Re: Trevesia palmata hardiness

Hello Paul,

It does sound like your past winter was a hard one for
many people, and I can sympathise about the losses. 
Getting down to -8C is pretty damn cold for anyone
trying to grow subtropicals and succulents, and it
sounds like you would get more useful advice from
people growing in Seattle/British Columbia.  There is
a nurseryman who calls himself BananaJoe in British
Columbia, on a small island just to the east of
Vancouver Island, who grows an amazing variety of
things I would have thought too difficult there.  He
has a column for the local paper which can be accessed
at www.gulfislands.com/foxglove, and click on the
gardens icon.  He also posts quite frequently on the
www.gardenweb.forums/nwest, and you'd find that people
there share your range of temperatures.  Here in
Berkeley, it has only gotten down to -5C/~24F at
worst, and that was quite cold enough.  Our normal
frosts are usually only a degree or two below zero.

Trevesia palmata will sucker from the base of the
plant if frozen back, but is so much slower growing
than Tetrapanax, that I think you'd be regretful if
you let it freeze.  It is very tender at just below
freezing, and my oldest plant is now a three stemmed
clump with 12" stems after 3 years of growth since the
last hard freeze in winter of 1998, where it only got
down to ~28F here.  I don't think you will find this
plant to be either fast growing or hardy without extra
measures taken, sorry.  

Some of the Cussonias are nearly as spectacular for
foliage form, however, and are much faster growing.  I
have both C. paniculata (gray leaves/Highveld Cabbage
Tree, and deciduous with freezes) and C. spicata (dark
green foliage and more tender/Lowveld Cabbage Tree). 
I like both, but the C. paniculata will handle frost
to 25F here and keep its trunk, while the C. spicata
will only return from basal sprouts.  The C. spicata
also has great dissected foliage somewhat like
snowflakes, blood red colored new leaves, and is super
fast growing, even in cooler summer areas.  This plant
is now 5 feet tall after the same 1998 freeze! 

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