It's not that a palm gets hung up on zones, it has to have some special needs. Watering Needles is so important for faster growth. Palms are drought tolerant but grow faster when they receive slow, deep watering. Turn the water off when the watering basin is full.They do well in shade and the fronds (like most palms) will slowly adapt and stretch out the fronds long. This palm has to have full sun to grow faster however. An overlooked part of fast growth in Needle palms is fertilizing. Use a balanced fertilizer or one specified for palm plants about once or twice per year. In your climate I would think you could do three applications. We've all heard about the wonders of coffee grounds and it works. Used coffee grounds are good for palm trees since they add nitrogen and some acidity, which palm trees prefer. However, there are some concerns from growers about the leftover caffeine in the coffee grounds. Caffeine is a natural pesticide, so some worry about it killing beneficial insects and soil bacteria. Always use de-caff grounds.
Without causing any animosity by any means, I still didn't get my opinion across on Northern vs Southern zones of the USDA growing map. Its not true 5* is 5* so much as other elements in growing.
Zone 7 is probably the broadest in terms of cold temperate perennials, cold hardy palms and plants. (still nothing compares to tropical, the tropical areas like Florida) The far North and Northeast is relatively stable (it gets wetter and winters get more irregular; milder and colder depending on the Rossby waves) but further south it usually gets intensely hot. zone 7 gives you a bit of space on either side. it's not going to get so hot that you'd lose chilling hours on apples but it's not so cold that your going to have worry about irregular spring killing frosts or short and unpredictable growing season lengths. This all plays a part in distinguishing northern vs southern areas with the same zone classifications.
Also Zone 7 (for instance) in both the southern and northern range, provides a lot of stuff to grow, especially the new z7, inner city Detroit, Cleveland and yes Chicago. Northern to Southern areas in a zone is real and goes beyond 5*f is 5*f. When I was officially designated a z6b I noticed my growing list of plants equaled those in the mid-Atlantic states (not always) but areas that had been z7 for decades. If it weren't for unusual spikes in temperature lows during some winters, there could be an even larger noticeable pattern between southern and lower zone patterns. It really just boils down to winds, urban heat (the salvation of the z7 Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit along with lake shore influences) and also rainfall and humidity. Finally (z7 as an example) zone 7 plants prosper in Arizona, New Mexico and Northern Texas as well as Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina but not all plants will grow or flourish the same from the west to the east or vice-versa. Zone 7 today is 70's in Tennessee and low to mid-30s in the Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago z7 areas. Zone 7 fluctuates. A reasonable debate could say it might be just the opposite in another 2 weeks but winter is dying out in the southern zones. Zone 6 and z6b is about the same. One thing Old Niagara Mike from the old board always insisted and resonates from a northern to a southern zone equivalent is,
let the plants talk for themselves.
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