Palms Won't Grow Here And Other Myths: Warm-Climate Plants For Cooler Areas [Paperback]

Palms that grow in Canada? Bananas that overwinter in Michigan? How about southern crape myrtles that flower in Birmingham, England, instead of Birmingham, Alabama? Although the voice of authority—and nursery labels—might say, “You can't grow those plants here,” author Dave Francko has a different message for gardeners: “Plants can't read the information on their tags.” Laced with humorous anecdotes and based on years of first-hand observations and research, this book provides real-world information to help adventurous gardeners grow plants they never before dreamed possible. Nobody who reads this book will ever look at a plant label the same way again.

This book is only available through print on demand. All interior art is black and white. 

Hardy palm expert David Francko has recently been a featured guest on Martha Stewart Living TV, as well as NPR's Science Friday with Ira Flatow. Francko is chair of the Department of Botany at Miami University in Ohio and his academic specialty is aquatic plants. He is co-investigator on the unversity's Hardy Palms Project, and for many years he has experimented with warm-climate plants in his own gardens. Francko's findings have been published in scientific journals and presented at national and international conferences. As part of a network of adventurous gardeners living in cooler regions of the world, Francko refuses to accept the common wisdom that Palms won't grow here.

Although most palms grow in warm climates, it is a myth that palms areexclusivelytropical or subtropical species.

Perhaps a hundred species (and probably more, as people experiment with newly available species and varieties) will easily take 20 degrees F (-7 degrees C) freezes, and a surprising number will survive at temperatures below 0 degrees F (-18 degrees C; noblick 1998; Walters 1998; Francko and Wilson 2001). Thus, the termscold-hardy palmor