Oak Bay, British Columbia

[Arctic Palm]

I was surfing the web and found out that a little place called Oak Bay is Canada's palm tree capitol. I am sure everyone but me already knew this.
They are a Zone 8b - 9a...isn't that the same as Orlando??

I just thought it was cool!

[Wes North Van]

Oak Bay would be the same as where I live and that is a zone 8b area.

I would say it is most similar to Seattle, Portland and down to North of Brookings Oregon. Even though Northern Florida is a zone 8 our weather is completely different. We have dry warm summers and cool wet winters. Northern Florida had hot humid sometimes wet summers and dry cool winters.

Oak Bay calls it self the palm tree capital of Canada but believe me when I say Greater Vancouver has a lot more palms than Oak Bay. Maybe per capita they have more but not even close in numbers

[Barrie]

Oak Bay (a Victoria suburb) did this to counter the annual flower count in February that Victoria BC has.
Cheers, Barrie.

[Arctic Palm]

Regardless,

Those of you on the west coast in those 7 & 8 zones are lucky. Thats my kinda winter!!!

[Barrie]

Living in my zone 8 (PNW) isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's frustrating in many instances because we are so close to growing so much more. Often that plant material gets tried and eventually fails. A number of people have devised ways to beat old man winter but without some human intervention, cetain things are not going to be long term. It's a "close but no cigar" climate.

Cheers, Barrie.

[Wes North Van]

Couldn't agree with you more.
Soooooooooo close but sooooooooo far away.

[lucky1]

Yup, we're ALL close to growing so much more than our zone allows.

But I have to chuckle...someone in Panama was quoted as saying they'd love to grow a Blue Spruce tree!

Wonder how many they want
Barb