Rio Grande Valley Coconuts Just Fine After Freeze!

[LF-TX]

On 8/19/2017, 2:20:33, GottmitAlex said:

Sorry to hear it LF-TX.

This morning I had an ant infestation as well on my dragon fruit cacti. This thing were all over the growing points. So I sprinkled a generous amount of pure cinnamon powder an made a semi-circle around the base of each cactus. Then I sprinkled a little bit at the tips. The ants started to flee the area. They hate cinnamon powder. Once they left the cacti completely, I finished off each semicircle with more powder. The ants do not cross over the powder.  I generally encircle the cocos with cinnamon powder as well every other month to make sure the ants don't start climbing and farming their aphids in the leaves. 

I suggest once you start germinating your next coco to just sprinkle cinnamon powder along the outside of the pot. Ants will not get in. The method I employ to germinate store-bought cocos is utilizing ziploc bags and a 2-3 ounces of water in the same bag separated from the coco in order to sustain an adequate level of humidity.

Last year I puchased a couple store-bought dehusked cocos and utilized this method. It worked. Well, one of the coco's cracked in half because I took them outside and exposed them (in their bag) underneath direct sunlight.  It was almost instant. I heard the crack sound. I immediately took the surviving coco back into the outdoor "greenhouse" inside it's ziploc bag, waited for its first leaf to completely grow and planted it in March.

 

Nov 16. 

 

Aug 2017

 

Great to hear that you've had success! It's not the end of the world, so I'll keep trying  Your cinnamon method sounds like it works well, so I sure will take it into consideration! 

[LF-TX]

On 8/15/2017, 9:49:55, LF-TX said:

This particular coconut is also in the Los Fresnos area and it's quite a special, strong one. According to Google Street view, this was during April of 2011. This coconut apparently survived both the freezes of 2010 and of 2011 — including the horrid ice storm of February 2011. There was nothing outside that wasn't covered in thick ice. Apparently, this one and another which I will try to photograph, survived. These trees have even fared better than many well known plants here in he RGV. Look at them today and they are very healthy trees, starting to get a good amount of trunk; at first sight, it won't even look like they've gone through so much cold troubles. Luckily, most reasources I've read are predicting a warmer than average winter this year. 

Good morning everyone, I would just like to share a picture I took this morning of the very hardy coconut palm here in Laureles TX! 

[Mr. Coconut Palm]

Roberto,

That's a nice looking one.  I wonder how the ones that survived the 2011 freeze that you posted photos of are doing now?

John

[LF-TX]

22 hours ago, Mr. Coconut Palm said:

Roberto,

That's a nice looking one.  I wonder how the ones that survived the 2011 freeze that you posted photos of are doing now?

John

They're doing well, actually. I haven't witnessed any deaths, nor severe damage, of any of the palms. 

[Mr. Coconut Palm]

On ‎9‎/‎7‎/‎2017‎ ‎9‎:‎36‎:‎58‎, LF-TX said:

They're doing well, actually. I haven't witnessed any deaths, nor severe damage, of any of the palms. 

That's good.  Have you seen any that are producing coconuts?  I know of several in the Valley that produce nuts.

[DoomsDave]

Coconuts good

pounding club on ground

URK

[LF-TX]

13 hours ago, Mr. Coconut Palm said:

That's good.  Have you seen any that are producing coconuts?  I know of several in the Valley that produce nuts.

As of the ones that I've seen, not quite yet. Again, these are the ones that are in the Laureles/ Los Fresnos area. They're fairly young to produce fruit, but they sure are on their way to getting to fruiting maturity. As of the ones in the Brownsville area, I haven't been able to see them often enough to see whether or not they're fruiting. I wouldn't be surprised if they do soon! Our area had a good amount of rain the beginning of this month, so they should be quite happy with all the moisture they got. 

[Mr. Coconut Palm]

33 minutes ago, LF-TX said:

As of the ones that I've seen, not quite yet. Again, these are the ones that are in the Laureles/ Los Fresnos area. They're fairly young to produce fruit, but they sure are on their way to getting to fruiting maturity. As of the ones in the Brownsville area, I haven't been able to see them often enough to see whether or not they're fruiting. I wouldn't be surprised if they do soon! Our area had a good amount of rain the beginning of this month, so they should be quite happy with all the moisture they got. 

Roberto,

There are probably some fruiting ones in your area too, but they are probably in peoples" backyards and until they get really tall, would be hard to see by just passing by on the street.  If you get a chance, you should check out River's End Nursery in Bayview.  The owners there have some mature fruiting Green Malayan Dwarf coconut palms planted in their yard on the back side of the nursery.  I wish you guys could send some of that rain up here to Corpus Christi.  This is supposed to be our rainiest month of the year, but we haven't had a drop at my place since the hurricane!

John

[LF-TX]

2 hours ago, Mr. Coconut Palm said:

Roberto,

There are probably some fruiting ones in your area too, but they are probably in peoples" backyards and until they get really tall, would be hard to see by just passing by on the street.  If you get a chance, you should check out River's End Nursery in Bayview.  The owners there have some mature fruiting Green Malayan Dwarf coconut palms planted in their yard on the back side of the nursery.  I wish you guys could send some of that rain up here to Corpus Christi.  This is supposed to be our rainiest month of the year, but we haven't had a drop at my place since the hurricane!

