Tropicals & Tender Perennials: Something to try for us cold-climate tropical optimists!, 0 by bwilliams

bwilliams wrote:
I can ask my father more info on this he knows exact temprate for leaf burn ,damage and death on all varieties of palms. He has taken it seriously for many years in the hopes of growing a truly hardy palm. He has about no kidding 2000 seedlings of windmill palm from all over the world. The theory goes if the windmill palm is from northern Florida they are usually less hardy then lets say from Bulgaria or more northern states. I believe many people are after this holy grail of plants. What they are looking for is a very hardy selected plant. Then coutinue to grow the seeds out to maturity and select even hardier ones till you have a super hardy palm. This works! The only real problem is it can take 10 to 15 years or longer to get a plant from seed to maturity. He has some windmill plams from Alabama that have shown to be extremely hardy. I gave him about 1000 seedlings and he got them all to sprout and left them in a unheated greenhouse. During the middle of winter we went out and looked at this pot of seedlings frozen solid and still green. I told him at the time they were frozen so much that they have not relized they were dead yet. Come spring they were still alive not only that they were still green no leaf burn and I have to say that the pot was above ground and frozen like a block of ice. If you are in the area he has possibly the largest collection of hardy palms around you should visit.