Too bad no one replied...a most interesting project and I would be curious to see the outcome. A former poster here, Pineresin, told me he knew of a Phoenix palm outdoors near West Kirby, on The Wirral. Wonder if it is still doing well.

Hi David, Yes there are quite a few large Phoenix canariensis in the UK now. The survey is doing pretty well so far with around 100 replies in the first week.

"Research has shown that Trachycarpus fortunei, the palm most frequently grown in the UK, is becoming naturalised in an area of Switzerland with a similar climate to the UK and is already reproducing in gardens in the UK."

Well, kind of. I would say broadly similar. The insubric lakes climate of Italy and Switzerland is surely closer to the Chinese and Indian monsoon climate where Trachycarpus come from: both more rain, and more sunlight in summer, than the UK. I saw them self-seeding so thickly in Stresa and other Lago Maggiore ports of call that they were sometimes simply mown into rough, spiky lawns!!! But, palms are giant grass plants after all; tough and adaptable if you get past the minimum winter temperature requirements. I can imagine the same thing happening in parts of the UK too. Even though your summer rainfall figures aren't as high, the fact the sun isn't very strong means the soil doesn't really dry out quickly, either. I couldn't believe how good gardens looked after the "dry" summer I spent in the UK. (compared to eastern US standards)

Great, good luck with the project. Thankfully the UK will always be a place that can embrace the notion of foreign plants and plant types thriving in their climate.

Probably Martin knows all about it but if not palms were included in the print publication Champion Trees of Britain & Ireland - The Tree Register Handbook by Owen Johnson (2011, Kew Publishing, R.B.G., Kew). Also since Johnson has been all over the U.K. finding and recording big trees (60,000 of them, according to Wikipedia) he will know what palms are around and where they were, apart from just the biggest examples of them.

If you would like photo documentation as an addendum, I will post a picture of a London Phoenix I took in 1999.

Interesting remark, Embo. I wonder which species were covered.