[kindredspirit]

Saw a beautiful Phoenix Roebelenii palm in a shop today, (a well known gardening store, not B & Q) and the label on it said it was hardy! There were 5 specimens there and all had been labelled hardy.

What would be your definition of hardy? Phoenix Roebelenii can't take ANY frost! as far as I know. Hardy in my book would mean that it could survive any Irish winter.

[James Kilkelly]

Plant hardiness zones are a guide to help you know which plants will grow and survive where you live.
A hardiness zone is a geographically-defined zone in which a specific category of plant life is capable of growing, as defined by temperature hardiness, or ability to withstand the minimum temperatures of the zone.
Most parts of central Ireland and most of England, Wales and Scotland are Zone 8, the minimum temperatures of which are -12 to -7 C (10 to 20 F)
A plant labelled as hardy for ireland should be capable of putting up with those temps for a period of a few days.

Some garden centres have the habit of labelling any plant they regard as tough as "hardy".
This may not relate to frost in their case.
kindredspirit Phoenix Roebelenii looks to be mislabeled as such for central Ireland, but it may be ok on the coast as it is supposed to grow in Zone 9: -7 to -1 C.
Zone 9 covers most of coastal Ireland, western and southern England and Wales, western Scotland, also a very narrow coastal fringe on the east coast of Scotland and northeast England (within 5 km of the North Sea).

More here.... What exactly is a PLANT HARDINESS ZONE or FROST ZONE

[kindredspirit]

I've checked around with experienced gardeners here and everyone has said that frost will kill them.

On Palm Forums, they say " Temperatures below around -2C will damage them & below -4C will kill them..."

So therefore it is definitely mislabelled as "Hardy". I'm just wondering is it deliberately mislabelled so that the gullible public will buy them? I DO find it a tad annoying that it has a label on it like that. I could have bought it and then lost my money in the winter.