The recent rash of cold weather/snow/ice in the South got me thinking…
I’ve been to many of these places that are now covered in snow and ice, or fighting temps in the 20’s, and doggonit, there are Palm trees and other similar plants down there covered in snow or ice.
I live in New Jersey, and I enjoy the beaches, but always envied the more tropical locales because of the Palm trees and other vegetation.
Why can’t we have Palm trees up North? Obviously, there are thousands of Plam trees facing cold weather, I’m sure they aren’t all going to perish. Afterall, it gets cold down south from time to time, and it’ll snow or sleet every few years.
Well, you could try planting one in New Jersey, and it might survive for years, but then a really cold winter will come along and kill it. That’s why palm trees have not naturally extended their range northward.
Note that palm trees can grow at your latitude – there are palms flourishing even in southwest Ireland, but they have that marine climate – moderated by the Gulf Stream – that those of us in eastern North America don’t have.
What USDA zone are you in? Most of NJ is 6, with coastal areas being 7. I’m relatively certain there are palm trees that will live in zone 7. I’m in Seattle, which is mostly zone 8, and there are palm trees here. Micro-climates work: find a south-facing interior corner. I grew tropical perennials in Chicago along a south-facing, dark-brick wall that had a basement furnace on the other side.
I suspect it’s not the air temperature, but the ground temperature that prevents palms another warm-climate vegetation from growing up North. Even if they get some snow in Florida, I bet the ground doesn’t freeze to the depth it does over the course of a New Jersey winter.
According to my co-worker, whose family has a cottage there, palm trees apparently grow on some of the Gulf Islands in the Straight of Georgia, between Vanvouver Island and mainland BC.
The island she mentions is north of Vancouver; I don’t remember the name, but will try to find a link later–I know it’s on the net.
I’m talking about extreme Southern Coastal New Jersey. I think that if they could grow, someone would have tried it.
Although, this could be flawed thinking.
I’ve seen a couple of Palm trees, but they were removed in the autumn and taken indoors, then moved outside again, Actually, there is a service that does this. Basically, you lease the trees, they drop them in place in spring and pop them out later. They were 20-30 footers.
I think they must have a tolerance for short term cold weather, down to 20 degrees. If they were in place for a week of near 0 (farenhiet) days, I think they’d bite the dust. The frozen ground theory seems plausible.
Maybe breeding the hardiest of the hardiest, as they do with grasses, will someday produce hardy northern palms.
I’d take the above-referenced practice of moving palms indoors as an indication that you’re prolly SOL here, Philster. The plantspeople doing so are probably pretty well educated in the local climate and its horticultural limitations; I doubt if a nursery professional would go through the trouble you describe if there were practical alternatives.
As far as breeding for hardiness, consider that the freezing point is a serious barrier: some plants have physiological means of dealing with it, and some do not. It’s not necessarily a matter of degree. (Some palm oils, for example, solidify in colder temperatures: this would be kind of like having your blood turn to pudding when you forget to wear a sweater.)
When visiting colleges many a moon ago, I was told that the northernmost Palm tree on the east coast living year-round outdoors is located on the campus of the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg VA.
And I have to say, it’s a pretty pathetic-looking palm tree. Apparently the Burg represents the northern edge of it’s climate zone.
I probably have the only front-yard palm tres in DENVER. I painted a restaurant last spring, and they were getting rid of four full-size palm trees. So now I have two flanking my front walk (they look funny in the snow), and two by my back porch.
