Date Palms

My O.H. has as i have mentioned before grown 4 avocado trees (they are huge),:flag:
He was listening to local radio last week and a gentleman from Cardiff was on who grows bananas and other tropicals in his back garden, so he rang him and equired as to what was best for his avocados, They are under his sole care, and this man was so enthusiastic my O.H. now wants a tropical garden,:rotfl:

To get to the point he explained about Date Palms ,if over Xmas you have dates drop the stone into room temp water, wait until you see the root starting to grow, and pot on, they grow quite quickly apparently:hehe:

 

They are ok for a novelty Pam but will not grow outside very well here. I have grown quite a few from stones, yes they grow fairly quickly but soon get too big for indoors (and even a greenhouse )and have to go outside and unlike the Canary Island Date Palm, which is planted everywhere, cannot take the same cold temperatures, -5c will kill them off.
Having said that, they may take three years or so to reach 2/3 ft.

 

I agree Strongy they probably won`t last outside unless you have a warm pocket in the garden
What i was thinking was it was a nice project for children over the winter to get them interested in growing things

 

If you can't wait to grow them from seed, the DIY superstores get them in in the spring, for about £15 for a decent size one!

 

Good idea as they are quck to germinate compared to other palms and to see where the seed comes from.:thumb:
Quercus, the DIY stores only sell Canary Island Palms (Phoenix Canariensis) not true Date Palms (Phoenix Dactylefera).