Palm tree for South Wales

Dai an 8ft cordy is not very big, and under proper growing conditions is unlikely to be multi headed.
It might have flowered once and branched to two heads at 8ft, but its branching a bit low in my experience.
I also think 8 ft is attainable in a couple of years from a three ft plant, so although I might talk crap from time to time, I draw the line at "twaddle":D

Dai your sounding like a garden centre manager, (profit first, customer second).:D

 

I think I wasnt too clear in relation to Trachy here and would agree a small plant will often outgrow a larger plant - up to a point, a small trachy would probably catch and overtake something up to about 4 foot of trunk quite quickly, but im not sure it would catch something over 4-5 feet. I have planted larger trachy - about 5 foot of trunk and it did little in terms of growth for the first 3 years but once its roots were down it then gained about 6 inch of trunk for the next couple of years and now seems seltted to get going.

So with trachys I think there is a period of maybe 3 or 4 years where they can sulk, but after that they will speed up, what I dont know on this plant yet is whether it will speed up more, as once they get going you can easily get a foot a year.

What I was (albeit not very clearly) refering to is that a big trachy will at least establish well even though this can take a few years - with the fiberous root systems they have, whereas big cordylines can never get a tap root down if they are big potted plants.

As for replacing big cordylines that have been damaged, I have several large ones that have been cut to the ground, these will all be started again from small plants - unless they reshoot from the base. The choice of doing so is to get them to establish and rather than a cost one, I want well grown plants. This does not stop me from buying big on other plants, and frequently do, it just depends on the plant.