John

Yes I'm pretty sure there are! A couple weeks ago, I was actually on my way to my uncle's house near the port of Brownsville and I caught sight of a coco palm starting to grow tall enough to see out of the neighbor's fenced backyard. Just right now, I passed by a cemetery in San Benito and I saw a young palm in the distance, and to me it looked like it might've been a coco... but I need to get a closer look to verify.

And thats great! I wasn't aware that the nursery had coconuts growing there. Ive visited their website and the nursery looks beautiful! If only their mangoes and other fruits weren't so costly  Perhaps one day they'll have coconuts available to sell too

I hope your belongings fared well John! Harvey surely was a horrendous storm. It didn't rain much in my area, but oh the cloudiness!!!!  It looked like doomsday was at hand. I could imagine how it was up the coast. Had the storm hit the Valley, it wouldv'e been a perilous situation - I feel like we are not prepared at all for a storm like Harvey. With Dolly, my neighborhood and the inside of my house turned into a ocean with just 9 inches of rain... the 30-50 inches that some areas got would leave absolutely NOTHING here. But nevertheless, rain is still a welcoming thing in proper amounts. Hopefully a couple weak northerns will spark up some thunderstorms around our areas as we get closer to the colder months.

[Mr. Coconut Palm]

7 hours ago, LF-TX said:

Yes I'm pretty sure there are! A couple weeks ago, I was actually on my way to my uncle's house near the port of Brownsville and I caught sight of a coco palm starting to grow tall enough to see out of the neighbor's fenced backyard. Just right now, I passed by a cemetery in San Benito and I saw a young palm in the distance, and to me it looked like it might've been a coco... but I need to get a closer look to verify.

And thats great! I wasn't aware that the nursery had coconuts growing there. Ive visited their website and the nursery looks beautiful! If only their mangoes and other fruits weren't so costly  Perhaps one day they'll have coconuts available to sell too

I hope your belongings fared well John! Harvey surely was a horrendous storm. It didn't rain much in my area, but oh the cloudiness!!!!  It looked like doomsday was at hand. I could imagine how it was up the coast. Had the storm hit the Valley, it wouldv'e been a perilous situation - I feel like we are not prepared at all for a storm like Harvey. With Dolly, my neighborhood and the inside of my house turned into a ocean with just 9 inches of rain... the 30-50 inches that some areas got would leave absolutely NOTHING here. But nevertheless, rain is still a welcoming thing in proper amounts. Hopefully a couple weak northerns will spark up some thunderstorms around our areas as we get closer to the colder months.

Roberto,

I think coconut palms are finally becoming more popular in the Valley.  The nurseries there need to start carrying them on a regular basis.  River's End Nursery had about 50 or 60 Green Malayan Dwarf coconut palms for sale about 6 or 7 years ago, but since the owner sold them all, I don't think she has ordered any more seed nuts to be shipped to her from Costa Rica, which is where I think she told me she got the shipment of seed nuts from.  Seed nuts are ripe coconuts in the husk that are specifically set aside for nurseries to sprout and sell to their customers.  As far as I know, there are only two places approved for Green Malayan, Golden Malayan, Yellow Malayan, and Maypan hybrid ( a hybrid cross between the Panama Tall and either the Golden Malayan Dwarf or the Green Malayan Dwarf) seed nuts to be shipped to the U.S. from and that is from the Coconut Board of Costa Rica and the Coconut Board of Jamaica.  These varieties are more Lethal Yellowing resistant than either the Jamaican Tall (original coconut palms growing in South Florida) and the Mexican Tall.  You and other Valley residents should encourage River's End Nursery and other Valley nurseries to start carrying coconut palms on a regular basis.  We even have a small palm nursery here in Corpus Christi (Flour Bluff) that occasionally carried coconut palms, sometimes more mature ones with about a foot to foot and a half of woody trunk, and they are marginal here, so the nurseries in the Valley should definitely be carrying them on a regular basis, especially since they do so well there and produce mature fruits there.

Yes, my home was spared, with only about 28 shingles missing from the windward side of the house, which is the backside, since we were on the west side of the eye.  My wife and I evacuated to a brother in law's home in Navasota, about an hour northwest of Houston.  Fortunately, his place is on a hill outside of Navasota and his yard is all sand, so his home didn't flood.  I estimate we had sustained winds of about 90+ mph at my house, with gusts around 110 mph, but Rockport got hit with the northeast side of the eyewall with sustained winds of 130+ mph and gusts of 150 to 160 mph, so they got the worst of the winds and storm surge, but as we all know, Houston by far got the worst of the flooding.  Corpus Christi is not properly prepared for a direct hit from a major storm either.  There was some looting here and there has been some bad looting in Rockport.  Where all the National Guard are that were activated we don't know.  The president of the Palm Society of South Texas had his home broken into and all his valuables stolen.  He lives here in Corpus. 

Hopefully we will get some much needed rain soon, especially since Sept. is supposed to be our rainiest month, but hopefully none of our roofs will leak since many of us are missing some shingles.

John