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First frost of the year and some advice


smithgn

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It's looking as if tonight (Saturday night), I'm getting my first frost according to wunderground, weather.com and accuweather. Forecasts are for anywhere between 30 and 32 degrees tonight. I've got my temperatures gauges set out and I'm ready to go. Hows everyone else faring?

And the advice I promised: Don't ever, ever try to cover your plants with frost cloths in 20+ MPH gusts of winds. You're fighting a losing battle. Trust me. :indifferent:

Scot- did you by any chance receive any snow this morning? I got a call early from my girlfriend who told me to look outside the window. Luckily, there was no snow out my way but she said she got about an inch (she's in Lexington/Red Bank). Weird way to start the "offseason"...

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Welp, I read the forecast wrong. SUNDAY night will be the night for sub-freezing temperatures. Looks like tonight I'll be hovering around the mid-30's. I wish I would have known that before hand before I went out there battling Hurricane Hugo like winds just to put a frost cloth on my palms. Oh well.

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Man its to early for frost especially for you guys. Looks like it won’t be to bad and you’ll get a few more weeks to enjoy the garden before all the tender stuff goes bye bye till next spring. Won’t be long till I get my first frost. :mrlooney:

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Hey Nick. We did get snow, but it melted by noon or so. It was windy yesterday! I don't cover anything since the palms are bulletproof in this area. One of my Butias did have two older and lower fronds bend due to snow, but all is well. I hope everything is going well on your end.

Edited by Scot from SC
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Here in NM we are under a 'freeze watch'.... Some storm moved in and it rained all day with temperatures in the 50's.. The low was 40F (4C) and the high temp was 60F (16C).....

Wunderground is predicting 35F (2C) and 33F (1C) Monday Tuesday after the storm leaves. No freeze here yet- or snow.. the rain is cold though. If we make it past Tues. morning it looks like we are in the clear for a bit. Didn't see the sun all day.

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Kahili- Agreed, but despite having these semi-high temperatures, I was really scared about the wind. I had an experience a few years ago where I had 2 small, potted washingtonia filiferas and left them out in high winds in the upper 20's. They pretty much fried. As for a few days ago, I was being a tad overzealous but at the same time I was conducting a little experiment. I bunched all of my palms together and draped frost cloths around them and stuck an electric heater in the middle. I checked intermittently and it maintained temperatures up to about 45 degrees that night and early morning. Tonight I've left them out in the open, no protection. But then again, it's a pretty calm night with little to no wind and of course no precipitation.

PalmCrazy- Luckily, yeah I'm hoping we all get a few more weeks of decent weather. It's just so random that this mass of cold air decided to fall on us at the very beginning of November. Oh well. We're all in it together, sooner or later!

Scot- Interesting. Good to hear. All in all I suppose it wasn't too bad, but it's really disheartening to start the "offseason" off with such a dip in temperatures, crazy wind and on top of that, snow. I read on weather.com that this is the earliest Columbia has ever received snow. The previous record was November 9th, sometime in the early 1900's.

Sailor- That's a bummer, concerning the rain. Sounds eerily similar to what we had, minus the snow for you of course. I know you have a bunch of palms that hate the cold & wet mix but they should brush this off.

Edited by smithgn
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Oh and kahili, as for the palms that I'm covering in my backyard: Phoenix Sylvestris, Butia Yatay x 2, Nannorhops Ritchiana, Phoenix Therophrastii, Brahea Armatas x 2, Livistona Nitidas x 2, Livistona Chinensis, Copernicia Alba x 2, Trithrinax Brasiliensis x 2, Washingtonia Filifera and Sabal Palmettos x 5 (very small seedlings). All of the above are potted.

