Cabbage Palm on Caledon Road

View on Google Maps
"Those are not palms trees"
— likeabillionbucks

I always associate these trees with coastal Northside Dublin. They add an air of the exotic to what are, at least to me,  mundane residential areas I’ve grown up around. A short fun article from the Smithsonian is here and reproduced below.

On a recent trip to the Emerald Isle, I expected all kinds of verdant foliage, like the ancient yew tree my family saw growing outside the walls of a ruined castle. I was not, however, prepared for the Irish palm trees. We observed suspiciously tropical-looking specimens around every corner—at bed and breakfasts, in abbey gardens, or just springing up on the side of the road.

A quick email to Colin Kelleher at Dublin’s National Botanic Gardens yielded an explanation: the species is Cordyline australis, a.k.a. the cabbage palm. “However, it is neither a palm nor a tree,” Kelleher writes. (Nor is it a cabbage, I might add.) A New Zealand native, the plant was popularized in Irish gardens as early as the late 1800s. By the 1970s—and almost certainly before that, Kelleher says—the palm imposter had gone rogue, spreading into the wild and lending parts of coastal Ireland a distinctly beachy aura.

The cabbage palms are able to thrive in Ireland because of warm ocean currents. Ireland is at about the same latitude as Newfoundland, but its winters are much milder. Last winter, though, Ireland experienced the unusual weather patterns reported in other parts of the world. “We had severe snow and frosts, with temperatures going down to -10 degrees centigrade,” Kelleher writes. “In fact, because of the extreme winter conditions last year many Cordyline palms were damaged or died.”

 

Beware

Dangerous wall toppings ?

View

Wysteria

?

View

St Vincent’s Hospital

Off the Richmond Road. I have driven past it countless times but wasn't aware it existed until a lockdown exploring walk.

View

London & Western Railway

This building is ?

View

Box Hedge pattern

Nice box hedge at front of house. Such pretty. Much wow.

View

Social Distancing in Bus Eireann

?

View

Meerkats

Adding some cute visual interest to this otherwise plain garden. 3/5 stars.

View

Facade

Church front done in classical Greek style. Architecturally fits in well with surrounding buildings. Said no one ever.

View

Ossory House

?️

View

Door Boy

Addition to brickwork at the top of the arch over a door. When photo was taken, all windows in the building were blocked with heavy fabric. It looked weird. Cute boy!

View

DRIVE SLOWLY

?

View

Rose Bush

?

View

City of Dublin Steam Packet Company

Eden Quay

View

Stress Shopping

Coronavirus anxiety inducing shopping experience

View

Entrance

?

View

LÉ James Joyce P62

Irish navy boat

View

James Conolly

Mural. What a lovely moustache.

View

Dead Bird

?

View

Twisteel

Concrete Reinforcement Specialsts

View

Ken’s Barber Shop Upstairs

?

View

Suicide Plot

?

View

Cabbage Palm on Caledon Road

"Those are not palms trees"
— likeabillionbucks

View

Grand Canal Graving Docks

Disused dry docks

View

Dead Bird

Oh no

View