There's been a couple posts here on A.A.s in the northeast -- I'm sure someone will know a bit. IIRC, they are usually problematic there, but like yours, there are exceptions.

What? No pictures? ;-)

Araucaria araucana (year 6 in ground)

I have an passion for paleobotanical species. Also grow other Araucaria species but in pots.

That's pretty cool 41.

Possibly a bit more cold hardiness in it's dna?

Thanks for sharing!

The area they've seemed to last extends from Bethesda, MD outside DC (current, and probably ever, largest on the east coast) along and east of the northeast corridor to...somewhere just south of NYC. I say that because of all the places you'd expect rich people on the east coast to have tried them over the decades, the Gold Coast estates of LI are the most obvious, yet we basically know none ever lasted there long enough to get big. Both from observation and primary source material I uncovered years ago. Even recently, one I spotted at Planting Fields in 2013 appears to be gone recently.

But even in that region, for example, the tree at the former Barnes museum outside Philly died after roughly 50 years. Similarly a medium sized one in Baltimore died. If you look at how fancy nurseries touted them for decades, literally hundreds must have died on the east coast in the past several decades. Just telling it like it is, folks.

In my humble opinion of giant scary spiky trees, the best hope on most of the east coast would be crosses of parana pine and monkey puzzle, or F2 offspring of such crosses. I'm still on the fence about whether I'd try my straight parana pine in my garden - they are clearly hardier than generally assumed, with one surviving brief below 0F temps in the Texas mega freeze - or selling it or donating it to someone a little south of me. The parana pines seem like a sure bet in central North Carolina and I'd expect them to become more common there, eventually. With the caveat that, if we ever face another winter like 1985 again, it ain't gonna be pretty. But I doubt we will.

The East Coast can be difficult for certain kinds of plants like Monkey Puzzle because if you go too far south, the summers get too hot and can put plants that are accustomed to cooler climates under water stress. But if you go too far north, the winters can get too cold.

There are some huge and gigantic Monkey puzzle trees in Seattle, growing in the front yards of the oldest homes.

There's an interesting story behind that. In 1909, Seattle hosted the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. The country of Chile had a booth at the event, and supposedly was handing out seeds of the Monkey Puzzle tree. (In any case, it's obvious that planting Monkey Puzzle trees became a fad in this area some time between 1910 and the early 1920s)

They appear very suited to the climate in Seattle. They are not the best suited to being in suburban yards, however. The huge spiked nut pods 40 feet high up in some of these gigantic trees, look like they could possibly kill someone if they fell at the wrong time. And the nut pods on these 100-year-old trees are bigger than ones on younger trees that are only 18 feet tall. I saw one tree with nut pods so big I asked the owner if the tree could possibly be a Bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii) but he assured me it was Monkey Puzzle.

"put plants that are accustomed to cooler climates under water stress."

Hhhmmm...well if you mean 'getting Phytophthora kills the roots which keeps them from transporting water and nutrients to the top of the plant' - yes, that is what happens. But just saying "water stress" might imply to someone that their dying east coast monkey puzzle just needs more watering, when nothing could be further from the truth. Plant that die of root rot on the east coast tend to do so when the soil IS wet, unsurprisingly. I've mentioned quite often the R. rex I brought back from RSF in 2011. It actually survived that whole hot summer until the incredible period around Hurricane Irene when, due to that and other tropical systems, I logged over 30 inches of rain in a roughly 40 day period!

BTW I could have also said in my prior post that a monkey puzzle grafted onto a parana pine could do well in the parts of the east coast where parana pines would be generally hardy - but good luck getting anyone to 'waste' valuable parana pine seedlings on that! (Mind you, there was a bloke in Australia who was grafting monkey puzzles to survive root rot there...but that's the difference between commonwealth countries and 'murica I guess. There's a whole industry there of WA Proteaceae being grafted to survive in SE AU...I saw the plants for sale myself in the Dandenongs. Here we're supposed to shut up and be happy we get a few Abies grafts from a couple nurseries, I guess!)

Yes, that is a common problem. When the rates of evaporation from the leaves (due to some combination of clear skies and intense sun, low humidity, or high temperatures) pull more water from the plant than the roots can easily supply.

And the problem cannot always be simply solved just by watering more, because in some cases that can cause the roots to drown, with not enough of oxygen supply, or can encourage root rot, from fungal infections. In other words, there may be no way to make sure the top of the plant is able to get enough water without the roots getting excessively waterlogged.

This is especially true for plants that originate from the West Coast that are not accustomed to wet hot-humid summers.

