was going for when they became popular in the earlier part of the 20th Century.
The orange, red, and pink colored areas are all able to grow palms(yellow is less likely but still possible to have palms in some lower elevation areas).
I'd say southeastern NC is the northern limit for where you occasionally see them and they grow well. Don't see them nearly as much as in SC but it's also very iconic state symbol there.
I've actually heard that they found one growing wild on bald head island which is off the coast of nc in the Gulf Stream. I think it only grows there naturally because it's far enough off the coast to be in that climate. That implies to me that the ones in NC aren't indigenous otherwise.
On the East coast, I've seen palm trees as far North as Virginia. They weren't very healthy looking either. I can't imagine they would do very well any further North than that without being heavily protected in the colder months.
Yeah a few of the hotels on the Virginia Beach oceanfront have planted some palms. They haven't been nativized to the region, though. When I was growing up in that area I don't remember any palms there at all, then sometime around 2000 they started appearing.
A neighbor in Norfolk had some kind of palm shrub in his front garden and had to cover it up with a blanket every winter. It looked so bad.
Palms naturally grow and thrive as far north as south carolina....
Yes, they can occasionally be seen in NC and Virginia, but they're uncommon and usually look rather sad and pathetic, unless one installs heaters in the soil to keep the soil from freezing.
So south Carolina and southwards are prime palmetto areas.
This is sort of off topic but is North Carolina also the northernmost location with alligators on the East Coast?
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