Are you fed up with the cloudy German weather? Would you like to break out into southern climes with exotic vegetation? But your employer is absolutely of the opinion that you should continue to look after corporate customers from the German company headquarters and not from the beach in Nice? Then you probably have to develop a little imagination, for example with a few palm trees in your garden. You can find out how this works and which palm trees are suitable below.
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When is a palm tree a palm tree?
There are many plants that look like palm trees. But not very many that are really palm trees and that you can plant in your garden in Germany. Because palm trees are more likely to be found in tropical or subtropical regions.
Real palms or palm plants are botanically called Arecaceae or Palmae and form the only family in the Arecales order, the palm-like family. It is a family with a long history. Plants that are biologically very similar to palm trees already existed on earth around 70 million years ago. Researchers were able to identify palm-like plants in the Cretaceous period. In the meantime they have developed into a very species-rich family. Today it contains over 180 genera with around 2,600 species growing on our planet.
Hardy Palms
As diverse as the flora of the palm trees is – real palm trees that have grown in German winter temperatures are rare. Here is an overview of the palm trees that might be worth trying:
The blue Hesperides palm (Brahea armata) comes from Mexico and is said to tolerate cold temperatures of up to minus 15 degrees. It is a stout palm with a thick trunk and ornamental blue-grey fan fronds. They hang quite far down and shimmer silver when the light hits it right. This hardy palm tree needs full sun, good drainage and watering very rarely.
The jelly palm ( Butia capitata) is a pretty pinnate palm that can develop multiple trunks and grow up to 6 meters tall. It comes from Brazil, so it doesn’t take very much frost. However, a short period of minus 12 degrees should be survived. Otherwise, it is undemanding and hardy in a sunny location, but only grows medium-fast to slowly here. The woolly jelly palm (Butia eriospatha) is also said to be garden appropriate, being even more frost hardy and patient with cold wet climates.
The dwarf palm (Chamaerops humilis) is a European type of palm that can be found more and more in urban areas. It forms several stems and looks very bushy overall. This hardy palm grows fairly slowly and rarely exceeds 3 meters in height. Dwarf palms are easy to keep, can sometimes be forgotten when watering and can withstand temperatures of up to minus 12 degrees when planted out. They just don’t like too much rain in winter, especially in the first few years, otherwise a real beginner’s palm.
Which cannot be said of the Caranday palm (Copernicia alba). It is also only frost-tolerant down to a maximum of minus 8 degrees, so it needs sophisticated protection in most areas of Germany in winter. But it is a highly interesting palm tree. It develops wide-spread graceful fronds and, over time, a very stable trunk.
The Chilean honey palm (Jubaea chilensis) is used to an almost Mediterranean climate in Chile, which definitely qualifies it for planting in Europe. There are many honey palm trees on the Mediterranean Sea. The frost tolerance of the planted specimens goes down to minus 15 degrees. With a bit of luck and, if in doubt, winter protection, it can be at home in many German gardens.
The Mazari palm (Nannorhops ritchiana) needs good winter protection from about minus 7 degrees, but in the Botanical Garden of Rome e.g. B. There are magnificent specimens that grow outdoors. Not a beginner’s palm, but certainly an interesting challenge for palm fans with their unusual fronds formed from the ground.
The Cretan date palm (Phoenix theophrastii) is, along with Chamaerops humilis, the only European palm that is hardy to minus 12 degrees. When young, however, you should give it some winter protection when you plant it outdoors.
The needle palm ( Rhapidophyllum hystrix) is one of the few palms that can be planted out in Germany without winter protection. It is fully grown and frost hardy down to minus 23 degrees! Unfortunately, it grows very slowly and is therefore not exactly cheap to buy, and if you buy a cheap young plant, it needs winter protection again. But later it is really a real garden palm!
The Dwarf Palmetto (Sabal minor) is a North American fan palm that likes a lot of sun and does best with a very dry substrate in winter. On the other hand, they should be able to withstand temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees, which, however, is not necessarily confirmed by experienced owners. Minus 10 degrees (for older plants, with protection) should be more realistic.
The Mexican sabal palm (Sabal texana) is very similar. However, from the outset it is only specified with a winter hardiness of about minus 11 degrees.
A saw palmetto (Serenoa repens) is one of the most robust hardy palms, it should survive in winter down to minus 18 degrees. How long, however, is not known, and it should also be given the sunniest and warmest place in the garden and a mulch cover in winter. But anyway: It naturally grows in the southern United States, and it can get quite cold there.
