Date palms are either male or female, and you will need one of each in order to have any fruit. Choose a sunny location and plant as you would any other kind of tree, digging a hole large enough to hold the roots. Each tree will grow to more than 50 feet tall, and up to 30 feet across Dates are very slow growing trees, so don’t be discouraged if your trees aren’t doing very much each season. It’s easy to over-water a date palm, which will kill it. Regular rainfall is usually sufficient, unless it’s been dry for a prolonged period of time or your tree is still getting established.Date palms are not pollinated by insects or birds, but by the wind.Date palms will grow very long and sharp thorns or spines along its base, so either plant your trees somewhere away from regular walkways or cut the spines off as they grow. It won’t hurt the plant to snip them off. You may have to wait until your date palm reaches 4 to 7 years of age before you start to see any fruit development. But you DO need male and female to get fruit ..

Thanks very much for the information Triffidkiller you seem to have answered everything

hI, date palms, {Phoenix dactylifera} are frost tender, and need a minimum winter temperature ofsomewhere between 50 and 60 deg f, so don't plant outside in the uk, Derek.

Information given by Triffidkiller is for countries in climate zones 9 and up, and we're zone 8. Likely they'll be Phoenix dactilyfera, of variable nature because they don't come true from seed. Houseplants here I'm afraid, the lowest temperature they'll tolerate, and then only briefly, is -2 deg C. You will likely never get any fruit, variable or otherwise unless you've got a heated palm house, but I'm sure that's not why you've grown them! So yes, they need either a conservatory or a greenhouse or in the house itself. They need a lot of sun though, even in winter, so if you can provide that as well, that would be good, but don't stand near a heat source such as a radiator.

Whoops, crossed, Derek...

Thanks bamboo, I will take your advice

Hi Bamboo, that's ok, at least we're singing from the same hymn sheet, lol, Derek.

;-)

Actually, Date Palms can take brief frosts down to 23º F. It is usually prolonged cold and frozen soil that does them in. They are common landscape plants in Zone 8 cities such as Tucson, Kingman, and Wickenburg, Arizona, and Las Vegas, Nevada.

Do they fruit in those areas, Tugbrethil? They're listed as frost hardy here - 23 deg F seems not far below 0 deg C, probably around -5 deg C - regularly that and below overnight even in the south (London) here in the UK, if not during the day too. Shouldn't think the damp and cold combo in winter here does 'em much good in particular

Unless they actually freeze badly, they bloom around late March, or early April, and fruit ripens around September. Fruit quality is poor in areas that get heavy summer monsoon rains, such as Tucson, and flowering is light in areas that get frequent freeze damage, such as Las Vegas.
One of the weaknesses of a climate zone system that only takes into account winter lows, is that it ignores whether those lows occur only three times a winter, with 70º F plus days in between, or if those are nightly temps over several months, with less than 45º days in between! That makes a big difference in plant hardiness!

Thanks to you all for answering my question , I would just like to tell you that I live in Oxfordshire in England so I think the advice varies quite a bit.
Thanks everyone

Yea, I checked where you were, Roger, before dishing out the advice - if you'd been in Torquay, I might have said something different;-))