Sabal palmetto cold damage

[Jono Miller]

In the wake of the early 2010 winter, I'm looking for information and photographs of cold damaged cabbage palms. In particular, I'm interested in 1) the fate of palms that had been burdened with snow loads, 2) symptoms of cold damage in mature palms, and 3) symptoms of damage in seedling and juvenile palms. Photographs combined with location information and what is known about the tree (transplanted or grown in place) would be especially helpful.

I may be retracing paths others have trod, but I'm trying to understand the original distribution of Sabal palmetto in the Southeast before they were extensively relocated. It seems obvious that mature Sabal palms can survive way beyond their historic range. In light of both the survival of the transplanted adults and the germination of seedlings, it begs the question of why cabbage palms weren't found more extensively throughout the Southeast, where they apparently were never found more than 60 mies from the coast.

One possibility is that, while mature palms can tolerate significant cold, they would never have the opportunity if seedlings and juveniles succumbed for any reason. One reason could be cold.

[Zeeth]

Yes, you are on to something. While mature Sabal palms are quite hardy, seedlings can very easily succumb to the cold. For this reason, they aren't found wild naturally as far north as they can grow in cultivation.

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

On 3/1/2010, 10:52:52, Jono Miller said:

In the wake of the early 2010 winter, I'm looking for information and photographs of cold damaged cabbage palms. In particular, I'm interested in 1) the fate of palms that had been burdened with snow loads, 2) symptoms of cold damage in mature palms, and 3) symptoms of damage in seedling and juvenile palms. Photographs combined with location information and what is known about the tree (transplanted or grown in place) would be especially helpful.

 

I may be retracing paths others have trod, but I'm trying to understand the original distribution of Sabal palmetto in the Southeast before they were extensively relocated. It seems obvious that mature Sabal palms can survive way beyond their historic range. In light of both the survival of the transplanted adults and the germination of seedlings, it begs the question of why cabbage palms weren't found more extensively throughout the Southeast, where they apparently were never found more than 60 mies from the coast.

 

One possibility is that, while mature palms can tolerate significant cold, they would never have the opportunity if seedlings and juveniles succumbed for any reason. One reason could be cold.

Old, mature sabal palmetto in Carlsbad, NM died in 2011. They had been there since at least the early 90s and a few had 10-15' of clear wooded trunk. I believe the city dropped to -2f if i rember correctly and filifera were the only palms that survived in that city. 

[ShadyDan]

Report from 2021/2022 Vancouver Island freeze (late enough now that any delayed damage / spear pull would have showed up).  -8.3C was the ultimate low with 3 consecutive days failing to crack 0C. Lots of heavy, wet coastal snow fell before the deep freeze, which may have helped (insulation on the spear / on the fronds).

Sabal palmetto sailed through the freeze with 0 damage. I'm actually surprised how good it looks, since its mid-May and its yet to really warm up to Sabal temperatures. Its actually noticeably growing (albeit very slowly) even though we haven't cracked 20C even once this year yet. 

[Allen]

2022 - 5 foot palm with trunk still underground. 12F with 30-50% frond damage

palmetto around 4:55 mark

 

Edited September 4, 2022 by Allen