Spring palm report from St. Louis, MO

donrheinheimer · Post by **donrheinheimer** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 10:39 am

Hello everyone, I'm new to this particular forum, but i would like to share some of my experiences over the past years and also see how everyone else fared in comparable zones. I am in St. Louis, which by the 2003 USDA Map is a zone 7 but realistically it's been a 6b for a while and only the city limits of our city stay a zone 7 - which is where i live. This was the first year that i've had my own place to garden in, and spending most of my summers in san diego w/ my father has truly sparked my interests in palms. I am always driving out to CA each summer and filling the car with as many palms as i can fit. My collection right now consists of a 4ft Phoenix roeb., a 2ft Chamaerops, 2 Trachys (1ft), numerous robusta seedlings, 2 pindo seedlings, a sago palm, and i've got 12 needle palms starting along with more chamaerops 'cerifera' and Canary Island Date. I have one florida trachycarpus i've grown from seed that sits on the north side of my house. In the winter i don't protect it except a thin layer of pine needles that i fill that particular landscaping bed with. To my amazement the trachy survived the winter with flying colors - though our lowest temp was appx 6.6 degrees F here. In my personal opinion windmills are quite resistant to cold and could go a few degrees colder easily as mine showed NO damage from our winter - which was the coldest in about 10 years. My theory is that they can easily grow almost anywhere as long as you protect them from subzero cold, which i plan to if that ever happens again. Also my Agave utahensis survived the winter with no damage. I am also half tempted to try chamaerops humilis on the south side of my house, which has a 300 year old pin oak shading most of my backyard. Judging by the success of my windmill i would say that needle palm and sabal minor would easily survive long term here because of our HOT summers - which compare to places like Atlanta and Miami. My only problem is finding any needle palms here and i am willing to get one through an internet mail order company but i would like to hear other peoples experiences with some of these nurseries first. My sister had gone down to Panama City, FL last week and i had sent her all over the place, but noone seemed to know what a needle palm was or had any to sell. What a shame. Well, any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated.

Don

Kansas · Post by **Kansas** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 12:10 pm

St. Louis is close to me. Topeka here.
I have 10 Hystrix (Needle) seeds going now. I just checked them this morning and 1 had popped with a VERY nice root. Problem is, they grow SOOOOOO slow so if you want to plant one and enjoy it soon, you need to buy an established one.
However with the 10 seeds, if I can get 7-9 to pop, I plan on planting one in a south facing wall place and I HOPE that if it has been groomed to the weather since birth, it will make it.
Just to let you know, I bought a Hystrix from "Plant Delights" and was VERY VERY happy with them. THe plant is not big, about a 3" "trunk", but since I got it about a month and a half ago, it has opened one leave and is pushing a baby one as I write this.
PLEASE PLEASE keep coming here and posting results as we are in a similar zone and I would like to know your success stories.

donrheinheimer · Post by **donrheinheimer** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 1:20 pm

Hey absolutely i will be here often. maybe too often....hopefully i wont get on anyone else's nerves. I like this forum better than my old forum i used on gardenweb. Everyone was very negative over there and just wanted to dissuade you from doing anything daring, this forum seems to actually be to HELP people and share experiences and trials. I think it's awesome that we share similar climates and i would be happy to exchange info with you constantly in hopes that we really can get some established palms going....and i believe that we can easily do this. You're not the only person that has recommended Plant Delights to me, so i'm fairly certain that I will order a needle palm from them tonight. I have the perfect place for it, and as soon as spring hits and i get a few things put in ground, i will be posting many pictures here as well as on my personal website, as i am the director of a web department for a small company here in STL. Hopefully i will have enough time to put into my site this year so i can document my gardening adventures. How do i get ahold of the site moderator here. I love to design logos which is part of my job and i've come up with some very cool logos for this site in my spare time.

Don

DesertZone · Post by **DesertZone** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 4:31 pm

Hi Don,
Welcome to the the best cold hardy palm forum, glad to have your thoughts here any day

Post by **Jay-Admin** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 11:50 pm

Welcome to the forum Don.

Good to have you here.

Regards,
Jay

hardyjim · Post by **hardyjim** » Sat Aug 11, 2012 6:04 pm

Hey...what ever happened to donrheinheimer

sashaeffer · Post by **sashaeffer** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 1:57 pm

Great mail order company called www.junglemusic.net Owner Phil Bergman near San Diego. phil.bergman@junglemusic.net

Got my first Needle palm from him as they are hard to find and nursery.

Scott/Omaha

MCKATELYN · Post by **MCKATELYN** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 11:35 pm

First off, welcome to the board. I'm sorta new here too. I'm a short 4 hour drive from you in Chicago. I have a needle palm that has overwintered outside the past two winters in my climate. I just have one of those popup greenhouses and gave it about 3 inches of woodchip mulch. The whole thing takes maybe 15 minutes to fully set up for winter. They really don't need any extra heat and I'm a zone 5. I got mine in a really strange place to fine hardy palms.... Walmart. It was a nice size plant a couple feet tall in 3 gal pot. I only paid about $15 for it too. I was traveling back from Tennessee and stopped in Walmart right by the TN KY border.lol They sell a brand named "Cold Zone" (I just pricked my finger on palm needles to check tag) if you want to look it up. They might even be willing to ship some to a local Walmart by you. Btw they also were selling windmills, jellies, and S minor under the same brand name. They are nice size plants at a very nice price. I hope this helps

lucky1 · Post by **lucky1** » Wed Aug 15, 2012 12:47 pm

His post was made 6 years ago...

in case anybody's waiting for his reply

MCKATELYN · Post by **MCKATELYN** » Wed Aug 15, 2012 6:55 pm

Haha

maybe he had a nice sized palm by now

lucky1 · Post by **lucky1** » Thu Aug 16, 2012 12:16 pm

a nice sized palm by now

hopefully.