I just started some date palms in little buckets! Went searching through and found this. I am so impressed. I love date palms they are beautiful and the entire lifecycle especially the amazing fruit they create just fascinates me. So I am going to start my own and include it in my plans.. They're in pots i'm guessing i'll have to put them in the ground pretty early. I live in Alabama, I have a piece of land that is empty I inhereted and to turn it into a fruit garden is the goal that will provide a substantial amount of fruit rather than going to the grocery to get it. I am Starting with planting my date palms. Also starting peaches and apples. Hopefully they survive, it can get as cold as you recorded here and very rarely but possibly lower. But its just an experiment after all. I was actually looking for techniques that exist where I could attempt to possibly make the palm grow so that it doesn't actually trunk up much and could be harvested by an average or tall person with the need for only a stool or nothing at all. Thanks for coming back after so many years and posting the image! VERY cool!!

Stevea07 if you are asking about date palms, Deglet Noor are considered a poor choice because they have rather skimpy crown and fronds compared to most any other sort. There are a lot of Medjool available, and they are a more attractive tree. There are several other varieties also, most are attractive palms. The Khadrawi and the Dayri are both nice looking palms with the advantage that they are slower growing, usually only 6 inches per year, compared to 18 inches a year for Medjool. That means they can be manageable and better to scale for a lot longer. You may also want to consider male palms. Although they are a little harder to find, you don't have the mess of fruit drop. Males are usually large and very full, very nice looking trees too. All will do well near the coast. As you get into the colder areas, frost tolerance becomes more an issue. One of the most cold hardy is Zahidi, and it is a very nice looking palm, dense, trouble free, and grows about 12 inches a year. Generally, date palms will take 18 degrees jut fine, some will take 12, but below that you will get serious damage and loose a lot of them. For fan palms, the Washingtonia is better than the Robusta for the same reason. Robusta will grow 3 times as fast, Washingtonia are also, imo, a better looking palm. Arthur the date palm guy

Sorry I'm late to the party. I grow all 4 of these, although my Thoory is only 1 year old and I don't expect fruit for another 4 years. Good info so far. I'll add a little. You can not start from seed and get the same variety. Fruit from seedlings will be widely different than the parent, and of course half will be males and not produce fruit at all. To get a particular variety, you must cut offshoots and plant those. Medjool the large fruit you can find at most grocery stores and Costco. Nice flavor, texture is a little grainy, like grains of sugar. Originally from Morocco, widely grown in CA and AZ, it is the second leading commercial date crop in US. Soft date, roots are more susceptible to too much water and root rot than others. Deglet Noor name means "date of light" for the translucent golden color. This is the leading commercial crop in the US. Popular with growers because it is easy to work and can be handled with industrial equipment, including machine pitting (other varieties are too soft for the machine). Has a distinct flavor that is good with bran flakes, baked goods, or rolled with coconut. If you have only tried Deglet Noor and decided you don't like dates, you really should try other varieties. The taste is very different than other dates and not everyone likes them. They are also considered a dry date (as opposed to soft date) and contain sucrose, which the soft dates do not. They are relitivly resistant to root rot but fruit does not do well in humid climate. They require more heat than most to ripen. They will not ripen in Phoenix, but will in Coachella Valley and Death Valley. Originally come from Tunisia and Algeria. Deglet Noor and Medjool make up more than 90% of the date crop in the US. Thoory also from Algeria, it is a hard dry date. Often liked out of hand for a snack on a hike or late morning with coffee or tea. A little grown variety and a little hard to find as the few growers that have them will sell out before the next season. Very chewy, nutty flavor. Susceptible to root rot. Zahidi is the leading variety of Iraq and Iran, where it is 40% of the entire date crop. Considered a common date, in the sense that it is the every day date that people eat lots of. It is also usually a low priced date. It is my favorite of the dry dates. Of the dates that have a little caramel taste, it seems to have the most, at least to my taste buds. Not too sweet, a little chewy. Fairly easy to grow and more resistant to root rot. There are hundreds of named varieties grown in the world. Not hard to see why when every seedling produces such a wide variety of fruit. In the first half of the 20th century several people from the US traveled throughout the date producing regions of the Mid-East and North Africa and collected what they thought were the best varieties and brought them to the US. I myself grow over a dozen varieties and the flavors are widely varied, distinct, and well worth trying. Lots of great recipes too. Bon apatee

Ditto to the above observations, as they say, "it's not the heat, it's the humidity". As long as you're not planning to go into commercial date farming, give them a try. (Though, aside from the problem with the fruiting, I thought the foliage of dactylifera and canariensis experience more problems with various blights in very humid climates.)