Hardy Tropicals UK

Some of those conifers look quite familier but I don't know enough about that genus of trees to work out what species they are so maybe someone on the forum can name some of them for me and let me know for certain if they do grow here in the UK.

Other plants I can see are Nerium Oleander and Ailianthus Along with thousands of T Fortuni and a small number of large Phoenix canariensis_CIDP.

Other palms noted were B armata and C humilis all hardy in the UK.

I thought I saw some huge specimens of Aracastrium Romanzoffianum but couldn't be sure.

Still an impressive City and well worth a visit in the cooler season of September or October.

Torquay could be made similar with a bit of effort.

billdango

Conifers wrote:

billdango wrote:Other interesting plants noted are some sort of tall thin conifer which also grows here in Southampton

Mediterranean Cypress, fastigiate cultivar Cupressus sempervirens 'Stricta'

Just spotted your post.
Must have missed it somehow.

So thats what the tall thin conifers are?
I should have known.


rgds billdango

Sochi city has million palms in snow! Can't believe that.

Even in the winter you can find palm trees by the thousands?

It dosen't get as cold in Sochi as it does in Southampton but I think the winter temperatures are about the same as the Isles of Scilly just off the cornish coast.

The summers however are a different consideration......
The average daily maximum in Sochi from June till the end of August is around +30c by day and about +23c minimum at night so any winter damage grows out very quickly indeed.

Snow does fall in Sochi on a few days in most winters and then it can drop down to -4c which is about the lowest it gets in the center of Southampton during cold snaps.

The lowest it seems to get to in Sochi is about -13c and that happens only rarely.

The annual sun hours average in Sochi is about 2.200 hours.

In Southampton its only about 1.775 hours so a big difference there?

Thats why we struggle in the UK with some palm species as our winters are long and fairly sunless.

rgds billdango

Billdango, so this is the Sochi city of palm paradise in Russia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtsLbFrZ3o0

We do have all such palms in the video which I don't know their names but they are very giant in some parks as seeing a palm picture looks smaller than really seeing it and they even managed to keep it indoors at the entrance without sun inside a company.I'll get some pictures later.

Dear forum members ,
Please watch this video taken in Sochi in April and posted on my thread by Matcycas.

You will see that every palm and every other plant shown on this video grows well on the south coast of the UK.

Why then has no Town or city except Southsea or Torquay ever taken up the challenge and tried to match it?

Why are our streets not lined with Trachys in their thousands and CIDPs grown more widely in sheltered spots.

Its about time this happened as I can see no reason why it hasen't.

So come on you councils lets stop being boring as gardening has moved on since the days of bill and ben....

A very annoyed billdango

I have often wondered why there is only one Phoenix canariensis_CIDP growing well in Torquay that is around 100 years old? Didn't one single person in all the decades after it was planted see it and have an interest in growing one themselves, the same with Jubaea in the town which had obviously grown well although i appreciate they may not have been as easily available? I just don't understand it!

Rob S wrote:I have often wondered why there is only one Phoenix canariensis_Phoenix canariensis_CIDP growing well in Torquay that is around 100 years old? Didn't one single person in all the decades after it was planted see it and have an interest in growing one themselves, the same with Jubaea in the town which had obviously grown well although i appreciate they may not have been as easily available? I just don't understand it!

I can rob S,

Its called lack of interest by the councils who say you can't grow those sort of things in this country, Also helped by boring fuddy duddys who run the City councils who can't see beyond roses and acres of rubbishy bedding.

Plus the general public who can't understand anything anyway so at the end of the day its up to us forum members to keep the ball rolling and try to re educate that lot out there.

Then maybe one day [I won't be here to see it] at least one of our Cities will look like Sochi?

It just needs the willpower to make an effort.

billdango

I think it is more to do with availability & incorrect information regarding hardiness...

Even just 20 years ago it wasn't that easy to get hold of a Cordyline round here, they were not as widely available as they are now. Gardening books used to say they could only be grown in Devon & Cornwall too, so people didn't bother trying them. The same is true for Phoenix canariensis, when I bought my first one I had to source it from The Palm Centre in London, you just didn't see them anywhere & the gardening books were even worse for these. Most said greenhouse only with a winter minimum of +10C!! And the most daring one said they could only be grown on the Scillies & the extreme coastal strip of the far south west...