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You could build a shelter for them if you aren't planning on bringing them in -quick, easy and cheap. Take 4 rebar stakes about 2' high each and stick them in 4 corners in the ground around the pots, then take 1-1.5" pvc pieces however high you want and put them over the rebar and then wrap plastic around the 4 corners to make a box (or you could do 3 and make a tepee like structure and be able to close out the top) and then cover the pots with the frost cloth inside. If you take the frost cloth off during the day, you could leave the plastic up for the season. Make it heavy duty plastic. You could also take rope and wrap it around the plastic a foot up from the base and around the top to help hold the plastic. I have never done it, but I bet if you played with it some, it would work. Some/most of those palms are going to need something in the way of protection once we get into the low 20's -teens-as you already know

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For what it is worth, I have left seedlings s. minor and s. palmetto out all winter long before with no damage. Of course, you could always put them against the foundation of your house or against your house if you have a patio and just throw a frost cloth or even a cardboard box over them. If you have a garage, that would work too. I know of one grower in northern Alabama who puts all of his potted palms in a cold frame...even what are tender ones like Phoenix. He says they all say 14F last winter with no damage.

Edited by Scot from SC
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You could build a shelter for them if you aren't planning on bringing them in -quick, easy and cheap. Take 4 rebar stakes about 2' high each and stick them in 4 corners in the ground around the pots, then take 1-1.5" pvc pieces however high you want and put them over the rebar and then wrap plastic around the 4 corners to make a box (or you could do 3 and make a tepee like structure and be able to close out the top) and then cover the pots with the frost cloth inside. If you take the frost cloth off during the day, you could leave the plastic up for the season. Make it heavy duty plastic. You could also take rope and wrap it around the plastic a foot up from the base and around the top to help hold the plastic. I have never done it, but I bet if you played with it some, it would work. Some/most of those palms are going to need something in the way of protection once we get into the low 20's -teens-as you already know

This is an awesome idea. Kahili, I actually toyed with the notion of building a quick shelter like this, except out of 2 x 4's and some plastic stapled onto the wood. Instead of staking it to the ground I could just move it around as a portable structure. The idea you propose is a lot better in that it would be staked into the ground and sounds to be overall more sturdy.

My plan for now is just to leave them out in the 30's and upper 20's. If it gets ungodly cold like it did last year, I'll sped the 10 minutes and shuttle all of my potted palms into my garage for the night.

For what it is worth, I have left seedlings s. minor and s. palmetto out all winter long before with no damage. Of course, you could always put them against the foundation of your house or against your house if you have a patio and just throw a frost cloth or even a cardboard box over them. If you have a garage, that would work too. I know of one grower in northern Alabama who puts all of his potted palms in a cold frame...even what are tender ones like Phoenix. He says they all say 14F last winter with no damage.

This is encouraging. Yeah, I have no experience growing very small seedlings outside of a greenhouse and outside- especially in winter. Then again, you have to think that they should be able to survive below freezing nights, because if they didn't, there would be no way s. minors and palmettos would survive in the midlands and coastal areas like they do. The endemic populations, that is.

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Update.. My official first freeze was this morning.. 50 minutes of freeze with a low of 31.7. Sort of bummed... and it happened on neither Mon or Tues.

We are officially in the clear for a bit- nothing was affected as near as I can tell.

smithgn- how did you actually fair? I was seeing some advertisement saying WU was more accurate than accuweather or weather.com..

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I feel you, its a bummer when that first freeze hits. But then again, to look on the bright side, it was barely a freeze so no harm really done. Will this new polar vortex seepage through the plains and Midwest effect you? It doesn't look like it should. They're projecting our area to have one night right at freezing.

I actually saw the same thing, concerning WU being more accurate. So far I see this to be true. Plus, there are so many more stations where you can get readings and compare. I Oh and I actually fared just fine. I got a little scared by that whipping wind, but it was really nothing.

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It was strange.. typically the coldest night is after the storm exits the area and the skies go clear. The recent storm we had was already gone for 2 days with clear skies and the weather was sunny..Bougainvillea and my red bird of paradise.. (if they can be called indicator plants).. are unscathed.

