Hello, I've not posted for a long time and thought I'd just say thank you too all you other palm enthusiasts who post on this site. You answer tons of questions, give encouragement, and most importantly I love how everyone is polite and considerate of newbies like me.

I'd like to say that I recently purchased a Rhapidophyllum hystrix and a Chamaerops humilis (blue). Both are about 18 inches tall including the leaves with about 6 or so inches of trunk each. Both have started suckering and the european fan is more like a cluster of 5 small palms than one.

I live in a zone 5-6 in northern Utah and have often longed to be able to grow palms here. I moved from NC where I used to grow pindo and sabal palms in my yard and parent's yard. Now I miss that and have been reading from this site as well as others to see if it is possible to grow them here.

I've heard people at local nurseries say we are a zone 5 and others claim 6. Some say that on a south wall we have microclimates of a 7. I think we are a 5 because it got down to -16 about 6 years ago. Since then it has been closer to -10 to -5 or warmer for the absolute low for the year. I'm really guessing at numbers because I don't always watch the news and most of the time I hear it from others what they think the lows were for the night.

I bought these two types of palms because they were offered cheap and I had heard here, on this site, that they were good choices for cold hardy palms.

I am toying with the idea of planting them on the south side of either my house or some raised bed in my yard, close to my house, so as to protect from cold north winds. I could then build a structure as I have seen or heard others talk about that is made from foam insulation and plywood with the palms wrapped in lights.

This works out well for me because that side of my house is hidden from the road and the ugly structure would not be objectionable. I've toyed with the idea of building a greenhouse but after reading about how much it would cost to heat it, I decided to go a cheaper rout.

Here is a list of my palms so far. I put a "+" after some of the numbers because there are multiples of that plant in each pot. The number is the number of potted specimens whether there is one or more per pot.

1-Pindo 4ft

1-European fan (blue)18inch

3+-Dates (Medjool)18inch

2+-Dates (dwarf)5ft

1+-Chinese fan 4ft but burned down by early frost last year and are slow to recover

1-Needle palm 18inch

1+-Areca palm 1ft

5+-Sabal minor (still seedlings and probably will be til I die it seems)

10-Washingtonia filifera (still seedlings but growing REALLY fast)

2-Cycads