You could place them in the oven if you have a gas oven. The pilot light keeps things warm. Make sure you keep the container or bag sealed.
A heating pad is best..always warm. Last but not really least- a black pot in full sun,or up against a wall.
Bizmarckia grow fine in the southern SF bay area.summers are pretty much that 77 and 60f range. They may not grow much in San Francisco..but cool cloudy summers are the norm.

Thanks for the info. While there are no pilot lights in European gas ovens, there are pilot lights on water heaters, but those usually remain semi-outdoors behind persianas or luzias (shutters). I will try your other suggestions. Probably will be best to use a heating pad and pay the electric bill, cause a greenhouse will get hot only during sunny weather and go down to 55-65F at night. Same situation with a black pot in full sun, which is rarely an entire day event, let alone at night. I'm not sure perhaps germination still happens with temperature fluctuations at say 35C (95F) and then down to 16C (60F) at night and then he next day if it is a cloudy day it may remain in the 60s all day long. Another problem in a 50F - 77F climate is the speed of growth of most palms and also being about 1 1/2 mile from the ocean, there may be some salt spray, although we are uphill from the Atlantic ocean. On the north side of the island. I live here only for 6 weeks, so I am very new in this kind of climate, which I would call alpine-subtropic-oceanic with lots of windy and rainy days, but some days several days in a row of no rain. I will keep updated.

That sounds exactly like here. Bay breeze's (no salt spray though). Here's a Bizmarckia growing in Union City ca,37N. If you look up the yearly month to month temps,it might be cooler then the Azores. Behind it,is a Redwood tree.

Its doing very well..and its in a park, not lavished with care as in a backyard.

Yes, very nice. It must never get below 26F there in 37N-CA since they would not survive below 26F or even below 28F. We are 38,5 degrees North here on Pico island, but are warmed up by the Golf Stream constantly. So a couple nights ago it was 55F at 8 PM but then it turned to 64F at night and 66F during the day. Cities get above 70F here even in winter. Tonight the forecast is a "scary" 50F (with no heat source in the house) and I am afraid it may go below 50F since I am almost more than a mile up a slope from the Atlantic Ocean. I am yet to germinate all kinds of palms here and I did lots of germination in mid SC but because of zone 8A climate in SC not many have survived there. The Bismarckia may also do better there because it is next to a water pond. Can you grow South Florida palms there as well? What are the absolute critical lows there in your area?

P.S.: Regarding salt spray here in the Azores I was only assuming, but there may be no salt spray here as well. Will find out and let you know after this winter.

Mostly 10b -11 palms are not easy here. Some things common in those zones like Manila palm or Coconut wont grow here at all. Royal palm is still debatable. Long term are the hardy palms of course,but also the cool subtropical palms- Howea,King palm,Shaving brush palms,and most mountain palms from tropical latitudes. Those are water needy palms. The hardys and Bizmarckia are not so much.

Very interesting to know! Thank you. We had mostly 50s now with some 60F and even low 60s but also we had 48F a few times and even once we had 48F during the day a few weeks ago! I watch the thermometre every minute and right now it is 52F here at 9:30 PM here on Pico island in the Açores. December mornings can be a chilly 50F here.

your climate sounds perfect for most palms⦠should be no problem germinating Bismarckia seeds, though they should be germinated int a tall pot as they put down a pretty long root. You may not even need a greenhouse to germinate them. Bismarckias do well down to 22F (at least the blue forms do) though not as young palms⦠but once forming a trunk, 22F seems about their limit before severe leaf damage occurs. Green forms can barely handle 29F. My young Bismarckias defoliated completely at 25F, but almost always came back.

Bismarckia sounds like it would be very slow growing there because seldom hot. On the other hand, lots of other cooler growing oceanic/high elevation palms and your consistent rains would be ideal for Howea, Rhopalostylis, Brahea 'Clara'- a great substitute for Bismarckia where it's not hot enough. Butias, Braheas, Parajubaeas, Chamaedoreas, Archontophoenix, etc. I think there are also coconuts there at sea level, so altitude makes a difference. Happy gardening in the middle of the Atlantic! Gardens in Madeira would be quite similar and have more varieties of palms.

Great info! Thank you. I wrote it down and will be searching for their seeds. I wonder if Washingtonia robusta and/or W. filifera and W. filibusta would grow here. Actually they are growing here and there are quite tall ones on this island, but I suspect most of them may be the W. filibusta. I planted W. robusta with about 1,5 ft. trunk, will see how it grows here. My elevation should not be more than 200m.

What is your humidity? You may be able to grow well a lot of species others have a lot of trouble with, just has Ceroxylon, Juania (a super hard palm to grow, but sounds perfect for your climate), Lepidorrhachis, and just about all the difficult Chamaedoreas. Plus about anything that grows on New Caledonia. Howeas and Parajuabaeas will do nicely for you, as will any island/coastal palm that does not need a ton of heat. Just google what does great in Northern California and you will have no troubles with any of those. You get lightening on that island a lot? Maybe tall palms like Washingtonia robusta get cut down by severe winds or lightening?

