Posted by John Kennedy on April 16, 2007, 8:59 am, in reply to "Suprisingly Hardy Palms and Others"
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I live in Vero Beach, Florida (200 miles below Jacksonville)--where we complain that we're too cold for palms that grow in Miami (135 miles farther south). But, as the proud owner of two very big Allagoptera arenaria palms, I can contribute a little about the species' cold hardiness. Mine are now about 25 years old and when quite small went through the famous Christmas freeze of 1989 when it was 18 in my yard, went barely above freezing for several days and was below freezing (in the 20s) for maybe six nights. Both palms, then stretching fronds no more than waist-high, had minimal damage (some spotting)and grew completely normally, no bud damage, in the following summer.
Despite the books, this species does eventually have several 18-inch trunks. My palms' leaves now stretch 8 feet high, each palm is about the 8 feet across. But they are VERY slow, must have direct sunlight and good drainage, are very drought-tolerant.
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