Cold Tolerance in Licuala

[Wanderanwills]

Hi,

Curious as to which species in the genus Licuala are the most cold tolerant?

Regards

Stephen

[gilles06]

I have read that licuala spinosa and ramsayii are quite tolerant of frost...

But i didn't try them.

Salut.

[peachy]

Spinosa will take a frost in its stride, ramsayii will take cold but anything more than a very light frost will fry it. Elegans doesnt mind the cold but frost is usually fatal. Aurantiaca, Grandis and Mapu will take quite cold temps also. All of the Licuala I have mentioned live here at my place btw.

Peachy

[Tulio]

Licuala peltata var. sumawongii probably the most cold hardy.

[paulgila]

in socal the common wisdom is l.spinosa is the one to go with,but others are possible in the best microclimates,as we saw at the darian garden,for one.

[mnorell]

I have had great luck, even in the hellish, record long-and-cold winter we just had, with L. peltata v. peltata (burned to mulch but already pushing its second nice frond), L. ramsayi (didn't skip a beat though it burned to the mulch in mid-20F temps), and L. fordiana (mulched tiny seedlings). As far as chill-sensitivity, all these are winners since soil temps were close to freezing throughout January, and heavily depressed from November through March, much colder than we normally see here. I should add that L. spinosa did croak (though it tried to come back before collapsing), but it was a bare-root mail-order specimen that was planted in the fall, so it was not acclimated at all before the winter hit. I now have a small plant in its place which I'm sure will take the cold plus be able to return after severe winters.

In my trials I try to look for acaulescent and/or caespitose species here due to annual freezes to the low/mid-20s F and also the horrific arctic waves that invade this area every 10-20 years. I will eventually lose ramsayi once the bud gets in the air, but it will take a lot of cold under canopy. And L. peltata will probably remain subterranean for a long time and not be too difficult to protect once it starts to get up a bit. One thing I can say is that potted seedlings of L. paludosa melted in chilly (non-freezing) weather while the others I had took light freezes (under canopy) in stride. I can also say that Licualas can take a lot more sun, at least in the humid Gulf South, than the literature would suggest, and they grow much faster under those conditions. L. peltata sumawongii is also very hardy, I've kept them in pots in lengthy freezes down to 28F, taking them inside for colder weather. They never blink as long as they're under canopy.

[tikitiki]

My peltata entire and split leaf did great. My pauldosa did well also. I hit 26 with several nights of frost. My grandis fried and died.

[Mike Evans]

I have a few large spinosa, under oak canopy that did excellent in last winters record cold. I got down to 25 - 26 F one morning. 5 - 6 mornings of heavy frost, but canopy protected them.

The one ramsayi in a container did good also in the pool area, under screen enclosure.

Don't even think about grandis. Here is a pic of one that survived total defoliation, spear pull, but is coming back. More than 400 seedlings are now mulch.

[Wanderanwills]

Thankyou for the replies, great information.

Regards

Stephen

[bubba]

There is a great thread of a Tour of South Florida Gardens after the cold of Jan. 2010, posted by Ron around March of 2010. Interestingly, one Garden had a very large Red Sealing Wax that was unaffected.Several Licuala grandis showed significant of many fronds.This particular Garden was located in Miami and may never had experienced temperatures below freezing (32 F.) but it was the duration of lows near freezing for almost 10 days.

Since that time, most of the Licuala grandis have fully recovered but at the time, it was very unexpected to see a large Sealing Wax looking great when the Licuala grandis looked battered.