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My low dropped in the forecast, as expected, down to 27 the first night. The wind will be bad enough my original strategy will likely fail so I'm getting tall tposts today for the north garden to block some wind. I have no idea how the plants will tolerate 27 and windy, but that's what the Christmas 2022 freeze was like. I seem to be in that 27 to 32 range every winter here. I would like consistency at least if not above freezing, so I can plan. I may dig some stuff up today too and try to make the windbreak somehow. Good luck everyone!

There will be damage but I bet most will recover.

Forecasted temps in my area over night are somewhere between 25-30 degrees. That’s the end. I will be saying one last goodbye today to most of them. Sad stuff.

First hard freeze tonight on the space coast barrier iskand since 1989. Hundreds of coconut and other tropical palms in the neighborhood are going to die. Need to get out this morning and wrap my 4 coconut trees in pipe-warming wire, moving blankets and tarps this before the gale-force winds start after noon, hoping the 60 inch zip ties I bought are sufficient to secure everything in the expected high winds. My mangos and pembana palm are on their own. Ordered a wireless temperature recording station on recommendation here to monitor temperatures tonight.

I have done a shed like structure here in Maine but worst temps here are zone 5.

Let's just say I'm having a bad mental health night. It's almost 5am. I took extra night night meds. I'm still fighting off the flu. I'm going out of my way to keep myself and literally burn myself out to sleep and despite all of that, SOB this janky contraption with the crooked saw cuts and the ancient warped bent shelves is perfectly level 😂 Maybe I need to build myself a dresser for the bedroom.

I haven’t had any luck growing them in my area so far, they keep telling they will grow but so far nothing has lived for me, they do have a swampy area in the garden though might have to try one there!

So far, nothing in Atlanta. Filled the cars with gasoline this morning.

I'm repurposing all the old shelves in here for my grow benches. I just cleared out 17 years of dust and crap and about 47 nails to get these 8 foot boards 😂 some scrap 2x4s for braces and it'll be nice and ugly and bombproof.

Trimming the plants is a tough call, it will be up to you. If the plants can recover from any damage fast enough, let the material touch. At this point it is about covering as much as you can with the time left. If you have any stakes or pipes that can be inserted next to the plants to give something taller for the tarp material to rest upon, it could help. I stuck some 1-inch pvc pipe into the ground in the middle of some crotons to make a 'tepee' point to hang a covering about 5 ft. tall. The plastic reinforced mesh sounds ok, if it can be rolled easy enough and conform to what shape you need it to be. Trying new materials and ideas is part of the necessity of improvising cold protection. The basic formula is the same, any protection is better than none and any damage caused by the attempt is usually less than the alternative. I would avoid the trash bag. I have done damage with them and seen it happen even with lesser cold. That black plastic can heat up in the sun and burn, even in cold. Sheets are porous but they can still block cold decent enough and it is something that is usually available at short notice. I am also worried about them getting too wet from any rain tomorrow, so I am going to try and wait for any rain to pass before covering. I would turn the sprinklers off if you can. I am planning to leave everything covered until after Sunday night/Monday morning, depending on how much the sun comes out on Monday afternoon. Tuesday morning is not supposed to be as bad but the wind is such a big variable right now it is hard to say. I don't see it warming up enough during Sunday midday or perhaps even Monday midday to make it worth changing anything. Could be three days of solid cold bleah... Ryan

E.oleracea looking rough around the gills, aye mate? I think those like swampy conditions.

A visit to the gardens to check in on the palm project and everything is looking good, a couple of palms never made it, but all in all they have tucked in quite well and are starting to get a move on. I will be going back in autumn to get some more palms in the ground that have been donated, along with a few more from my collection. It is a long term project that iam determined to see through for future generations. It’s a great opportunity for the palms of world both rare and endangered species to be catalogued and go into the Hortis data bank linked with Kew gardens. A fantastic project that iam proud to be part off. The world needs more palm nuts such as myself and others to ensure the survival of endangered plant species for all humankind!

There are the nematodes already, which are both outrageously expensive and difficult to storage and application.

Ok let me please share an impression regarding the very similar rpw. I think that its activity and/or reproduction rate decreases considerably with increased air moisture combined with high temps. I have witnessed countless times palms growing side by side one exposed to full sun and the other under canopy and former being infested and killed, while latter was remaining at laest seemingly healthy. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that tropics are still full of palms.

