Windmill Palm

The Essence

"The windmill palm (Trachycarpus fortunei) is the most cold-hardy trunk-forming palm in cultivation, and the species that — more than any other — lets gardeners grow palms in cool-temperate climates. A fan palm of the family Arecaceae, it forms a single slender trunk wrapped in a dense, hairy mat of persistent leaf-base fibre, topped by a rounded crown of stiff, deeply segmented palmate leaves on finely toothed petioles. In its native Chinese mountains it grows slowly to about 10–12 m, occasionally taller. It is dioecious — male and female flowers are carried on separate plants — bearing large sprays of small yellow flowers in spring, the females ripening to clusters of waxy, kidney-shaped blue-black fruit. Its reputation rests on sheer toughness: growing wild at altitudes up to roughly 2,400 m, it shrugs off the cold, wind and damp that would kill most palms, and established specimens routinely survive around −15 °C, with extreme records considerably lower. Slow but durable, shade-tolerant and undemanding about soil, it has become the defining 'exotic' palm of gardens across Britain, central Europe, the Pacific Northwest and the cooler southern United States."

Cultivated in China and Japan for thousands of years, its strong fibers were used for ropes, sacks, and traditional raincoats. It was one of the first truly cold-hardy palms introduced to the West in the mid-19th century. it has since become the most common palm in temperate gardens, a symbol of botanical tenacity.