washingtonia

Most palms are considered slow growing, but washingtonia must be one of the fastest.
One of mine looked like this back in April after the winter frosts.


But now it looks like this just 4 months later.

 

Thats some growth Pete, mind you, you have had the weather for it this year, we didn't have the high temperatuers you had, mine has only put out two fronds this year but it would be slower being restricted to life in a pot. My Washy, Chamy and Phoenix have all pushed themslves up above the rims of their pots but I will have to wait till next year to repot them. You don't have this problem.! (maybe, i've just seen the Beaucarnea in the back ground)

 

Is that a Washingtonia, chaps? I thought it was a Fan Palm, but I'm completely ignorant of palms ... mine has fewer "fronds" so is perhaps the Chinese as opposed to the European! Must e-mail my mate at the garden centre and ask him the difference. He just recently did a series on palms and I didn't keep it! He's happy to give advice here on plants and I'll be putting a link up on for those who are interest in Trees ... of the Algarve and Spain.

 

Washingtonia comes from California L of L and down into Mexico, good desert palm, but also like a lot of water, if that makes sense.
Strongy, its really grown well this year and completely replaced the damaged fronds from last winter.
Never again would I plant the likes of a palm or beaucarnea in one of those ceramic pots, they are not designed for the removal of the plant when you want to pot it on.
Know what you mean about pushing themselves out of the pot, I had a canary date palm that I kept in a container for years, every other year I would knock it out and with a handsaw cut four inches of the roots off the bottom, then repot, it never bothered it at all.

 

Pete, you saying about the liking water ... it is something that is often said here when people think palms are the "thing" for here ... not the plant for here because it likes so much water and that can be a problem with us!

 

Well desert palms always grow around areas that are well watered, you dont see palms in totally dry areas.
Although once established they can survive longish dry spells.

 

This is our "General De Gaulle" ..fan palm ...he is well over 2 metres high now, 6 years old and for the first two years was quite slow growing ..... his offspring is in another part of the garden and this year has put on three new fans, although still small, height-wise. I NEVER water them and they have had to cope with incredibly high temperatures for the last three years and very little rain (although for 2 days now we have had some very unseasonal, but very welcome, rain), and some unusually extreme hoar frost last December..... GDG's lower fans have had to be cut away as he was planted before we decided to put an access point in his part of the garden :rolleyes: M-L

 

Love GDG, M-L. Hope mine grows up to be like him!

Silly question, you're in the South of France ... where is Brittany considered to be? It's on the Atlantic coast but South, correct? Sorry, I'm very ignorant of France! :rolleyes: :confused:

 

LoL the third palm apart from Washingtonia and the Chusan/windmill/Fan palm(Trachycarpus, Mona Lisa palm) is Chamaedorea Humilis which is native to the Med (and Atlantic region) they are much slower growing and smaller than the others so I don't think it is as popular in gardens. I have three now, one is the rarer blue variety.They are probably around in the Algarve but you may not have noticed them as there are so many cultivated palms.

 

Hi, Strongy! The problem here, unless you buy from a palm centre / specialist, they are just sold as "palma" so you don't know what you're getting. The blue one sounds nice!

 

LOL ....Brittany is NORTH west France and consists of these departments ..... if you have a good French map you can see the extent of the Region...
C�´te-du-Nord (22) Finist�¨re (29) Ille-et-Vilaine (35) Morbihan (56)

M-L

 

Strongy, any pics of the blue one that you could show please?

Kind regards
Roy

 

Chamaerops humilis ...... 'cerifera'
Blue Mediterranean fan palm.....


This is a small one I have in a pot (for the moment) I THINK it's same as the one strongylodon has talked about .... M-L

 

yes ML it is the same one and about the same size although yours has a few more leaves. Got mine on ebay last june. Just went through photobucket and found my pic, so here Royster are two blue Chamys. ML's has the better climate.

 

I'm growing cerifera from seed, its a long process, my seedlings are three years old now and only just starting to show adult leaves with the silvery blue colour.
The word is, I believe, that its as hardy if not hardier than the plain green chamaerops, one of which I have grown outside for at least ten years, and its never had any frost damage yet.
Think its probably one of the more drought resistant as well, coming from the med area.
I think the trachys and the chamaerops are possibly the hardiest but the washingtonia has got to be the fastest grower.