The queen palm (Syagrus romanzoffiana) lives up to its name with its majestic appearance, which is why it often stands in front of noble hotels. It grows quite quickly, so it needs quite a lot of fertilizer and water, but it tolerates frost down to minus ?8 degrees over a longer period of time.
Hardy hemp palms (Trachycarpus fortunei) or Ticino palms grow there and on the British Isles. They are therefore very hardy, down to minus 17 degrees. If it goes beyond that, they need winter protection. The relative Trachycarpus wagnerianus is also very suitable for planting out, just as frost hardy, but even more wind-tolerant due to its harder fronds.
The blue needle palm (Thritrinax campestris) is considered to be very robust and frost hardy to around minus 15 degrees. It grows quite slowly and eventually becomes a very impressive sight with its firm leaves and bizarre habit. Their trunks actually develop needles, long thorns that the inhabitants of their South American homeland actually used as sewing needles.
Among Washington palms, Washingtonia filibusta is your palm of choice. A cross that combines the cold resistance of a Washingtonia filifera with the elegance of Washingtonia robusta. Frost hardy to about minus 11 degrees.
Hardiness zones for the garden palm
Whether one of the palm varieties just mentioned is worth trying to plant in your garden in your home town is not yet said. You would first have to deal with the hardiness zone present in your home region. This is also quite different within Germany. Internationally, the winter hardiness of plants is specified in so-called USDA climate zones. USDA stands for the American Department of Agriculture, the US Department of Agriculture. They published this climate classification of the world according to the average coldest annual temperature. There are 20 zones ranging from 1 (around minus 45.6 degrees Celsius and below) to 11 (plus 4.5 degrees Celsius and above). Except for the first and the last zone, they are divided into zone (number) a and (number) b. In the original, each zone covers a range of 10 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s why the USDA table with Celsius data contains rather crooked numbers.
Germany can at most come up with zone 8 b (on average not colder than minus 6.7 to minus 9.4 degrees) or 8 a (on average not colder than minus 9.5 to minus 12.2 degrees). And that only in a few isolated, particularly favorable spots in the west and south-west. The rest of Germany has to make do with a 7b climate in the west (on average no colder than minus 12.3 to minus 14.9 degrees), in the east rather with 7a (on average no colder than minus 15 to minus 17.7 degrees ), with individual “cold holes” in the southeast, where the average temperatures are only 6 b (-17.8 to -20.4 degrees) or (-20.5 to -23.3 degrees). At that point at the latest, even the hardiest palm tree gets really tight.
For future garden palms, you should therefore ask about the winter hardiness zone. The specification in USDA winter hardiness is the value that your dealer should at least be able to easily find out by asking. If he can’t even tell you about your palm, the first thing to be suspicious is probably.
Where was your garden palm grown?
Especially with palm trees, for which there are various winter hardiness specifications and which do not really fit perfectly into a garden in your region, you really need to find out more from the dealer. Namely where exactly this palm tree was pulled. If a palm tree, which you may have to withstand a lot, has been allowed to grow in a similar climate with an expert gardener, it is well prepared.
Very different from a cheap import from somewhere where the palm trees are grown in masses and at average temperatures of 20 degrees. Such a palm tree probably gets its first cold shock in the ship’s container. If the most pessimistic statement about the winter hardiness of this palm tree was correct or if it had to go through a real drop in temperature in the first year, then that’s it. Of course, it also depends on the size and age of your new palm tree. A tender young Palm should probably spend a few years indoors before being planted in the garden.
Hardiness zone alone doesn’t say everything
Your region’s hardiness zone is one thing. The microclimate in your garden and at the planned location of the palm tree is different. If you live in the city, average temperatures are about half a climate zone higher. The microclimate could be even more palm-friendly in some places in your garden. For example, in a corner surrounded by walls, exposed to the sun and protected from the wind.
If in doubt, put on winter protection
If you put an insecure candidate in the garden in terms of hardiness, you can make it easier to survive by protecting it as much as possible during the winter. You can wrap the lower leaves and trunk in foil, throw foil over the upper fronds and thickly mulch the palm in the soil area. If the cold hits unexpectedly badly, it would even be conceivable to set up a heater in the floor area to keep the temperatures at a tolerable minus degree and to enclose the entire palm tree or wrap it in a thick fleece.
Conclusion
The hardy palm tree in the garden does not have to remain a dream. You just have to find out a little more about the climate in your home country and about the right winter protection for palm trees. You can start with the exotic garden dream!
