Cultivating palms on the edge

April 2012

My two Trachycarpus fortunei seem to have survived the winter, though the big one is a sad view so far. It has been a rather mild winter, but in February the temperature dropped to -16,5°C/2.3°F. The left Trachy was thouroughly covered (and have survived the last three winters), and the right one did only have a little spruce and leaves at the bottom and was covered with bubble plast. The right one was bought in Ikea last year.

May 14, 2012

Alas, both of them had spearpulls. In case you don't know what it is - I didn't the first time I read it - a spearpull means that you can pull out a petiole (the stalk that carries the leaf), normally due to rod. Some cure it with hydrogene peroxide. Perhaps I uncovered them too early.

Sad news about my Chamaerops humilis!

Background

I began cultivating indoor palms, Washingtonia filiferas, back in 1977, but most of the seedlings was given away, and our only remaining specimen died in the nineties after an attack of thrips. A sowed Chamaerops humilis from 1982 was never attacked by thrips, by the way. It is still a great indoor palm.

In 2008 we bought a summer cottage in a forest area in the South-Western part of Sweden, and I thought I would experiment with outdoor palms, in spite of the tough conditions. We are about 150m/164yd above sea level and about 8km/5mi from the sea: Summer temperatures seldom exceed 30°C/86°F, and periods with frost must be expected every winter. Temperatures below -10°C/14°F occur often. Temperatures between -15°C/5°F and -20°C/-4°F are to be expected occasionally. Temperatures below -20°C/-4°F will probably happen once or twice in a period of 30 years.

Besides the meteorological conditions there are a lot of animals, from snails and water voles to deer and elks, and they all seem prone to test the taste of palms, especially in cold winters! The soil is a third tough condition: Digging is always exciting, sometimes you will hit the solid rock, sometimes a pile of stones and sometimes just normal forest like soil.