David, I vividly remember that year with Irene! We had 80 inches of rain that year, and there was storm surge in my yard brough inland through local wetlands. Did not have the Monkey Puzzle back then. Recent summers have tended toward droughty. I don't water the MP at all though, it gets pretty much full sun all year. So far, it's been happy, time will tell how I feel about a huge prickly tree taking over the yard though!!!

@socalnolympia Thanks for that story of how these Monkey Puzzle trees showed up in PNW. When I lived in Kent WA on East hill, I noted a giant one of these on my commute route home. It was the first one I’d seen & it looked pretty scary. I’m now in Vancouver, WA & have seen several around here too. They are all planted in yards of older, craftsman style homes. I do appreciate their architectural presence but I sure would not ever plant one. I did see a younger one in bloom here with its bright green branch ends. I hadn’t seen that before. Very interesting but still not a great plant for the average yard. They belong in an arboretum or a park IMO.

There's no need to bump this old thread, but FYSA

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/1663036/

The two trees on Pleasant Ave., Westbury, LI, are gone.

Those trees at Swarthmore are gone, I was there last summer and didn't see them. There is a new planting in a less prominent location on campus; TBH I don't know if the ones Sam photographed died, or were moved.

The trees at Longwood, planted to the front of the entryway (ergo, visible without buying a ticket) are gone.

Even that thread reports the death of one of the trees shown earlier!

Moral of the story...don't get your hopes up with this tree, anywhere on the east coast. They certainly have to have be closest to the highest ratio of plantings to eventual failure of any tree species ever widely planted in any geographic area. Maybe...coconuts in central Florida are up there, too. I understand a lot of them have died out in cold winters. But they cost a couple bucks at a grocery store if you're willing to start from seed. These suckers have always been sold by local east coast nurseries in the hundreds of dollars, even back in the early 1980s when I saw them in the catalog for 'Betty's Azalea Ranch' west of DC.

"Moral of the story...don't get your hopes up with this tree."

David, I take your points and read the older thread, but if I did not have high hopes when I planted a tree, I would not be planting any trees. I have made a lot of mistakes over the years in gardening, but I still enjoy the challenges, risks, and unexpected surprises along the way. Think of it as an experiment.

So which factor do you believe to be the chief cause of lack of success in the East?

Absolute minimum cold temperatures? (mine is around 0 F.)

High summer heat? (mine is about 100 F.) Humidity? Rainfall? (Humid here all year except maybe in January, and high average rainfall year round but periodic summer drought.)

Also, is it true that there are established MP's growing on Martha's Vineyard?

P.S., Will keep you updated on my MP.

Here's a picture of a Monkey puzzle tree growing in someone's front yard on Long Island. The pictures comes from Glenn Rilke on Facebook, posted April 5, 2025. It looks like it's barely 17 feet high.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10237142853980433&set=pcb.10171534755495727

And here's a picture of a Monkey puzzle tree covered by a heavy dusting of snow at the Polly Hill Arboretum on Martha's Vineyard (it's an island just south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts), posted by Tim Behand, January 10 2022

https://www.facebook.com/groups/zonepushers/posts/10166318593055727/

A small Monkey puzzle tree was planted at the Scott Arboretum, just southwest of Philadelphia. Judging by the coloration of the leaves in the snow, it does not look very happy (I mean compared to Monkey Puzzle trees in Seattle).

Plant of the Month: Araucaria araucana - The Scott Arboretum

If that tree was really planted in the mid 1980s, it's grown incredibly slowly. But that seems to be the case with the ones in the northeast. (BTW an aside: it looks like they limbed it up to avoid contact with the treacherous branches, but that might have hugely set it back in terms of losing so much foliage. I would never have done that...plant it somewhere where contact is avoided! See my post here https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/3255860/monkey-puzzle-tree#15472212) The question is: are they literally growing slower because of the climate, or are the ones that grow slowly (either through genetics or, say, neglect of fertilization...coastal NE soils tend to be barren and sandy) the only ones that survive? I don't know, but for various reasons it's very important not to preclude the latter possibility. The one in Bethesda, MD is clearly growing faster, I think it was probably planted no earlier than the 1970s, but is much bigger.

41, with this entire clade of Csb, Cfb plants (I don't especially like the Köppen system, but it's useful for reference) the joke I've always made is 'anywhere far south enough [on the east coast] to be mild enough in winter, is too hot in summer [and the plants will get root rot], and anywhere cool enough in summer, is too cold in winter'. I wasn't directing my comment at you per se and hope it didn't seem that way, remember, even on a borderline moribund forum like this, the ratio of lurkers to posters must be well over 20 to 1. So I was directing it at anyone stumbling on this in google, reading the thread and thinking of casually planting a MP. As I point out, many plants fall into this 'trap'. Even in coastal New England, one of the only semi-mature Rhododendron rex on the east coast died in summer, after a hot, wet spell, not in winter.