The polar vortex looks as though it will avoid us.. lowest temperature forecasted to be 36 but the high temperatures will drop markedly into the 50's. This is where our elevation helps to protect us from continental polar air masses. Its just not strong enough.

It seems too early if you ask me.

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Weather overall, is indeed strange. Explain if you can how your elevation helps in protecting against cold air? I know that cold air sinks, but I thought the higher in elevation you are the colder you generally are to a lower elevation? I'm still learning all of this topographical/climate/weather interaction... Lol

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The best way to describe it is having a bowl on top of a table... the inside of the bowl would be a valley area.. then the surface of the table would be 'plains' and the floor would be where the cold air drains. So super scary lol.. Temperature-wise we wont see 90 degrees one day and 50 the next.. it moderates those temperature swings if it effects the weather at all.

Oh its colder no doubt with the higher elevation...and the air is less dense with the altitude/ water content as its factor so with the drier air.. once the sun goes down.. the temperature plummets. Its sunny though.. prolly the only reason a palm can survive here lol

Edited by SailorBold

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It's colder at much higher elevation. I don't pretend to understand the science, but that effect doesn't start until you get into thousands of feet. At almost 400 feet here - I can be 5-10 degrees warmer than Walnut Creek, down below us here in the East Bay hills. That's major in December and January.

Ben Rogers

On the border of Concord & Clayton in the East Bay hills - Elev 387 ft 37.95 °N, 121.94 °W

My back yard weather station: http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/hdfForecast?query=37.954%2C-121.945&sp=KCACONCO37

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Indeed too many variables.. Same goes for here..

Here is a pic from WU.. I live near the 50F (10C) temperature.. in comparison ~200- 260' feet lower are the other weather stations in the valley below.

I wouldn't be so interested in this if these elevation changes weren't so drastic.

post-8989-0-20943000-1415591448_thumb.jp

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smithgn.. not hijacking your thread.. but what are elevations in your area? 300feet is not much a difference here however if you live within a city the temperature is warmer also.

for just a rough comparison I compiled a week or so of low temperature data from 2 weather stations in the above map I posted starting with the winter storm that went through our area..

My area had one freezing temp where the valley just 1-2 miles from here has had 5.. I suspect they froze before but just for this comparison.

hill valley

48 34

47 47

39 36

39 37

32 29

35 30

33 27

40 32

35 28

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benr- You're right in that elevation doesn't really start to effect temperature until you start climbing thousands of feet at a time. I believe I read online somewhere that for every 1000 feet in elevation you travel, you on average get 4 degrees cooler. I'll post a link if I can find where I got that information. I also think that in some cases it might be even a smaller interval rather than thousands of feet. For example, Atlanta gets around 900-1000 feet above sea level in the northern suburbs. South of Atlanta it's much lower and usually warmer. But again, y'all are right, so many variables probably in play for that particular example.

SailorBold- That's a really interesting map and a good example, thanks. I could post a similar map displaying temperature intervals where warm lake temperatures effect land to the south-southeast of it- Lake Murray in central South Carolina to be exact. I notice locations south east of the lake, despite being at 400+ feet, are sometimes 5-6 degrees warmer than any other areas around the lake. The cold winds from the northwest sweep in and the warm lake temperatures help warm the winds a tad, thus, a warmer temperature. A local palm friend of mine shared this information with me and I was astounded when I looked at it in full display the last couple of weeks. He said the lake during the winter time has never frozen during his many years working with the department of natural resources in South Carolina.

I'm at 345 feet. Elevations within even a 10 mile radius vary no more than 100 or so feet. Some of those temperatures are drastic differences! Although, I wonder what would cause some of those temperatures to be very close, if not the same like the 47 degree night? Cloudy? It doesn't get cloudy out where you are, though. Hm...

