Bonus fact:
The temperature outside sometimes isn't the same in all spots in your yard. Where the temperature is hotter or cooler, there's a "microclimate." "Micro" means "small," so a microclimate is a small spot that has temperatures that are different from those around it. For example, the needle palm can grow at the Arboretum because it's planted on a hillside above the Anacostia River where warm temperatures rise from the river and are trapped. The wind isn't as bad on the side of the hill as on the top of it either. If the needle palm were planted in the middle of a large, open field, it probably wouldn't survive here.