As for dying in the cold, since we know over-fertilized plants can be tender especially if already borderline (the oft repeated anecdote I've shared of Longwood gardens losing a camellia variety that was fine in my garden, even though theirs was in a sheltered spot between two conservatories. Why? The erstwhile plant geneticist/scientist there admitted to me he was heavily fertilizing it to get it big enough to cross with! He's since left ornamental horticulture to move into the weed industry, which tells you something about how appealing ornamental horticulture is for a bright PhD scientist in the US...but I digress.) This is perhaps why the ones in the northeast that do get rushed with nitrogen, might then die in colder winters! Just an idea. I wish you luck with yours. I assume your soil is sandy (most of zone 7 NJ is) and I think that is the part of the east coast where the are most likely to potentially survive. The Bethesda tree is not on sandy soil, and just might be a super mutant that somehow resists root rot. Nearby Silver Spring does have schist soil (where the silver in the spring comes from!) and a very distinguished DC area horticulturalist made the bold climate to me a decade or so ago that monkey puzzles would therefore be "easy" to grow in that town. We shall see...but I very much doubt Silver Spring will become known as 'the town full of mature monkey puzzles' any time soon!!!

FWIW

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islip,_New_York

Is WAY hotter and muggier than the sort of climate where MPs grow

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futaleuf%C3%BA,_Chile

All of which has nights in the 40s in summer!

(they are actually little further north of that town, but at much higher elevations, so believe me, the nights are chilly. What is true is that part of the Andes can get down into the single digits in winter, which is why, for example, the Silver Spring tree survived -10F in 1994. It's a bit odd to me that some Euro-bro on that facebook link commented that he'd never seen a MP in 7a...I'm going to hazard a guess there are plenty of MPs in zone 7a parts of Germany, the Baltics, and Switzerland. But I think overall continental European gardeners are maybe not as adventurous with zone 7 plants as say, the English are with zone 9 plants. So maybe more likely to encounter a Grevillea robusta in London - there was one - than a monkey puzzle in Berlin?)

Interesting about the old anchor links in GW/Houzz. They used to work.

Now, you have load the page, highlight the URL, and then hit return again, as though you want it to load the page again. It will then just to the post.

Btw, found some it at least the 8a parts of Germany

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilenische_Araukarie#/media/Datei:Araucaria_araucana_001.jpg

It's amusing that the German name ( Affenschwanzbaum ) mis-translates the connection to monkeys! It wasn't because the branches resemble a monkey's tail (do they?) it was that it would "puzzle a monkey" to climb it.

BTW, one more thing I have to harp on...SINCE I STARTED READING ABOUT PLANTS IN THE INTERNET...back around 1997 or even 1996 at the old 'insidetheweb' forum ID 13995, you'd see posts of "look I found a monkey puzzle". (think that forum was around slightly before gardenweb, but roughly contemporaneous all the same...) If even TEN PERCENT of those were still around, people would be talking about seeing big monkey puzzles everywhere. In DC! in the suburbs of DC! In Norfolk and Williamsburg, VA! On the Jersey Shore! Even in the neighborhood I rented for a while in 2005, in Columbia, MD, there was an 8 footer in some collector's garden. When I drove past it again in 2008 or so, for old time's sake, it was gone! Just the random 'hood I paused at while escaping Northern Virginia! This is why I pointed out the ratio of planted ones to surviving ones has to be absurdly low.

I keep telling myself that next time I'm in DC, I will check on the one across from Dumbarton Oaks.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/c5r8oBmHauxFpm7Y8

Here was one in Fairton, NJ, that was cut down in 2013 for a building project. (a fate some of them encounter, besides death, to be sure) But, looking very healthy on that sandy soil, after the terrible summers of 2010, 2011, and 2012!

David, like I said, into Araucaria because of their Paleobotanical importance. This is the only one whose hardiness status long-term, is a potential issue (due to cold, heat, humidity oir WET). I also am obcessed with Sequoias (Metasequoia, Coastal Reds), Taxodium (Bald Cypress), Gingko, Magnolias, and Cephalotaxus (Japanese Plum Yew). The latter is not nearly as deer resistent as I had hoped! Love the genus but mine cannot acquire any size due to munching, same with Podocarus which the deer will also eat. Also have a large number of containerized cycads (Cycas, Encephalartos, Dioon)..., those ARE DEER PROOF!!! (Guessing because cycads had to deal with DINOSAURS!) Had these for decades!