Ryan thanks for the advice, that helps a lot. I am in east Fort Lauderdale so I think my temps will be very close to yours in Pembroke Pines. I installed about 75 feet or this tarp over the fence today, had it rolled up and clamped to the top of the fence for now but will drape them down tomorrow late afternoon. I still have 50' left to do tomorrow. I am debating to just let it drape to the ground or if I should use some landscape pins to anchor the bottom better. The fence is 6' and since I am screwing the top of the tarp to the tip of the fence, and many plants are in the 4-6 feet height range, I don't see how I can avoid touching the top of these plants with the underside of the tarp. If this is really bad than I am going to have to trim some of the taller plants back down to 4' to avoid touching the tarp too much. Is it OK to wrap taller palm trunks and frond bundles with shade fabric rolls which I think are mostly plastic reinforced meshes? I got a bunch of those laying around , as well as some old IKEA roller blinds that's also a polyester cotton blend. If I could wrap those around palm trunks and tree mounted orchids that would be great. I was originally planning to bundle up the fronds of the 12' tall Hydriastele beguinii 'Obi Island' than put a large leaf trash bag over it, but again if plastic touching plant material is bad I have to rethink that. If I use cotton sheets my concern is that will not be as wind resistant since that is porous, and if it rains or my sprinklers go off it will get the cloth fabric all wet and that may not be a good idea either. Finally with everything tented or wrapped up, after the lows when it gets warmer 9am 10am 11am, would you keep everything wrapped and tented throughout the day because Sunday night will have low temps again, or would you suggest I uncover everything to let the plants get some sun and fresh air and cover up again late afternoon early evening?

It's going to be a depressing topic. Ryan

Most of my fruit trees are in large pots but still easy to move around. The only one in ground with fruit on it is the Peach tree. It seems to be enjoying the cold and will get a lot of it soon. I might pull the near ripe fruit off of it tomorrow. I was wondering how this severe cold will affect the more temperate fruit trees I have that do not flower often. I didn't notice it when I was pulling plants inside, but I must have orchids in bloom. I can smell them whenever I walk into the garage. Ryan

What is there is actual role where they are from? how could palms exist period if they exist?

I wrapped my coconut trunk with 5w heating cables and christmas lights. Wrapped it with burlap amd frost cloth and did end up building a frame. I run a 30,000 BTU heat thrower into the frame with hope that the heat rises through the crown. With anticipated winds, I'm gonna need lots of blocking of the winds from neighbor's homes. Still worth a try!

I can't believe my video from the other night titled "Snot and Lumber" got so many views but it did. https://www.instagram.com/stories/sanchosgreenpaws/3822006827672793855?utm_source=ig_story_item_share&igsh=MTl3eXRsa20wcWxoMQ== Yeah and I said I wasn't gonna mix that other batch of soil. I did.

There must be some virus or fungus that kills them. If we could find one and infect some of them and release them to spread the disease it would be awesome. Or perhaps some mutation that makes them unable to dig, dunno... God I hate them so much!

It looking good, Josue! It seems like you have a lot of work to do today and tomorrow 🙌

@idontknowhatnametuse took the initiative to create a thread for all of us to post photos and observations of the damage of various species of palms in our gardens. After the event, we'll probably all give it a little since the damage will get progressively worse for anything left alive. You can check out the initial post here: https://www.palmtalk.org/forum/topic/92659-2026-florida-palmageddon-observations-and-damage-photo-thread/ On a separate note, there's been speculation that this would change the USDA Hardiness Map back to the 2012 or 1990 version. This is largely incorrect, and may potentially be a misunderstanding on what a USDA Hardiness Zone represents. A USDA Hardiness Zone is the Average Annual Low for 30 years (AAL). If we use a theoretical location where the average annual low for 30 years was 31.8F, rounded down to 31F to produce a more conservative map, and as an example, updated the map after that theoretical location went down to 25F this year. This means the first year of the range would come off the rolls and be replaced by this year's minimum temperature. The math would look like this (after rounding): 31F x 29 years = 899 25F x 1 year = 25 ===================== TOTAL: 924 AVERAGE: 924 / 30 = 30.8 ROUND USING FLOOR() FUNCTION: 30F = 10a Even using a more conservative algorithm than the USDA uses, this location would still be a zone 10a climate. The landscape may not look like it, but that's not a fault of the algorithm. Assuming that any climate will always default to an average is the issue. There was even a discussion about this some time back: https://www.palmtalk.org/forum/topic/26687-usda-hardiness-zone-is-not-a-good-way-to-have-a-abstract-view-on-minimum-temperatures/ If you would like to base your plantings on a more reliable number, the record lows as well as other calculations like zones for 50 and 100 year averages are available in the almanac on the next to last post on the second page of this thread: https://www.palmtalk.org/forum/topic/66320-florida-freeze-and-weather-station-data/?page=2 SPOILER: The theoretical location was Orlando International Airport (KMCO)

I agree, it must be some sort of corrupted data or there is some miscalculation in their programming. I didn’t recall the temps going below the mid thirties, I was taken aback by the supposed revelation. I just checked it against weather underground. This is why you can’t trust data. https://www.wunderground.com/calendar/us/fl/kissimmee/KISM/date/2025-11