Growing Palms in the UK

For the UK there are essentially two styles of palm... those with broad fan shaped leaves and those with long feather-like leaves. Although some palms from warmer climates will grow in the UK they will grow an awful lot slower, some requiring a good soaking of heat to kick them into action. This needs to be borne in mind when selecting and positioning palms. Palms from temperate climates will grow much faster. Palms also have a predictable growth pattern – straight up. They don’t wander around like shrubs and trees. This makes them very easy to manage.

A lot of palms are graded for cold hardiness. This is very misleading because there are different types of cold and also palms which are grown abroad and imported by superstores will have a much lower tolerance to cold.
A sudden onset of a nasty minus figure which thaws out the next day is far less damaging that a long lingering freeze which is just below or above zero, that is why places like Florida can grow a greater variety of palms than the UK, essentially because it has good warm days to compensate for harsh freezes. This helps palms recover from stress. In the UK Winters are wet with very little light and no warmth. Palms do not like these conditions so can suffer damage quite easily, especially if young. Rain followed by a harsh freeze can be very damaging as the water freezes near the core of the palm and can induce rot killing the spear.

I find the worse time for palms is March and early April. Warming UK day and night time temperatures can start to kid palms into sucking up water again. Then they are hit with just a mild frost of say -4c and then 'bang' their saturated cells burst and leaves blacken off and the plant may even die. If your plants reach the third week of April then you can rest for another season :)

A palm should be planted out in the Spring. Care should be taken regarding position. Remember these are trees and will expand their trunks to quite imposing proportions as they grow. A lot of plams do not like to be dug up again and the stress of this may kill them. If you must dig one up do it in Autumn or very very early Spring (like most trees or shrubs) and strip of a lot of the foliage so it does not dehydrate moisture through the leaves.

Some palms can completely defoliate during Winter. However if a good hot Summer follows they will usually recover. If no hot Summer (which is usually the case in the UK) then they will probably die off.

Best Palms for North West UK

These are the following palms which I guarantee you will have absolutely no trouble with in the North West of England. The NW gets a good deal of Winter frost, as low as -12c I have seen, but it seems to generally get no lower than -8c. I shall also explain why some of the 'popular' varieties sold at garden centres are maybe not so good.

No Protection Needed

• Trachycarpus Fortunei - Indestructable and fast growing fan palm. No protection needed.
• Trachycarpus Takil - Larger leaved version of T. Fortunei. Hard to come by !
• Trachycarpus Wagnerianus - Stiff leaved version of T. Fortunei. Good for windy gardens.
• Butia Capitata - Excellent and architectural feather palm. Slight blue tinge to most.
• Butia Eriospatha - Awesome greener and lighter leaved variety of Butia which continues to grow even in the Winter !!!
• Jubaea Chilensis - Excellent feather leaf palm which is slow growing and incredibly expensive.
• Chamaerops Humilis - Slow growing fan palm which suckers at the base and forms a bush. Very spikey though.
• Chamaerops Humilis var. Cerifera - Bluer version with narrower fingers or leaflets.

Some Protection Needed

• Brahea Edulis - Beautiful green fan palm which is hard to get, but seems to be a great contender if not wet in Winter when a baby, so try and get a mature one (-8c will kill it if unprotected).
• Brahea Armata - Expensive blue fan palm which gets some yellow spotting in Winter if left unprotected (-8c damages if unprotected).
• Phoenix Dactylifera - Surprising toughness unprotected (-6c will damage if unprotected), but will brown and yellow a bit in harsh frosts.

Forget these

• Bismarkia Nobilis - This will die I guarantee it at -1c !!!
• Livistona Chinenses - This will die anything below -4c even if fleeced.
• Pheonix Roebelenii - This will damage badly at -2c and die at -4c.
• Washingtonia Robusta - This will die at -4c and will need a really hot summer if it is to return.
• Washingtonia Filifera - This will die at -6c and will need a really hot summer if it is to return.
• Butia Odorata - This close relative of B. Capitata will die at -4c if this occurs for more than one night in sequence with near freezing daytime temperatures.
• Butia Yatay - This will die at -4c if you get a sequence of these with low temp days in between.
• Phoenix Caneriensis - Very popular palm which will damage very easily at -4c if it is not in a sheltered area. It will die at -6c unless the following days and nights are above freezing. It is most vulnerable to Spring frosts. It may come back if the following Summer is hot.

