Eden Keeper

And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.  Genesis 2:15
Palm Family, Arecaceae
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    I have seen a lot more palm trees being planted in this area due to claims of being cold hardy, but this is doubtful unless global warming is real.  The degree of anthropogenic global warming only depends on how much you believe in it.  The duration of cold apparently has a greater effect on palms than the depth of cold, but nearly all of those claimed to be cold hardy can only withstand average annual lows in zone 7, but not the minimum possible temperatures.  Either way the best native choices are needle palm, Rhapidophyllum hystrix (Pursh) H. Wendl. & Drude ex Drude, which is the most cold hardy, saw palmetto, Serenoa repens (Bartram) Small, which was discovered by William Bartram, dwarf palmetto, Sabal minor (Jacq.) Pers., which I have seen growing wild about as far north as Gadsden, Alabama, and cabbage palmetto, Sabal palmetto (Walter) Lodd. ex Schult. & Schult. f., which is the state tree of both Florida and South Carolina the palmetto state.  These are reported to be cold hardy respectively to -5oF, 5oF, 0oF, and 5oF if mature.  The lowest temp of the winter of 2008-09 was about 8oF in northeast Alabama and I have seen some recent plantings of so called cold hardy palms that appear to be dead or at least the all the leaves had died.

 

    William Bartram was also the first to collect cabbage palmetto and is credited with the discovery of Florida royal palm, Roystonea elata (Bartram) F. Harper, which is only hardy in zone 10 and is now absent from the type locality because oddly it is apparently not native and due to a climate change causing a drop in temperatures it has since been wiped out along with the Spanish introduced oranges, Citrus L., that had become naturalized around St. Augustine, Florida, causing William Bartram to believe they were both native.

 

   Date palm, Phoenix dactylifera L., which is mentioned in the Bible is only hardy to zone 8 at best or about 14oF, but I have been growing 3 in containers for years.  In an early English translation of the Bible one of the more difficult parts to translate was plant names especially when there was neither a similar plant that was familiar nor was there an established naming system of species, thus palm was translated to willow (Salix L.) since many species have limbs that easily break off thus are suitable for reenacting the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday.

 

   The coconut palm, Cocus L., is a tropical palm that is intolerant of freezing weather, but it has been known to recover from a brief dip to as low as 25oF although it generally survives where the temperature stays above 54oF since it is stunted below 70oF and prefers temperatures above 81oF.

 

    The California fan palm, Washingtonia filifera (Linden ex AndrĂ©) H. Wendl., is found in California, Nevada, and Arizona where saw some on the bank of the Colorado River while canoeing through Black Canyon below Hoover Dam.  Oddly the spot is called Lone Palm, but there are several seedling around the large dead trunk of the original tree.  California fan palm is the palm at the oasis that gave the name Twenty Nine Palms to both a city and the largest Marine base.  The base is nicknamed Twenty Nine Stumps, but most of the palms are reported to still be standing at the oasis.  The record low for the area is 8oF.  One noticeable difference in the appearance of these palms as seen on TV or in movies is a skirt of several dead leaves unlike most of the palms seen near the coast in the southeast.  If left to themselves the dead leaves could probably cover the the entire trunk and this includes those in the southeast, but landscapers looking for busy work make up reasons to trim off these dead leaves to make the trees look tidy.  The only rational reason is to prevent them from breaking loose during hurricanes and becoming projectiles, but this is a minor concern when compared to all the man-made objects that get blown away during storms, besides using the same logic the live leaves should also be removed similar to how people around here rationalize that topping trees prevents tornado damage, which is so asinine that I describe this style of topped trees as tornado chic thus trimmed palms would be hurricane chic.  Ideally the leaves should be left on the palmettos since this makes a natural roost for the local bats especially yellow bats.

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