Even Trachycarpus fortunei was said in a Readers Digest gardening book to be capable of growing only "in the balmiest parts of the south & west"

Some people knock the likes of B&Q for selling cheap palms, but without them & other DIY stores there would be hardly any palms planted in peoples gardens round here...

Thats quite true Nathan.

Back in the sixties and seventies it was nearly impossible to buy palm trees or any other exotic for that matter.

Even finding a cordyline was like looking for the holy grail.

I had to travel all the way to Falmouth just to get a common yucca species so it was pretty hopeless really.

Exotics just didn't exist in Southampton except for a few Trachycarpus palms and the local garden centers were a waste of time.

But when exotic gardening took off in the late seventies palms and many other species became more common and now this City is full of them.

But even now some garden centers still think palms and Bananas are not hardy and don't sell them so I think a lot of them still need to correct their thinking on this.

rgds billdango

So based on all of this we should be in a much better position in 20 years say, when all the BQ and supermarket palms and cordylines are maturing. There are lots of cordylines in select gardens round here and the odd few with palms, its a start at least. As long as they continue to be sold cheaply in popular shops then people will buy and plant, we hope. Torquay must have started something like that.

billdango wrote: Why then has no Town or city except Southsea or Torquay ever taken up the challenge and tried to match it?
Why are our streets not lined with Trachys in their thousands and CIDPs grown more widely in sheltered spots.

Billdango, your imagination is others reality. You imagined when would you see such palms on your streets but it is already out there in our highways as in this picture taken at the horizon. It is our planet we/you/they invite everyone/eachother. It is not how many plants we /they - the Russians have but how we bring the change and use the best of this amazing sunny climate. I wonder how the Russian million palms are still alive when they had war with weapons of mass destruction.

Bill, your government should bring the change. THAT'S WHAT WE VOTE FOR CLEAN AND GREEN.
The funny thing is nobody here knows these palm ID's and me too but all of them take family pictures out there.

We do have many magnificent trees lining our streets and gardens but palm trees are quite rare here and are mostly seen in mine and other forum members gardens.

We don't have a sunny climate but a small number of palm trees will do quite well here so its just lack of imagination by our City councils is one of the reasons you don't see them lining the streets like they do in Sochi.

This can be easily rectified by councils growing large numbers of baby palm trees at a low price and trying planting them out in a few streets in London or some other City possibly on the south coast.

Then we can say that we have our very own Sochi here at home.

Of coarse many of us older members won't be around to see the final results but it would be so wonderful that the younger ones among'st us will reap the benefits.

rgds billdango

Matcycas7 wrote:

billdango wrote: Why then has no Town or city except Southsea or Torquay ever taken up the challenge and tried to match it?
Why are our streets not lined with Trachys in their thousands and CIDPs grown more widely in sheltered spots.

Billdango, your imagination is others reality. You imagined when would you see such palms on your streets but it is already out there in our highways as in this picture taken at the horizon. It is our planet we/you/they invite everyone/eachother. It is not how many plants we /they - the Russians have but how we bring the change and use the best of this amazing sunny climate. I wonder how the Russian million palms are still alive when they had war with weapons of mass destruction.

Bill, your government should bring the change. THAT'S WHAT WE VOTE FOR CLEAN AND GREEN.
The funny thing is nobody here knows these palm ID's and me too but all of them take family pictures out there.

Those palms on the picture look like Phoenix sylvestris. A very common native palm in most of India.

Alexander

Alexander, I took the picture where the sky appeared blue without a trace of a cloud. Thank you for telling its name as Phoenix sylvestris. Do you have any idea how many are there ? Hundreds! Why? Spectacular climate: sun,rain,sun,rain.
This city was once/10 years ago a dry no man's land. Believe it or not from the past 5 years this amazing change has occured and was done by G.H.M.C. Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation. Moto is to keep it clean and green like hitech alien city. This city belongs to Telangana state and was ruled by Nizam king and later was stolen by Andhra state robbers,pirates and finally justice was done in the making of green Telangana.

If you like I will bring more different exotic strange palm pictures to share. Nevertheless, Sochi is more/equally beautiful than our city which you decide if I blind fold and bring you here.