All the above finding have come from my own experiences with these guys so please beware of the false claims of garden centres... all they want to do is cash in on a craze and have no regard for the plants welfare.

Alocasia Macrorrhizos

This is one impressive beastie which will have your neighbours peering over the fence all Summer. There are many variations of Alocasia and you should make sure you get the right species as a lot of places label any of them how they please.

I have experimented with this plant somewhat and can safely say that it hates full sun. It does like it hot however, but sweaty hot rather than dry hot. Plant it out in the Summer and bring it in for the Winter.

I subjected mine to an unheated greenhouse 2 Winters ago that went down to -4c inside. The foliage melted (as expected) and I was left with a stump. I left it in the greenhouse over Summer and it shot back through the same stump. So it looks like it is pretty hardy to low minus figures at least !!!!

It likes to be fed and watered a lot in the Summer. One of it's funky features is the way it can shrug off water. Mist it, spray it, throw a bucket of water over it... this plant sheds every drop... it is awesome to watch :D

Things about Rhapis Humilis

Some things which you may be interested in about this rare plant which I have discovered through experimentation would suggest that it isn't as easy to care for as the general consensus stipulates.

It does not like tap water. It does not like rainwater (NW England rain anyhow). These turn the leaves brown very quickly. It took me a while to figure this out, but the only water it does like is bottled water, especially French - Evian or Volvic :D

It does not like the wind. Wind destroys the new leaves while they are still soft. These new leaves then go brown and look very tatty.

It does not like direct sunlight, whether it is outside or behind a window. The outer leaves scorch very easily!

It does not like to be in too big a pot. Despite being a clumping palm it would seem that if you put it in too big a pot it will go on strike and stop growing.

It's main growth is in the early spring. New shoots pop up and existing shoots will put out 2 or 3 leaves. Throughout the Summer it's growth will be slow. This would suggest temperate preference.

I have found it a tough battle to care for this palm and if i had the chance to buy it again i would probably pass.

Beware B&Q

OK, we all know that as exotic gardening becomes more popular the superstores like B&Q are going to want to cash in on it. Last year I noticed them selling Phoenix Roebelenii as an outdoor palm. They have been doing this for some years now. While these guys can sustain some frost they really do not like it at all. Fleece will help out a little, but take things below -4c and you will have some real trouble. Although they look nice with their light feathery fronds you are well advised to avoid them unless you keep them in a pot and bring them undercover for the Winter.

Now, what's even worse is last year I noticed, to my horror, that B&Q were trying to pass of the very tender Bismarckia Nobilis as a hardy palm !?!?!?!! They were the silver forms (which are the toughest), but they will defoliate at 0c easily !!!! DON'T BE CONNED !!! B&Q were selling these at a HUGE 50 quid each too !!!! It was a complete laugh reading the pointless info cards they stick to their plants... "Needs protection from heavy frosts"... more like needs protection period!

Growing Patterns of Palms in the Winter

This Winter has pretty much passed by now. I monitored the growing behaviour of my palms during the Winter. I noted a low of -6c and about a dozen nights of -4 or below. Not bad really! However out of the various palms I have I can only say that there were 3 which continued to push out new leaves.

Nope, it wasn't the Trachys, not the Butias... it was the two Brahea (Armata and Edulis) and the New Zealand palms Rhopalostylis Sapida. I kind of expected R. Sapida to grow as they originate from temperate rain forest areas. I was surprised by the Brahea continuing to grow however!!!

Brahea are dry climate palms, used to hot dry conditions. NW Winters are very wet and very cool. The Armata pushed out 2 new leaves during Winter and the Edulis gave me 4 !!! It would therefore seem that these guys don't go dormant like most palms. The more I see the what the Brahea can do the more I like them. Waaaaay better than Butia and Trachys it would seem !!!!

Washingtonia Filifera – Doesn’t like getting wet !!!

It seems that suppliers of the palm don’t seem to care whether they give you a Filifera, Robusta or a mongrel of the two. It can be very confusing as at first sight they look almost identical to each other. However, from my own experiences with these palms they are very temperamental to the British weather conditions. Filifera can quite happily shrug off -7c so long as it doesn’t get wet. If you have rain followed by a measly -5c then it will defoliate... old leaves, new leaves, the lot will wilt, go brown and hang there looking very sorry for itself.

