British Columbia: The Chilean Wine Palm for Vancouver ... ?

Vancouver has now an abundance of windmill palms, and is getting more all the time,which adds a "subtropical" touch to the city. (I always smile at the idea of people driving in from elsewhere in the country, doing a mild "palm freak out").

I LOVE our windmill palms! They're almost like plant friends.
However, they have fan leaves, and not "pinnate" leave (or 'fronds' as
many people call them)

To offset this, and add variety, how about the idea of cultivating some Chilean Wine Palms for the city? The West End of Vancouver is in hardiness zone 8B.

They are more cold-tolerant than Butia (the Pindo) and are absolutely magnificent
when they reach a certain height. They also prefer mild summers, like ours, and are cold tolerant to -12°C, which we rarely get.

Any ideas? Any hope? All responses very much valued.

 

These don't last in most locations this far north, without being protected in some way. It is possible to grow them for a time, but...

 

Thank you for replying. I had thought that, upon reading up on the Chilean Wine Palm, that it was the hardiest of the pinnate-leaved palms, and only a notch less cold tolerant than the good ol' windmill palm, which seem to do very well in Seattle, Vancouver, and area.

One palm expert told me that they get much hardier as they get older (bigger, that is),
so maybe growing them in a protected environment until they reach a certain size, then planting them outdoors, would be adequate.

I notice you're from the Seattle area. You don't get quite the cold outflows we get in Vancouver, so I was certain they'd grow down your way. Are there any other pinnate-leaved pants that could act as a visual counterpoint to our friend the Windmill Palm?

 

Feather palms attempted here always peter eventually unless coddled. There are scattered specimens around now that have been in place for a few years, but I have never seen one make it into the tall stage. I've heard that there was a big one in Seattle many years ago, it is long gone now. Even Mediterranean fan palm is liable to freeze down at some point, as a clump did that had been in place for years, right off of the water. Windmill palm, on the other hand, is downright common. At the Carl English Botanical Garden it has even been seen coming up from seed.

A windmill palm in Tacoma was 38' tall some years ago.

Every kind of plant attempted here is either able to take ALL the minimum temperatures we get, or it isn't. Lots of Zone 9+ stuff will grow here for years at a time, only to be taken down or out when it finally gets cold enough.

 

Keep in mind that it got down to -15 degrees C at Vancouver Airport a couple of winters ago.

 

There are many more of these being planted around the lower mainland and Vancouver Island over the past few years. Larger ones were difficult to get over the past few years because most of the stock in California was bought up. However, in the past couple of years they have become a little easier to find Tropicole Trading (on Vancouver Island) had a good supply two years ago. I am not sure what he has now. I have three of these now and I believe that they are hardier than Butia capitia. I have several Butia growing in my garden and so far have not had any problems.

Yes. They may not make it over several years, but there have been very few tried in this area. I like to experiment and only weigh actual facts from the naysayers.

 

Okay, how about the actual facts of ones that have been planted and died during winter cold? The practice has been called Zonal Denial for a reason. It's one thing for enthusiasts and experimenters to plunge in knowing they are gambling, it's quite another for the uninitiated to be told there is nothing to worry about. Many marginal/tender specimens, such as various palms offered at local outlets are not cheap.

 

You may be totally right, but ... on YOU TUBE, I saw a garden in Cloverdale, BC, which is in the Fraser Valley southeast of Vancouver, in Zone 8A ... and in this garden were not only butia, but - to my amazement - a young Canary Island Date Palm.

Perhaps this guy just got lucky, but I never would have dreamed of butia or Canary Island date palms growing in Vancouver's eastern suburbs - eve in a protected environment - where the winter nights can get considerably colder than in Vancouver itself.

It may depend on the tree itself of course, which is often the case, I think.

 

Could be the owner is putting temporary greenhouses over them in the winter, or maybe the clip is actually taken somewhere else altogether.

 

According to the information, the owner leaves them outside all year - but the Canary Island Palm is close to his house, so maybe it benefits from radiant heat.

The clip COULD have been taken somewhere else altogether, but that would be fraudulent. It seemed genuine enough to me, that's all I can say, and I come from Vancouver.

 

I don't think that, once past a certain size, the Chilean Wine Palm is a marginal / tender
specimen. It is true they need to grow to a certain size, but they can tolerate hard frosts, and prefer, cooler, damper summers. Their natural habitat is up to 4,500 feet in the ravines of the southern Chilean Andes.

 

Since, unlike palms, rhododendrons and roses are native to the region the possibility of cultivating them here was demonstrated the second the first European saw them growing wild.

Note, by the way, that my earlier comments were based on facts already known about Chilean wine palm. In addition to zones, Zonal Denialists also seem apt to deny the experience of others who have come before them. When assessing long-term plants like palms long-term results are what provide us with useful information, and not what has happened to new plantings that may not have been in place for even 5 years.

I watched one in a Seattle plant expert's garden grow slowly for quite a few years, only to eventually disappear once it finally got cold enough.

 

Perhaps the tree's size played a role in that. The bigger they are, the tougher they get. Windmill palms can tolerate spells of down to -15°celsius - a few degrees above ZERO FAHRENHEIT. That kind of cold only occurs in sustained, powerful, Arctic outflow conditions, which incidentally, are more pronounced in Vancouver than Seattle.

And zones in the area are variable due to microclimates. Stanley Park in Vancouver, and the downtown peninsula is in Zone 8B. Spots on the British Columbia coast are in Zone 9A. I'm sure much of Seattle is in at LEAST Zone 8B if not Zone 9A