I've seen lots of small Trachycarpus palms in SW BC, but I have never seen a big one. About how high do waggies, fortunei, and takil (if anybody knows) get here in zone 8b areas? If I plant some palms, I'd like them to someday be tall. Is there anything that I can do in order to make them grow taller?
Height of palms I planted a 18" fortunei 10 years ago and it is now 12' with a 9' trunk. If you check Denis' post you can see a pic of my two larger palms. They grow about a foot a year and then when you get a 4' trunk they speed up their growth and can grow two feet in a warm summer like last year. You can use a 20-20-20 fertilizer or Miracid twice a year, one now and one in mid August but no later than that. Takil grows the largest and fastest, then fortunei and finally wagneranus. Fortunei can grow to 20 to 30'
A windmill palm in Tacoma, WA was 38' tall in 1992. See Van Pelt, Champion Trees of Washington State for photo.
The tallest T. fortunei in the British Isles is 13m tall. "T. wagnerianus" is just a semi-dwarf cultivated form of T. fortunei.
RonB, I saw a pair of Windmill palms in Tacoma on a garden tour about 7 years ago. They where apparently planted in 1949 so the story goes, outside the Bayview Apt's. One was 40' and the other about 35' tall at the time. I can't find the photo at the moment. Impressive and stately, with a sore neck from staring upward. Cheers, LPN.
Same location. One of the palms was cut down, I thought the 38' one was the other one but maybe not if you were there since 1992.
Cut down!!! Good lord those palms should have heritage status like the aptartment building. Here's a nice 30' er in the south end of Nanaimo (Vancouver Island) Cheers, LPN.