The year before I kept one inside the house for the Winter. Despite being ‘dry’ atmosphere lovers it decided to shrivel all of its leaves up into brown paper. I was really surprised by this behaviour?

This is a real pity as I think this is one of the more attractive fan palms with its dark orange trunk and light green leaves. On a good note though, it will return when the weather warms up. It will initially push out a mass of small leaves and then give you one or two big ones again. It can take it 2 years to start growing proper size leaves again.

This palm is a fast grower in the UK, as fast as the Trachycarpus family. However, I would not recommend it for the NW of England as we always get wash-out Winters which means this palm will not really thrive and seeing as bringing them indoors or leaving them outdoors during the Winter defoliates them unless you are a fan of totem poles I would not bother..

Strange baby Cycad growing behaviour!

During the Summer of 2007 I decided to give some newly hatched cycads a good soaking of heat in the greenhouse to try and encourage them to grow a new leaf. Some decided to respond. However mealy bugs decided they liked the taste of a particular species – Cycas Panzihuaensis – they quickly consumed the new emerging leaf before i even noticed they were there. The mealies didn’t bother the other cycads for some reason? Anyway, about 5 days later i saw that the same cycad had decided to put another leaf out!!!! Well this was a real surprise to me. I checked it for mealies and none seemed to be around. Well, within the next couple of days i went in there and saw the leaf had been chewed up yet again. This time however I thought to myself... “hmmm maybe it will grow another one?”... guess what... about 5 or so days later a third attempt emerged. This time the Cycad stayed with me wherever I went :D

This little escapade did get me thinking though... what would happen if i chopped emerging leaves off? I intend to try it out this Summer. I guess it will either stress the cycad out or... hopefully... make it grow faster. I know i can encourage new leaf production by defoliating grown cycads, but it never occurred to me that perhaps the same is true for baby ones too??? I’ll keep you posted.

Clivia Miniata

Another awesome underplanter to tree ferns is the Clivia species. There are a few variations, but the C. Miniata is the most commonly available.

This can be planted out during the Spring, Summer and Autumn and brought back in for the Winter. You can plant it direct or sink it in pots.

The dark, thick foliage is very rich and contrasts very well with the brown trunks or light green fronds of ferns. During the growing season it likes to be kept moist and shaded. If the Summer sun hits this plants leaves then they will fry and never recover.

Clivia flower in the Spring, red, yellow or orange clumps. They spread mainly through suckers which can be separated into new plants, though I think they look nicer as a huge clump. They prefer to be on the dry side for Winter, so bring them in and forget about them.

Agapanthus Africanus

Commonly available and root hardy this particular type of Agapanthus is perfect for both ferneries and palmeries. I'm not so interested in the flowers, more the dark shiney broad leaves they produce. These look fantastic when set in large clumps around rocks between palms or tree ferns.

If you want Agapanthus to flower you need to give them good sunlight. If you don't want them to flower (like me) give them shade. They do not like boggy ground even though they look like lillies. They don't like dry ground either so ensure good moisture by clumping them close to each other.

In the Winter the foliage will usually die back at around -5c. The roots will remain intact though, even at -10c. In the new year they will spring up more leaves fairly quickly and sucker roots will spring up new plants.

You can keep them in pots if you like, but they spread faster if you leave them in the ground outside. Agapanthus are still fairly expensive in garden centres, which is a little irritating as they are always planted out as medium to large sized groups in any planting scheme.

Miscanthus Giganteus

This little appreciated grass is becoming more commonly available now. It towers between 8 and 10 feet and looks great as a backdrop screen or a corner covering specimen. Two drawbacks however... first off it will die back in the Winter which means your backdrop disappears or the ugly corner you were covering re-emerges. It is also quite slow to spread. When you buy it you normally have 2 or 3 strands to play with. Each strand will duplicate a new shoot close to the parent, so it will be a fair few years before it looks like much you could appreciate. If you can stick it out then once it does bunch up there is no comparison in the grass world for the simplistic architectural beauty.

Like most grasses there is no need for any Winter protection. Just let it die back and chop back the dead strands in the Spring when you see new shoots emerging.

Polystichum Proliferum - A Stumpy Tree Fern

Not quite a tree fern, more of a stump fern :) This guy grows under the feet of Australian tree ferns and will eventually grow a short dark brown stump, from which will emerge loads and loads of very dark green, stiff fronds.