Our humidity is high, probably 60% to 100% most of the time, but when
there is no rain for many days I suspect the humidity may go down as low
as 50% but I am not so sure about that. Regarding lightning, In 5
months of me living here I had one lightning strike which shut my PC
down, it was very brief and sole. No more heard any lightning yet.
Perhaps in summer? Thanks for the info, I am ordering palm seeds now.

P.S.: I was unable to login to GardenWeb anymore (as PicoAzores). My username was or is (?) PicoAzores and my email address is not recognized by their password recovery feature. When I try to register as PicoAzores again, it says the username is taken. That is ridiculous. Account deleted but username taken? Taken by who? This is an example of a good place bought by greedy and stripped off its soul.

I ran into the same problems as you but I registered again and then kept sending them emails. They ended up giving me my old name back and moved everything from my "new account" into the old one, ie. they amalgamated both accounts. You just need to keep at them. I think they're flat out trying to fix a lot of problems.

Both Washys will grow for you. W. robusta will grow looking more as they do in the sub tropics (and that's better then they look in the hot humid tropics). W. filifera will do OK,but it likes a hot summer. You get half the number of fronds in the bay area (more or less) then inland where summers are 95f. Still,they get to be big palms here.

I am unable to find seeds of Juania australis. Could anyone advise or even sell me the seeds so I can test then on Pico, Azores and let you know the results?

If rarepalmseeds doesn't have them, no one will. Isn't Juania considered endangered, and perhaps require a permit to internationally ship the seed? EDIT: no, it's only "vulnerable"
I wonder if nights in the Azores might be a little too warm for some of the high elevation south American palms, like Ceroxylon or Juania. 66F at night in August is far muggier than San Francisco. But, you say you are at some elevation so it might not be the case for you. And with highs never going above 80F, and the cloudy nature of the climate, the soil temperature is probably kept reasonably low.

I was offered to buy a seedling for 120 EUR and it's from another EU country. I am thinking what to do as I have no idea if Portugal allows importation of palms from other countries of the EU. When I asked the Portuguese Embassy and the transshipper, they told me to NOT bring any plants or soil into Portugal. Regarding climate 66F or 19C at night only happens mostly during summer months here. I am about 2 km from the coast and it is a very slight slope probably not more than 6%, so I may not be at a very high elevation, probably 100-200 m above sea level. The location is Santa Luzia on the main road almost midway between the cities of São Roque and Madalena. The absolute minimum this past winter was 7.7C one night and 8C one night and a couple dozen nights at 9C including one day at 9C and the rest is 10C and that is early morning and night temperatures (Santa Luzia do Pico). The lower lying cities on the coast may be a bit warmer a degree or two including urban heat index. Day temps here in Santa Luzia are usually 13C to 18C during the cold period of the year, with a very occasional 19-20C closer to spring. I think humidity here is quite high, but when there is no rain for a week or two I would guess the humidity may go down as low as 50%? Some days a few days in a row can be very windy and then rain, but lots of sunny days anyway. I think this is a very good climate for those who do not like heat, does not like their skin to crack in February and who hates frost.

Germinating tropical palms here may be a challenge, which I am still to endure and test. So far Washingtonia seeds placed in pots of soil last year gave no germination at all at the temps of 10C to 18C. I am now trying to cover the pots with large plastic cut bottles to create a greenhouse effect for the seeds, so far no germination for Washies either. Seed germination may be a challenge in the Azores!

Hi again, I completely forgot one important palm. The largest in the world. Would Chilean Wine Palm grow in the Azores? What do you think or know? As far as I know the wine palms like cool subtropical climate without much heat. Not so sure why i don't see them here in the Az.

So far my palms grow very slowly, with a lot of fronds broken by winds and most have this "olive" colouring to their fronds rather than fully green. Probably because of poor stoney ground and soil, which is hard to dig and in many places is just pure solid rock that needs to be busted. The ones I am germinating outside in pots on a south facing wall are germinating slowly and are growing much slower than in a hot climate. At least before summer while temps remained below 20C (68F). Now, in mid May we are getting 20-21C (68-70F) during days more often. The Fiji Palm and the Hyophorbes seeds did not germinate yet, after more than a month in the heated propagator (constant 80-90F). Usually I buy 10 seeds in hopes that one or two will germinate or survive.

Davidrt28, actually Azores are not cloudy climate. There are many sunny and clear or almost days (except of course those unnatural, sprayed lingering "clouds" which originate from we know where).

You can absolutely grow Jubaea chilensis in your climate... but it will take forever. They're very slow growing. You might also be able to have good luck with Ceroxylons. I would definitely try them out, your climate sounds similar to highland climates in Colombia where they're native.

Ok, here's to bumping 5 year old threads. At least, in this case, the original post is still active on gardenweb/houzz.

The Azores are the westernmost of the Macaronesian islands. Indeed, only 1740 hours of sunlight a year is "cloudy" by North American standards. Even 'foggy' San Francisco has about 3000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azores

Sydney AU: 2635

Baltimore: 2581

London: 1632