2023-09-13 20:08:18
Constant rain in July, thunderstorms in August, bathing lake weather only in September: the weather gods are giving the sun worshipers among us little opportunity to experience legendary summer moments this year. They urgently need these memories to be happy in the gloomy season. In winter, they feed on past barbecues, lemon ice cream and sunburn like squirrels feed on their nuts. It’s understandable that some people want to preserve a piece of summer in other ways, for example in the garden. And no plant embodies tropical dreams better than the palm tree, if necessary between the begonia bed and the organic waste bin.
Johanna Kuroczik
Editor in the “Science” department of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
The palm tree trick for a greater feeling of paradise has already been tried out on a large scale: before 1992, no palm trees grew in Barcelona, especially not next to factory buildings and run-down shacks on the coast. But tons of sand and thousands of palm trees created the European Copacabana for the Olympics. Anyone who wants to emulate the Spanish city planners in this country needs gardening skills – and a dose of criminal energy. Because the garden palms are not morally flawless.
Even if every kindergarten child can draw one, “the” palm tree actually doesn’t exist. The palm family includes more than 2,500 completely different species. Some resemble a gigantic pineapple, others are small houseplants in the IKEA storage room or grow up to the sky. In Colombia, the largest palm in the world, the Quindio wax palm, can grow to more than 50 meters tall. What palm trees have in common is that they only survive the cold months in our latitudes in heated apartments. Only tough species defy the local winter.
Johanna Kuroczik Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 6 Ulf von Rauchhaupt Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 3 Pia Heinemann Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 5
There is the blue dwarf palm. It is at home in the mountains of Morocco and can withstand double-digit temperatures below zero. Their fronds are pretty blue-gray. Unfortunately, it often only reaches up to the knee and is not suitable for lying under and daydreaming. The same applies to the dwarf palmetto, Sabal minor. The palm tree is hardy, but its trunk is hidden in the ground and so it looks like a bush.
Can palm trees also withstand snow? : Image: picture alliance / Robert B. Fishman
A hearty palm tree was presented to your botany columnist in a garden in Zurich. The proud owner and amateur gardener has planted a Chinese hemp palm on the south side, near the wall of the house. The palm tree, with its hairy brown trunk and green fronds, is already over a meter tall and will grow for several more meters. She survived the first winter. Their owner wrapped them warmly in coconut mats and fleece. The roots are not the most sensitive part, but the heart of the palm. Without this zone of vegetation at the top of the trunk where the leaves emerge, the palm tree dies. The fronds were tied up so as not to provide snow with a place to lie down. Some palm parents even wrap their protégés with heating wire, reports the Zurich resident. She would prefer to remain anonymous to protect the palm tree. Trachycarpus fortunei has enemies.
The “Ticino palm” grows so wildly that it is considered a pest, especially in Zurich and the canton of Ticino. The Lucerne environmental consultancy is even calling on citizens to tear them out. The palm tree has conquered mountain slopes from gardens, for example around Lake Lugano. But the Swiss like the new national plant, according to a survey. Many see them as a new symbol of the Southern Alps. So far only a few specimens have been found in Germany. And maybe that’s better that way. Lake Lugano still passes for paradise, but by the time palm trees line the A7 or the streets of Bottrop, the dream factor is gone.
#tricks #works