that Winter I took over a year to take stock of the situation and am planning to re-plant the gaps in my garden with palms, but I will be making sure that I have the infrastructure in place such as electrical sockets close to any palm that may need a bit of help to get through a nasty cold period. Si I'm sorry to hear that you lost your Washingtonia. But every experience good or bad should be seen as a lesson and I'm sure you can grow an even better palm in that part of your garden having gone through the pain of losing a palm that was close to your heart Nathan wrote: The one at Chelsea Physic Garden was planted out small & the photo at the top of the thread was from April 2011... Barry's specimen is actually bigger than this one too... Barry's Palm looks like a W. filifera ( The petioles are very long & the crown is open ) R. robusta has shorter petioles and a much denser crown ( Just my thoughts ) Even here in Christchurch New Zealand it is only regarded as HALF-HARDY, but that all depends on where you live in Christchurch. We have quite a bit of variation in temps here. One side of our city can grow R.sapida where the other side cannot. My Washies here in my garden get frost damage nearly every year, but it grows out in one season. An excellent trait of this