Chamaerops Species, Dwarf Fan Palm, European Fan Palm, Mediterranean Fan Palm, Moroccan Fan Palm

I’ve been experimenting with different palms here in Salt Lake City, Utah (zone 7b) without protection and I have had a few successes. ...Read MoreChamaerops humilis is one of the palms that I have had decent success with here. It has been in the ground for 3 going on 4 years now on a south facing wall in a corner, shielded above by a Southern Magnolia and on the sides with Photinia fraseri so it gets almost no wind whatsoever. I have noticed some dieback on a few fronds when the temps get to around 10 degrees, but it hasn’t gotten any lower than that for quite a while now. It absolutely flourishes 10 out of 12 months of the year here in the dry desert. I know that living in the southwest with virtually no humidity and winter moisture has helped tremendously though. I am eager to see how long this palm can stay viable here, seeing as in zone 7b it can occasionally get to 10 F and sometimes even lower. So far i’m extremely pleased with this beautiful and tough desert adapted palm. It has proven very hardy in a protected location 3 hours north of extremely “Palmy” Southern Utah.

UPDATE: (2015) I have a few of these palms here in the Eastern Shore of Maryland (zone 7). The last 2 winters have been some of the cold...Read Moreest on record in this area with temperatures as low as 4F, wind chills as low as -30F and many other nights with lows below 10F. The nearby Chesapeake Bay was iced over for many days and its 4+ miles wide in this area. I assumed that my Med. Fan Palms were surely dead because they suffer complete foliage loss EVERY winter here including the mild ones with lows barely below 20F. However, ALL of mine survived both winters and have proven to be hardier than most other palms that would be considered cold hardy. The multi-trunking nature of this palm basically gives it this ability to continue living through these winters because theres always a few new suckers that are below the dirt/mulch. In spring they recover faster than any other of my palms that can survive here.

Now with all of that being said, are these palms worth it for this area? Probably not. The never ending starting over each spring means the palms never get more than about a foot high and have awkward shapes. This is basically something you grow if you just want to say you have palms in cold places. But if you have a small space to fill and want a tiny palm, this might be a good idea. But of course warmer areas will enjoy some good height with these. The drier the better in winters, so desert areas will probably have more success with these palms in the cold.

Although the difference is minimal, the silver/blue version of this palm has been slightly hardier in winter when compared to the green. The only other palms which survived the last 2 winters unprotected in this area are: Needle Palm (Rhapidophyllum Hystrix) Sabal Minor (dwarf palmetto) Sabal Palmetto (cabbage palm) Sabal Louisiana (Louisiana Palmetto) Sabal Brazoria (Brazoria Palmetto) Serenoa Repens (saw palmetto) and Chamaedorea Radicalis (buried under mulch) all windmill palms and pindo palms died.

This palm grows well in the SC midlands, but it must planted in well drained soil. Mine stay green year round, and several are blooming ...Read Moreat this time.

Bought five of these plants from home depo were about 5 ft tall multiply trunks, planted two in new bern n c on the trent river in 2009,s...Read Moretill living but have not grown much ,planted three on the barier island emerald isle n c ,that are still living nice and bushy but only 4bft tall,since i love palms iam happy to have it,since it does winter over in zone 8

I question my sanity for buying this palm. Don't get me wrong, I love this palm. I have mixed feeling about it, beautiful palm but with a...Read More bad attitude.

The more I look at Photos of this palm the More am sacred of it. And it didn't help when talking to the person that shipping to telling me it stabbed her 3 times.

They grow fine here in the mid SC, but they brown a lot, sometimes almost complete browning of most of the foliage on some specimens. The...Read Morey grow back again during the warm part of the year, but what bugs me is that they become brown in winter a lot, except very large specimen that I got which becomes brown only maybe10-20%.

This palm is very successful in the southern parts of the UK.

Generally, palms are rarely planted in the UK, perhaps beca...Read Moreuse large ones are very expensive and slow growing.The three most popular --Trachycarpus fortunei and wagnerianus, and C. humilis -are gaining in popularity now, but C. humilis is extremely expensive and even slower-growing than the other two, although it does produce a lot of leaves.

I like its vigorous clustering way of growing - what it lacks in height it makes up for in width. My plants have produced about seven daughter plants each. It's easy to distinguish it from T. wagnerianus by the thorns on its leaf stems. These can be a real problem when trying to thin out the leaves. If you do thin out the leaves you will get a whole thicket of plants -- very impressive.

When buying a plant look carefully at the form of the leaves - some have perfectly formed flat leaves, others have slightly bunched-up distorted leaves - they vary a lot in size and shape - and the number of thorns on the leaf stems ! Buy the biggest plants you can afford, unless you want to wait five years for them to make any impact at all. They are slow growing in cool summer regions - about 6" per year.

I have four plants growing in ordinary soil, and they have probably grown little more than 24 inches in seven years - perhaps they have now reached their maximum height for these conditions (80 inches). They produce four or five small panicles of flowers, more after a cold winter, and they have produced a number of viable seed.

In U.K conditions the leaves can be damaged by long frosts of -8C and below, which cause brown spots on the leaves to appear months afterwards. In UK conditions I would guess their limit is around -12C, unless grown in extremely well-drained soil.

They are particularly well-suited for smaller gardens where most palms would look too large. A wonderful plant.

the european fan palm is very coomonly used as a shrub palm and for median plantings along the parkways not very common to see one that i...Read Mores taller than 8 feet because they are all quite young. they seem to not mind the swampiness of the deep south, or the wet winters that we have, or the almost flooding rains left from tropical storms and hurricanes. it seems to me that all of the different palms have a different growth rate, even if they are all in the same species. it is not unusual to see them varying in a matter of feet when they are planted in masses all at the same size and at the same time.

This is one of the most commonly seen landscape palms in southern California, and is popular all over California, Texas and some of the e...Read Moreastern states as well. It is one of the most cold hardy palms and the only palm originating from Europe (the Mediterranean countries). As a landscape palm it is nearly unparalleled- it grows multiple stalks (suckering palm, though solitary cultivars are known) but usually they grow at different rates so there is usually 1-2 central taller trunks and shorter ones surrounding it. It continues to sucker profusely so most growers will begin to cut them away once the palm is established or else it becomes an impossible to manage mass of incredibly spiny, dangerous leaves and stems. Once the lower leaves are trimmed off, the exposed trunk is covered in a thick matting of fiber that itself is ornamental. Careful when trimming this palm! The petioles are visciously armed. It is not picky about soil growing in sandy soil to clay soil (prefers the latter), is drought and wind tolerant, and grows in sun or shade (though shaded palms tend to become sort of lanky and stretched and a bit less healthy in the long run). It grows well in the desert as well as right on the coast.

Though this is a dioicus palm (separate male and female plants) some plants seem to develop different sexed flowers on different stems on the same palm and sort of become self fertile. But in southern California there are plenty of successful pollinators and plants are common, so fertile seed is not that unusual.

It is a slow growing palm so large specimens are very expensive (sometimes thousands of dollars)... but fortunately it is an easy species to move and rarely even sets back. It is so drought tolerant that cutting leaves off when moving the palm is usually unnecessary.

There are several interesting and beautiful cultivars of this species, but they are covered under separate listings.

Have 3 of them in Victoria, B.C Canada...they winter very well here..but tend to be slow growing...all three are growing on the south sid...Read Moree of the house in a sheltered location.

slow growing, but very "ornamentical" ... down to -12C without greater problems in winter, but MUST be DRY in this time or the roots can die!