In the first post we went through the strategy of growing date palms from seeds by propagating them in moist temperate or warm environment.

This second way I made an experiment by simply putting the seeds directly in the soil. I kept the pots in a temperate environment; about 21 °C, same light conditions (by the windows, but not in direct sunlight), watering regurarly once a week. The soil was kept moist, but not wet. Surprisingly, growth success was about 90 %, almost all of the seeds germinated and formed healthy young plants. Currently I have 10 small date palms growing and 2 more in seeds in the soil waiting to grow.

This is just to let you know you don’t need to go through the process of germinating and propagating the seeds for days and weeks. Because the first thing you get searching for »growing date palms from seeds« is that you have to propagate the seeds. We’ve proven, that’s not the case entirely. If you don’t have the time to check on the seeds regurarly, you can just try putting them directly in the soil pots, if you have enough seeds to spare for this experiment. Make sure to water regurarly, but not too often, let the dirt dry almost completely between watering. Your palms should grow.

The plants on the photos are of 2 varieties, Medjool and Halawy variety. Both had the same success rate by both strategies.

Note that these palms grow very slow, some only adding one leaf a year. Have patience. And if you live in a mediterranean type of climate or warmer, you can plant them outside. How awesome is that!