Palms & exotics on the east coast of Kent, UK.

[UK_Palms]

Often when we think of palms in the UK, we think of the obvious spots like Cornwall or London. The southwestern and southern coasts, along with the capital city, all get a lot of attention. Rarely do we see anything getting posted about the far southeast region along the Kent coast. Not that many people go there on holidays, or for travel really, so it isn't really associated with palms. 

Until now. This is specifically the Margate - Broadstairs - Ramsgate area on the east coast of Kent. I would say 99% of the palms in this thread haven't been posted on here before...

 

Talk about a goldmine.

Edited December 20, 2022 by UK_Palms

[Ryland]

Very lovely.  Much of this looks like Cornwall, it's surprising how big some of the Phoenix are.  Numerous palms which look as though they could have been volunteers too.

[JacoPalmsCo]

Don’t know a lot about palm in the U.K, but those Phoenix and yuccas are pretty popular, and a great choice. Does it get very cold there?

[UK_Palms]

16 hours ago, JacoPalmsCo said:

Don’t know a lot about palm in the U.K, but those Phoenix and yuccas are pretty popular, and a great choice. Does it get very cold there?

Last winter just gone was the coldest in 12-13 years here, since the 2010 freeze. I had two separate freeze events here and went down to -8C twice. The lowest it would have got in central London at street level was about -3C / 26F. The area of Kent shown in these photos however is heavily protected by the coast and only went down to about 0C / 32F at worst. Maybe +1C / 34F even there.

As you can see on the screenshots below, it was -6C / 20F in my location here, but still comfortably +5C / 43F on the east Kent coast. So a difference of 11C / 22F, despite it only being about 85 miles away from my location.

Southwest Cornwall was a whopping 15C / 30F warmer than my location during one of those freezes. Some parts were at 9C / 48F while I was down at -6C / 20F. The differences are night and day. I’m not sure whether that says more about how bad my location is, or about how mild these other spots are. Worlds apart really.

[hbernstein]

I understand the fascination with Phoenix, perhaps many locals have vacationed along the Mediterranean coast and became enamored with the palms. Too many seem inappropriately sited: big palms in small, cramped spaces. And what, no Butias?!

[PalmsandLiszt]

On 4/20/2023 at 2:12 PM, hbernstein said:

And what, no Butias?!

Probably down to low availability and high price for plants big enough to plant out (as with Jubaea). P. canariensis, on the other hand, are two a penny, and are much faster growers.

[Foxpalms]

7 hours ago, PalmsandLiszt said:

Probably down to low availability and high price for plants big enough to plant out (as with Jubaea). P. canariensis, on the other hand, are two a penny, and are much faster growers.

Yes definitely the reason. There are a good amount of butias around but Phoenix canariensis is very cheap and readily available everywhere, at least in London. A 10 litre phoenix canariensis is £8 in the box stores Vs a butia the same size that would be about £60.