The interesting thing about this guy is that if you pin one or more of the leaves to the ground a baby one will grow from the tip. This means that you can fairly quickly cover ground with these guys. Keep the frond(s) pinned down until the baby takes root.

They should be grown in damp shaded areas. They are 100% imprevious to anything the Winter will throw at them. Their fronds last all year round and throughout the Summer it will grace you with 20 or 30 new fronds. I really love this fern. It ticks all the boxes and should be in everyone's garden.

Gunnera Manicata

This bog plant from Africa is a real beast once it establishes itself. If you want to see a full sized one head over to Tatton Park’s gardens in mid Summer. It takes time to get there, but within 5 years you should have something which stands an easy 5 or 6 feet into the air.

Gunnera is related to the Rhubarb. Unlike the rhubarb it has very stiff leaves with a weird nobbly texture to them. This nobbliness extends down the huge stems to its massive corm. These nobbles seem to work together to channel rainfall down to the corm. It’s really wonderful to watch, as this technology even works when you take your hose and spray underneath the leaves!!!!

Gunnera can take strong sunlight, but may burn around the edges if it is dehydrated. It will need good sunlight if you want massive leaves. Keep Gunnera in the shade and you will get smaller, darker leaves which stay near the ground. Each year it will send out massive cone-like flowers which don’t look too pretty, but add to the jungle effect of the plant.

The leaves will melt at -2c, but this is not a problem as corm plants act like bulb plants in that they suck the foliage energy back into their centre, so the leaves would die back anyhow! The corm can take -10c easily unprotected, but if you are paranoid you can fold the mushy old leaves back over the corm to hide it from settling frost.

This is a good choice for the massive jungle look, but you really need loads of room to let it do its stuff. Shop around though as you can get good sized ones for good money. Look at the size of the corm rather than the leaves. Leaf size is dependent on time of year, water and sun.

Calathea – Perfect Fernery Choice

There are absolutely loads of variations of Calathea. Some grow low, some shoot to 3 feet. They are primarily indoor plants, but there is no reason why you cannot use them outside in the milder weather.

Calathea require low light. Too much and they will shrivel. They also like humidity so the best place for them is in a fernery setting... with your tree ferns for example.

They are pretty cheap houseplants, so you can buy a whole bunch of them and pot them up together in a standard plastic plant pot. Then dig a hole in your fernery, put some gravel or wood chip into the bottom of the hole, then sink the pot into it. Simple as that and an instant interest among your fern collection.

Calathea spread underground, so once they get too big break them off into clumps and start all over again. I have also noticed that from time to time the whole plant will appear to die off. I have no idea why, but give it time and new leaves will emerge and it will look as good as new.
Remember to bring them in for Winter :D

Cyathea Australis

Imagine the trunk of a Dicksonia combined with the fronds of a Cyathea. This pretty much sums up the Cyathea Australis. It is a curious fern with its main identifying feature being the slimness of the frond stems. Loads of these spring out from the centre of the trunk in all directions during the Summer. The fronds do tend to dry up easily around the edges though for some reason no matter where I try and place them. Not sure why yet?

This fern is supposed to be Winter hardy to -7c. I have not tested this yet, though I know they do remain undamaged at -4c. Some suppliers (usually online ones) tend to sell these as severed trunks. Try to avoid these as they will last that year and not recover for the next year. This applies to all Cyatheas and some Dicksonia species. Also, some Cyathea require the nutrients stored within exiting fronds to create new fronds.

Again frondless Cyathea will usually struggle to survive kicking out one or two fronds in the first year and then perishing due to starvation. Fortnately C. Australis doesn’t mind being frondless. However watch you don’t get conned !!!

Cyathea Cooperi

This is a fast growing tree fern which forms a slim trunk covered in white hairs. It produces large fronds which are shaped like huge paddles. It looks very attractive sticking out of an area planted with ground ferns. It can take some good sun, and it appears to prefer it like this. Too much damp seems to rot it’s new fronds before they have a chance to unfurl.

Like Dicksonia Squarrosa the Cooperi tends to sprout new shoots from its base (roots around the base). I have seen snails attack these so watch out!!!