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Pretty neat.. do you live near that lake? Very moderating- I suspect it lessens arctic outbreaks to a greater degree then? No lakes where I am.. so we see the temperature changes with the clouds.. it gets cloudy don't get me wrong but generally speaking the climate is sunny. And in winter cloudless nights will put a chill in yer bone..so it works against us. Perhaps something of an opposite effect where you are with 'dry air' winter storms?

The storm left the day of the 47 degree temperature.. so that's from cloud cover before it rolled out... that leads me to believe the numbers are accurate. It was rain so perhaps humidity had something to do with it too..not sure. Perhaps the variation is wind directions.

I don't fully understand the elevation stuff.. but I think that's an aviation thing.

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The cold has arrived.. and they were incorrect with their forecasting.. Hard freeze warning in effect so the low will be around 20F!

I scrambled around.. and quickly wrapped my Satsuma with landscape fabric and clothes pins. Meh.. didn't protect anything else.

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The cold has arrived.. and they were incorrect with their forecasting.. Hard freeze warning in effect so the low will be around 20F!

I scrambled around.. and quickly wrapped my Satsuma with landscape fabric and clothes pins. Meh.. didn't protect anything else.

Yikes thats to cold this early. A few years ago we had a low of 15F in mid Nov. and another 15F in mid Feb… Between these two hard freezes it never went below 30F.

Still hoping for a mild one this year. We did get down last night to 29F and it may get colder in a few days or not depending on which weather site you look at. Highs this week is in the mid 40’s which is normal for Dec- Jan.

Hopefully your weather will warm up in the daytime.

Edited by Palm crazy
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The cold has arrived.. and they were incorrect with their forecasting.. Hard freeze warning in effect so the low will be around 20F!

I scrambled around.. and quickly wrapped my Satsuma with landscape fabric and clothes pins. Meh.. didn't protect anything else.

Yikes thats to cold this early. A few years ago we had a low of 15F in mid Nov. and another 15F in mid Feb… Between these two hard freezes it never went below 30F.

Still hoping for a mild one this year. We did get down last night to 29F and it may get colder in a few days or not depending on which weather site you look at. Highs this week is in the mid 40’s which is normal for Dec- Jan.

Hopefully your weather will warm up in the daytime.

The weather station closest to my house reported 21F... which is 14 degrees below normal. No frost or anything like that..and all the palms were unprotected- including hybrid stuff. It is pretty early for that...and that was the second freeze. The high yesterday was 50F and we might hit that today we will see.

It was quick.

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Brrrr this morning low was 23.7F nothing was protected, (except the rainbow Euc.) I hate these clear cold nights, but look at all that sunshine. Should get up to 44F this afternoon, at least we have no snow. 50F/40F next wednesday will be nice. LOL!

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Brrrr this morning low was 23.7F nothing was protected, (except the rainbow Euc.) I hate these clear cold nights, but look at all that sunshine. Should get up to 44F this afternoon, at least we have no snow. 50F/40F next wednesday will be nice. LOL!

You are having success with a rainbow Euc? I'd love one but have not been bold enough to try one even here in the Bay Area.

Ben Rogers

On the border of Concord & Clayton in the East Bay hills - Elev 387 ft 37.95 °N, 121.94 °W

My back yard weather station: http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/hdfForecast?query=37.954%2C-121.945&sp=KCACONCO37

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Brrrr this morning low was 23.7F nothing was protected, (except the rainbow Euc.) I hate these clear cold nights, but look at all that sunshine. Should get up to 44F this afternoon, at least we have no snow. 50F/40F next wednesday will be nice. LOL!

You are having success with a rainbow Euc? I'd love one but have not been bold enough to try one even here in the Bay Area.

Yes, I really am crazy for buying this tender plant. LOL!

