Go for it. P. canariensis should do ok there. The key for any palm is fast draining soil, so you will need to amend heavy clay. Gypsum will break up the heavy clay soil, but you will need to amend to improve drainage. Good luck.

Thanks, desertlover. Your advice is good. Our heavy clay soil is hard on some species that would otherwise thrive in our climate. I'm still not quite convinced that I should risk money on buying a canariensis, though, because even though it hasn't gotten below 20F here in the last 5 years, it has gotten down to the low teens (and even 8F) in the last 16 years.

nejackson, I am about 180-190 miles north of Jackson and have 5 washys planted around my yard. They have done really well although in late December they will defoliate from the frost. During January and February I will cut the fronds off and wrap burlap around the trunk to help protect them on the bitter cold nights. So far they have come back out nicely in the spring. You shouldn't have a problem as I would think it would be a little warmer down there.

I disagree about amending the soil. Neither are fussy about soil at all and will take a heavy soil just fine. I would think your main concern will be to see that it gets enough water in summer when it's hot. They take up lots in hot weather. second a young palm will not take the cold as well. The restaurant almost certainly imported mature palms at a cost of well over $3000 each. So your young palms will need protection in hard cold for several years. Palm typically are ok down to about 22 or for some varieties down to 17.

$3000 each??? I just bought Washingtonia Robustas with 600 pound root balls for $95 each at Home Depot. I've been shopping palms for a while and have never see even the most rare mature palms cost over a grand.

Yeah P. Canariensis & Sylvestris are easily the exception to the "palm bargain" rule, especially with 20+ ft of trunk. Once they get that big they can take 18 degrees no problem.

What is the "palm bargain rule"?

nejackson with regards to the palm bargain rule, there is no actual rule I was just implying that fast growing palms (like Mexican Fans, Queens, Kings, etc) are bargains when compared with slow growing high demand CIDPs. A specimen size Mexican Fan 15 feet tall may cost you, $250. Where as a CIDP with the same height (less trunk) can cost $2000. So if your looking for a bargain, the Mexican Fan palm delivers. Not sure how big the CIDPs are at that Mexican restaraunt, but you can bet they weren't cheap.

Softmentor and seventhlegend are right about the high cost of the large canary date palm. It has a thick trunk maybe 5 feet tall and fronds up to seven feet long. With the root ball it could have weighed a ton or more. Since there aren't any local nurseries that sell them that large, it had to have been trucked in from the Gulf Coast or south Louisiana at the closest.

I would say to give a phoenix canariensis and a washingtonia a try. Small palms are easy to protect if temps drop too low. Unless you have some coin to purchase a mature palm.

Rubtherock, Many times, old date orchards (as well as olive orchards) sell their old palms in order to plant new ones. We're talking about fully mature palms grown in fields, not in pots, with the full girth of their trunk. Those mature palms (up to 20 or 30 feet of trunk) usually end up in shopping centers or wealthy homes. Large phoenix (jubaea is another commonly field grown palm) are expensive because they must be lifted with cranes and transported using large 52 foot flatbed trailers. The installment is another story!

A city just north of here bought 50 date palms for $5,760 apiece! and that's a bargain! Total, the bill came to $288,000. As you can probably guess, it was cause for a great debate. Here's a link to the story.

Here is a link that might be useful: Story about date palms

Another story about mature palms being transplanted (in this case donated, not sold). This is a story about washingtonia filifera which were planted originally in the early 1900s. The land was being redeveloped so they were donated to Fresno State University. They now live at the Save Mart Center on their campus. The picture might not do them justice but those palms are big, and they've only been there for about 5 or 6 years

Here is a link that might be useful: Donated palms story

CIDP and dact. are both expensive in the size you see in the picture. As a grower, I get $1700 for a p. dact. that is 8 foot tall at the lowest part of the crown. Then there is digging it and shipping and planting on top of that.
Palms that are as tall as the ones in this pic are 2x that price to the grower, and of course, fewer fit on a truck so shipping is more. So, all depends on what you want. But that is what they cost.

I'm about to plant a P Sylvestris in a hot corner, full sun angle between porch and side of the house and see what happens. I'm in either zone 7 or 8 depending on who you ask. We get a few rare days in the teens.

sorry softmentor, but I stand on my soil amendment comments, which are based on wet winters where he lives in Jackson,MS, not California where you reside. Where plams are marginal because of cold winter temps, their survival is enhanced with a dry winter. Heavy clay and wet winters = root rot.

I agree with the dry soil helping in winter(esp in wet climates)if you look back to the first post,the palm is planted in a parking lot that = a hell of a "micro"climate.A parking lot would help with keeping roots dry and warming surface temps around the palm,this should be duplicated if possible.

The problem with amending soil like that is that you then have a soil surface interface that will not allow the movement of water. In other words, the soil that is now more lighter is different from the surrounding soil and water does not like to move across the line where the 2 meet. University experiments have shown that back filling your planting hole with ONLY the same native soil will yield the best survival rate and up to twice as much new growth a year later.
Also, organic amendments that are in the soil more than 2 inches deep tend to rot and cause root rot, since they retain water and have little or no oxygen.

The severe and prolonged cold of January 2010 killed all but one of the Washingtonian palms around metro Jackson. The single date palm was compeletly defoliated but it seemed to recover in the summer.

There is a 30ft Washingtonia Filifera growing in E.Point GA.It's about 20 miles east of me.I didn't believe it when someone told me one was living there,so I went to see it for myself.It looks very healthy and happy.The manager of the restaurant told me it has been there for 15yrs.I didn't think they were cold hardy enough to survive here.It proved me wrong.

i to agree with a dry winter, survival is enhanced. but here to in california we have clay soil as well as wet winters. actually we get all are rain in winter. so if your a zone 8b i would try a canary palm, i to am a 8b and theres canaries all over here. this past winter i got so much rain and temps got down to 20*F two nights and all the canaries around were fine but anything below 15-16*F will defoliate them! in 2007 the temp got down to 13*F and all canaries and mexican fan palms were fried but all came back in spring! what size were you interested in getting if you would get one NEJACKSON?

All of the Date palms and Mexican Fan palms in my area were defoliated, but they all came back. I honestly didn't expect the Date palms to make it.

Butiaman, do you have an address where the W.filifera is growing? I'm curious if it can be seen on Google StreetView? I have two of them growing in pots, one them started looking bad with fungus and had spear pull, but amazingly it started growing a new spear and leaves.

Last winter was the one in a decade that pushes zones further southward keeping true the southern palm line. That said, I would plant another palm since you have 10 years to enjoy it statistically.

Our winter last year was snowy but milder than usual in NYC. We had a 8a winter.