The only real downer of Cooperi is that it really hates the Winter. -2c will damage the fronds, browning them off on their tops. Not much more than this will kill it altogether (-5c). You should really take it into shelter for the Winter, such as a greenhouse, and heat it or cover it with fleece. I have found that the fleece can rot away the white hairs covering its trunk, but it doesn’t seem to mind this.

Cooperi is a difficult fern to get right. It doesn’t like the cold, it doesn’t like too much damp and it dries out fast in the sun. It is really one for a specialist collector.

Dicksonia Fibrosa

This tree fern is becoming more common. It has a darker, more fibrous trunk which is kind of squashy when pressed. The fronds are shorter and darker in colour than Antarctica. The fronds don’t break as easy either. However, they are slower growing, fronding only once or twice a year and not loads of fronds like Antartica either.

A real positive point is that they are far more hardier to the Winter elements than Antarctica. I have had a few of these sitting in -10c without any frond damage whatsoever. Like Antarctica they are shipped around as bare trunks, but they are a little more stressed like this and may not revive, so try and get a rooted one if you can.
Again, they look nice in groups, but big ones are hard to find these days and are pretty expensive. Some places sell Fibrosa as Antarctica, so keep a look out as you may get yourself a bargain... the biggest sign being the squashy trunk :D

Dicksonia Antarctica

Common tree fern which comes in a whole variety of sizes. These are so common because they can just walk into the forests of Australia and hack them down into the sizes they want to ship. Mostly found with no roots or fronds. If you are selecting one you really want one with fronds that are just beginning to show rather than established fronds shooting out all over the place. You should also splash out and get a big one as these guys are very very slow to produce trunk height.

The foliage will die back when Winter arrives, though with each year of exposure they seem to adjust and keep their foliage for longer. All you need for Winter protection is a fat fist full of straw stuffed into the crown to protect the late Summer fronds from being beaten up by frost. You can also tie a fleece around the trunk if you wish, but this is only necessary if you live in very cold areas (regular -10c).

With these (and all tree ferns) you need to keep them moist to get the best out of them. These like to be sprayed on the crown and foliage. If you do this religiously then you will be rewarded with huge fronds. They are pretty wind resistant too, but make sure the whole thing doesn’t fall down and crush something if you are placing it in a windy spot.

When digging a tall one in jam bricks around the whole you are putting it into. This will help keep moisture around its base and also add stability until it managed to re-root itself.

Dicksonia Antarctica look very nice in groups of 3, placed close together in a triangle with different heights. If you can afford it try and place them like this to get the best visual effect. Partially bury rocks around them to encourage moss to grow around their bases to give them that authentic forest look. A couple of ground ferns to finish the look off. Very nice :)

Jubaea Chilensis

Another example of a totally hardy palm comes in the form of Jubaea Chilensis. These guys are sooooo expensive, why? because they grow so slowly in the UK. It fires 3, 4 even 5 new shoots at a time, but the time for any one of those shoots to form a leaf is pretty much a whole year.

If you are patient though it really is an awesome palm to have. It is also worth the expense of getting a chunkier one if you can.

The reason to buy one... this palm does not care how cold it gets... it keeps growing!!! even through the whole of the Winter it will slowly unfold the new shoots into the beginnings of a new set of leaves. Secondly it does not mind wet Winters. Thirdly, because it grows so slowly you can pretty much predict its growing pattern, so it isn't one of those palms that swamp the house or garden in 10 years or so. Finally it is wind resistant. It has very stuff leaves which no amount of wind will budge.

So, in summary they tick all the boxes of the UK climate with the only negative being the price.

Crinodendron Hookerianum

This beautiful shrub is nothing short of spectacular when it bloom in the early Summer. The red of the drooping flowers contrasts perfectly with the dark green foliage.

I bought mine surprisingly enough from Morrisons in one of those funny tubular cartons they sell baby shrubs in. 5 years later and it is 7 feet high and 6 feet wide.

To get good flowering you need to put it in good light and feed it Azalea food (acidic plant food). Southern sun will black spot the leaves but it doesn't really bother it. Too much shade and the flowers will be sparse.

Written text about this plant says it is frost damaged at -5, but i have seen no evidence of this. Mine has sustained -10 without any issues, even as a newly planted baby.

This has to be one of my favourite shrubs and it is definitely worth tracking down. Grow it as a centre piece rather than stuffing it up against a fence and you will be the talk of the road.