I was going to plant in a container and keep it small but realize this is crazy and I should just plant it and see how it grows here. Not hardy here at all, as you know but I needed a hobby this winter, LOL! So far I would say if your in 10a you should try it because it seem very cool tolerant, loves water and looks really cool. If it makes it this week then I should be able to keep it alive in the ground till spring. I want to see at what temperature does it grow at and how tall can it grow here in one season. There are a few people in 9b California that are trying this plant outside this winter so should be interesting to see what they learn.

Sounds like a very tall tree so I am glad it’s not hardy for me… :w00:

Edited by Palm crazy
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Brrrr this morning low was 23.7F nothing was protected, (except the rainbow Euc.) I hate these clear cold nights, but look at all that sunshine. Should get up to 44F this afternoon, at least we have no snow. 50F/40F next wednesday will be nice. LOL!

You are having success with a rainbow Euc? I'd love one but have not been bold enough to try one even here in the Bay Area.

Yes, I really am crazy for buying this tender plant. LOL!

I was going to plant in a container and keep it small but realize this is crazy and I should just plant it and see how it grows here. Not hardy here at all, as you know but I needed a hobby this winter, LOL! So far I would say if your in 10a you should try it because it seem very cool tolerant, loves water and looks really cool. If it makes it this week then I should be able to keep it alive in the ground till spring. I want to see at what temperature does it grow at and how tall can it grow here in one season. There are a few people in 9b California that are trying this plant outside this winter so should be interesting to see what they learn.

Sounds like a very tall tree so I am glad it’s not hardy for me… :w00:

Interesting. I am on the border of 9b and 10a. May need to watch for seedlings becoming available again...

Ben Rogers

On the border of Concord & Clayton in the East Bay hills - Elev 387 ft 37.95 °N, 121.94 °W

My back yard weather station: http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/hdfForecast?query=37.954%2C-121.945&sp=KCACONCO37

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  • 1 month later...

Just wanted to add some observational info regarding microclimate and the winter temps thus far.

The valley location I mentioned earlier has hit 32f (0C) or below a total of 38 times so far this season.. the location on the hill above a valley weather station a total of 23 times.

So 23 versus 38 mornings the temp has been below 32F (0C)...

that's only a ~200+ foot difference in elevation.

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Just wanted to add some observational info regarding microclimate and the winter temps thus far.

The valley location I mentioned earlier has hit 32f (0C) or below a total of 38 times so far this season.. the location on the hill above a valley weather station a total of 23 times.

So 23 versus 38 mornings the temp has been below 32F (0C)...

that's only a ~200+ foot difference in elevation.

what palm species are you growing outside??

Carlsbad, California Zone 10 B on the hill (402 ft. elevation)

Sunset zone 24

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SailorBold - That "valley" location(Corrales) you are using is actually uphill from the valley and not truly indicative of the floor temps. Even balloon fiesta park is lower and colder. There used to be one across the river(Sandia Lakes) that was more accurate. I haven't seen it the last few months. You can see the true valley difference near Montano and I-40 stations near the river. The 47 was caused by the non radiational event post the storm which did not allow the normal drainage winds/flows to set up. I need to check out your yard-incredible!

On a side note-that cold into the valley comes from the west mesa and further west

Edited by jwitt
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Josh-O- as a list;

5- Washingtonia filifera

2- Butia capitata (odorata?) 1-blue 1-green

2- Brahea armata

3- Rhapidophyllum hystrix

2- Butia x Jubaea enhanced hybrid

1- Jubaea x Butia^3 enhanced hybrid

Still adding to this collection... Jubaea meet NM Chile. ha!

Jwitt- indeed you are correct..so no argument there... I just used these WU stations as a quick reference due to their proximity. I was looking at high temperatures too.. some interesting things being close to a 'cliff' with daytime heat rising from below. Have you looked into that at all? just curious and would like to hear your take.

Yes I recently got back into the hobby and ripped out my entire front yard landscaping.. still working on it as it is costly and time consuming.. kind of putting my 'vision' together. Feel free to come by anytime you like.

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