Windmill Palms, Cold Hardy, Tropical Accent Plants for the Northern United States and Canada
The Cold Hardy Windmill Fan Palm originated from Chusan Island off the east coast of China, and the Windmill Palm is often called China or Chusan Fan Palm. Robert Fortune smuggled Windmill palm plants from China to Kew Horticultural Gardens and England’s Prince Albert Royal Garden in 1849 after the China Opium Wars ended. The windmill palm was given its Latin name, Trachycarpus fortunei, in honor of Robert Fortune, and after 158 years, in 2007, these windmill fan palms continue to grow gracefully as a rare, exotic tree. and distinguished in Kew Gardens, a palm tree of noble bearing.
From Kew Gardens in England, the Windmill palm spread throughout Europe, from the warm Mediterranean climates of Italy and Greece to a cold-hardy testing ground in landscape gardens in Switzerland and Bulgaria, where Windmill palms have survived remarkably, leafy it even stays green when covered in ice or snow. For the past seven years, truckloads of Windmill Fan Palms have been transported and planted in Canada and have survived extremely cold winters in New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, New Jersey and Michigan.
Although most Windmill Palm nurserymen are conservative in recommending that Windmill Palm tree planting be limited to growing in zones 8-10; other growers at Windmill Palm Nursery recommend and guarantee this rare palm will grow in zones 3-10. Northern nursery retailers have been quick to plant windmill palms for the home gardener, who wants that tropical look and accent around their pool or patio. The Windmill Palm is planted in plant nurseries from seed, where it grows about a foot each year. The slow growth of the Windmill Palm is partially responsible for its resistance to cold. Another inherently cold-resistant feature is that the fibers that cover the trunk insulate the growing center of the tree. The gray-brown color of the burlap-like fibers cover the trunk like a wool blanket in winter, and the dark color draws warmth from sunlight. A thick green wax coats the leaves and stems to make the Windmill Palm even more cold hardy.
The Windmill Palm is most often grown as a single-stemmed, solitary plant, however, some Windmill Palm nurseries offer double or triple trees growing in the same container up to 100 gallons. These massive 10-foot-tall windmill palms are tropical-looking choice specimens for shopping malls and government building entrances. Windmill palm trees can be easily shipped by UPS on short orders, and large Windmill palm trees can be shipped by semi-trailer, motorized load lines. Shipping windmill palms can be done easily in any season, and the survival rate is excellent for large specimens. Very large specimens of Windmill Palms were recently installed at the entrance to the new Cloister Resort Hotel, a 5-star hotel, located on Sea Island, Georgia, where the Windmill Palm is not only tropical in appearance and cold hardy, but completely hardy to air problems from the salt water of the Atlantic Ocean. The Cloister Hotel has successfully grown smaller windmill palm trees on various outside buildings over the past few years. The cost of installing large windmill palm trees can be offset by planting small specimens that are expected to grow about a foot each year. Due to the recent success of planting large, tropical-looking Windmill palm trees in Canada and the northern US states, many gardeners are now experimenting with planting smaller Windmill palms in the north, before that the plant has developed a sufficiently dense fiber cover to make the tree cold hardy enough to survive deep freezes in northern states.
The windmill palm generally has a survival history of more than 150 years in the western world at a height of 40 feet, but accurate reports of the windmill palms, native to the island of Chusan in eastern China do not exist in translated texts. , but could possibly reach 100 feet in height. The rapid growth of Western influence on China’s development will undoubtedly reveal many more interesting developmental and botanical facts related to the Windmill Palm in the near future.
The Windmill Palm appears to have all the perfection of tropical landscape gardening requirements for growing in the United States and in the cold hardy areas of Canada and Europe. Most soil types are acceptable for growing Windmill Palms. There are very few insect and disease problems that threaten the growth of Windmill fan palms. Even through slow growth, Windmill Palm captivates the tropical-minded gardener for pool and patio plantings. The Windmill Palm grows as separate male and female plants, and the date that is produced is inedible, as a result of the pleasantly scented, yellow flowers that develop into round, half-inch-diameter blue seeds.
Other cold-hardy palms that are especially adapted to grow in the United States are the needle palm (Raptor), Rhapidophyllum histrix; the Dwarf Palmetto Palm, Sabal minor; and the Saw Fan Palmetto, Serenoa repens.