Palm Observations Driving from Delaware to South Carolina
I'm from the Philly area (now Delaware), and have had a long interest in hardy palms. I've grown trachycarpus with protection, as well as needle palm. Thought I'd share observations on palm sightings from a recent trip through the Carolinas and Virginia.
Many of the sabal palms I saw through central SC had ragged foliage from this winter, and trachycarpus weren't much better (some seemed sun scorched?). Pindo palms in general looked best, with bright green foliage.
I spotted what I assume was sabal minor from my car growing in wet spots along with bald cypress. The furthest north was just below Florence on RT 95. The fronds were very small, not much larger than my hand. Weird given that other sabal minor I've seen around Santee, SC had enormous fronds.
I was surprised to see a large group of mature Sabal palms from RT 95 near Four Oaks, NC. I later discovered it was a nursery specializing in palms, and I've included some screen shots from their website. What do you make of their description of the dwarf version of the sabal palm? And how about the description of Trachycarpus being zone 5 capable?
Finally, I spotted a few Trachyparpus driving north through the Delmarva peninsula portion of Virginia. The best looking one was an hour north of Norfolk, which I found it on Google street view and included here (in front of house). This one looked great, and appeared to be in partial shade.
Posted Mar 5, 2026, 7:54 PM UTC