Phoenix Species, India Date Palm, India Winepalm, Silver Date Palm, Toddy Palm, Wild Date Palm

This palm grows quickly in the San Antonio area. While it does get damaged by temperatures between 23 and 21 degrees F, the spear for me ...Read Morehas stayed green and by Labor Day, it has fully recovered. This palm should be more widely planted here. Does great with the heat and drought.

I planted Phoenix sylvestris (purchased in a blue plastic pot from LOWE'S in 2011) in the ground in the spring of 2011. It grew quite som...Read Moree and when the winter came it was a mild winter of 2011-12 and the lowest temp was 22F just one night and then more than a month later we had 28F followed by another night of 25F. The palm is brown some and green some, but I was able to pull the central spear. So it either is fully hardy (as a 4 ft. plant) to Z10 or perhaps it is true when some nursery specialist told me to NOT purchase any palms in blue pots from LOWE'S, because he said the nursery who grows those palms treat them with something that makes those palms 1 full hardiness zone less hardy. So whichever is true I was surprised that in Z9A (mostly Z9B) weather this palm that should survive Z8B had its spear pulled easily the next day after we were hit by 22F-25F for a few hours at night. It does not mean it will die, cause it may recover but a spear-pull is not a good sign. Update: The plant died later, it did not recover.

P.S. I just bought a larger specimen with a 2 foot "trunk" and planted it in a sunny spot. Will see how it does this spring, summer and especially the next winter. Hopefully the much larger tree will survive. Update Oct. 2013: The larger palm survived 20F (one night) and numerous 24-26F nights past winter 2012/2013 with very little damage (to the ends of the outer fronds) and has grown a lot this year.

UPDATE: Winter 2013-2014 - the palm that was doing great during the past two winters got completely brown, but has some greenness on its frond bases near the trunk, which gives a hope.

REMARK: I wish everyone would describe hardiness of a plant in several stages: while a seedling, while a young plant, a larger plant but still without much trunk and then an adult plant. This same palm as a small 1 footer can get damaged by temperatures that are much warmer than 20F. Make it a new default standard and lots of new research.

Some plants while small can get killed by 32F or below (or above), yet some can withstand down to 20F more or less as seedlings. This kind of research and info is important to provide along hardiness for adults palms. Giving hardiness info (USDA zones and temperatures) just for adult plants is not enough to get the entire picture.

Mine as a 4 ft. plant in the ground got exposed to one single night ( a couple hours) of 22F and that killed it.

This excellent, if very spiny, palm is becoming quite popular as the date palm of choice in southern Louisiana. I will always consider i...Read Moret the "poor man's Phoenix dactylifera," but it does have one big thing going for it: It's all but immune to graphiola (false smut), a leaf problem that plagues P. dactylifera and P. canariensis in humid areas with lots of rain. It (along with P. dactylifera) also is immune to the terrible Fusarium wilt that devastates P. canariensis. Its growth rate is intermediate between those two. Mine is extremely cold-tolerant, showing zero damage down to the mid-20ºs F, despite being in a pot (~15 gal.) on a cold concrete driveway. Some specimens have a very orange/peach color to their upper trunks / leaf bases, while others are more of a standard date palm grayish-brown. Select a nice one and you won't regret it, as long as you live in zone 9A or higher, though they should be fine even in 8B. (My aunt has a big one in her yard on Skidaway Island in Savannah, GA.)

Overall, I'd love to see this tree completely replace P. canariensis in the rainy Gulf South, due to the disease resistant traits I listed above, and due its overall more elegant look, mainly due to having a narrower trunk and bluer fronds.

Where to see them:
A quartet (planted in '09 or '10) in front of the Kenner Police Dept. a few feet from I-10 at Loyola Ave.
Tons (planted in 2008 or '09) in front of P.F. Chang's restaurant at Lakeside Mall on Veterans Blvd.

This palm was heavily marketed here in central SC last summer. I planted three in mid August, and protected two with xmas lights and fro...Read Morest cloth in Dec. The unprotected specimen turned brown, but it is still alive with a half green spear that won't budge. The specimens protected are beautiful and green. I only protected them for about 2 months, and only burned the lights those nights when the temps dropped below about 22f. I moved 2 a few weeks ago and was amazed that they had developed extensive root systems in only 7 mos. I will never attempt to move another Sylvester date - they root quickly and are covered in dangerous and very long thorns. I'm hoping that they will become more hardy with age, so winter protection is no longer necessary. Time will tell.