Cycas revoluta (one of 7).

This was from several years ago, this Dawn Red is now twice the size. Pic taken in mid November. Have two DR's in the back. You can see my Eastern Hemlocks to the front. I did not plant the Hemlocks but do love them. Need to prone out the lower limbs, but the mid and top portions looki fine Tree on the right is a Pin Oak and for whatever reason, every house I have lived in had one growing nearby, but not actually on my lot. I've grown to LOVE IT! Not sure what the tree is on the extreme left, but it reminds me of the tree of life from Avatar, it is HUGE (but thankfully, on public land). In the back, there is also a rampant grove of timber bamboo (30-40 feet tall), but it is so shaded back there now, it cannot advance into my yard. There are also 5 large Magnolias planted, had to remove one, someone drove into it and it was severely damaged, so of course, I had to buy two more to replace it. There is no room anymore.

I've posted this before, but maybe 41 North hasn't seen it. In 2002 I noticed someone planted a little Norfolk Island pine in a semi-sunny spot in the Hagerstown City park (zone6) and that the mowers had mowed around it instead of over it. I laughed to myself. Happened to go by the next summer and it was still there and had sprouted a root-sprout! It had survived the very snowy winter of 2002/2003! Hard to believe, but since the winter had heavy snowcover, I surmised it survived because it was completely snow-covered most of the winter. Notice the dead original part.

Thanks for sharing that again...incredible. Yeah, the ground - it's different down there 🤣

I'm talking about how everyone has their own personal nuclear reactor* in their yard - it's their own soil a few feet down that remains 55F all year.

Reminds me of one of my first palm purchases in the mid 1990s. This was from a large mail order palm nursery in Florida whose name now escapes me, but they became notorious for sending out mislabeled or diseased plants. The owners also had a rep. for being incredibly rude if you challenged them...of course this company went out of biz a long time ago. IIRC what happened was I had to pay for these plants months ahead of the ship date because they were 'so rare'. It was supposed to be a Chamaerops humilis var. cerifera, the blue form, that was reckoned to be hardier than the regular green one. When it finally arrived, it was very green...and covered in some kind of scale insect. Realizing I'd been ripped off I just tossed it onto my family's compost heap. I think this might have the spring before the winter of 1996, which was quite cold but not as bad as 1994...another palm I did actually plant, maybe a Sabal minor**, died. Well, lo and behold, the next spring - a whole year after it arrived - I was rummaging around in the compost pile, and saw it pushing new growth! Being covered by 2 ft. of branches and grass clippings had protected it. I still just said "let it die" and vowed never to order from that nursery again.

Anyhow, they might be from the south Pacific, but NIPs sure aren't coconuts. They have a little frost resistance. One survive the cold 2010 Euro winter on Isola Brissago, and even there, it had to get well into the mid or even low 20s F. So probably a 10a plant that can survive an occasional 9b winter...and roots being even hardier, obviously!

* this is my favorite expression for a bizarre factor that induces a local microclimate - I'm copying it from a formerly well known DC horticulturalist who once had a yard of many subtropicals. He was jealous of a guy who lived along the Potomac in Alexandria, saying the river was that guy's "own personal nuclear reactor" haha.

** - nope I just remembered, it was a Nannorrhops. Woodlanders had 'standard issue' southern palms like Sabal minor, but for rare stuff I made one order from that Florida nursery, and regretted it.

Drifting off topic, but I used to live in zone 10 and there were fan palms everywhere. It was one of the few big trees that really grew effortlessly in the hot dry climate. In fact all along the creeks, fan palms could be seen that had just popped up there by themselves. Even in my yard a fan palm just popped up out of nowhere coming out of the base of some bushes. It's almost a borderline "invasive" plant. Having grown up with these, I just cannot imagine ever wanting to plant a fan palm, and am amused by all the desire others in colder climates have to want them. Even in Seattle they are not an incredibly uncommon plant, and they usually hold their leaves through the winter (though the fans can suffer some mild leaf burn from the cold). There are some old Mexican fan palms in the Olympia area (an hour south of Seattle) that are over 11 feet high.

Olympia, people would prb'ly want to plant them where palms are rare or absent, as a novelty. Brother when living in Slidell, LA, got a Mexican fan palm to grow well enough.

What on earth do palms have to do with Araucaria? Start you own thread maybe.