Goal posts.

[Laaz]

Just throw a 2x4 between them. Lets hope the freezes are over. What a pain in the ass up 30 ft on a ladder with a electric pole saw.

 

 

 

[Laaz]

[mdsonofthesouth]

First week of feb looks pretty bad....

[PalmTreeDude]

That would suck! At least they come back down there. All of my palms (except of course my needle, which didn't notice the cold) are fried to. Sometimes I can get a few to pull through without frying (with protection) but nope, not this winter! 

[donnacreation]

Are those palms Washingtonias? If so, they should recover. Do you know what the lowest temp in Charleston was?

[Laaz]

Yes they are. Coldest temp recorded at the airport was 16F. My place is next to the Ashley river and always a few degrees warmer. Probably hit 19-20F at my house.

Yes they should come back no problem.

[donnacreation]

I'm surprised it got that cold in Charleston!  What do the area date palms look like?

[Laaz]

Crap...

 

[Laaz]

Silvers are pretty much all fried. The CIDP's seem to be the least damaged of all the dates in the area.

 

 

[PalmTreeDude]

I really hope no one cuts those down thinking they are dead. 

[donnacreation]

Sorry to see that damage. Hopefully by late spring there are healthy new spears emerging. I'm hoping the same for my Butias.

[Matthew92]

10 hours ago, Laaz said:

Yes they are. Coldest temp recorded at the airport was 16F. My place is next to the Ashley river and always a few degrees warmer. Probably hit 19-20F at my house.

Yes they should come back no problem.

Looks like at least 17 deg as my area experienced in 2014 with a coating of winter precip as well: Washingtonias total defoliation, citrus with hardly a leaf, P. sylvestris 100% defoliated (probably many killed), queens gone.

It's amazing how that bubble (to keep your marginal plants going strong) you had for quite some time was suddenly and dramatically burst with this freak event.

Hoping things recover better than it may look now.

[mthteh1916]

12 hours ago, Laaz said:

Yes they are. Coldest temp recorded at the airport was 16F. My place is next to the Ashley river and always a few degrees warmer. Probably hit 19-20F at my house.

Yes they should come back no problem.

Unfortunately Laaz that would be incorrect. Charleston Airport went down to a 1980's level cold temp of 14F Jan 5 this year. In fact that was the coldest temp at that airport since 1989.

 

Real danger death zone for robusta and phoenix palms and sweet oranges and grapefruits. another couple winters like that and the area will return to its previous sabals and butias and no citrus outside the urban heat island of the downtown peninsula. As a kid my family visited Beaufort SC and not a single cidp or any other palm besides sabal and no oranges at all. Visited in the 80's same thing. Growing oranges and cidp's outside downtown Charleston is a phenom of the warmer period that started in 1990. That period of warmth died in 2010. More winters like this and the area will start to drop in usda zone. Right now the airport is clinging to 9a with 20F if you look at 1991 to 2018 (so far). In the past even from when Bartram visited in the 1700's all the settlers that tried to grow citrus failed. Any of the citrus people tried in the 1980's turned into the rootstock after low temps in the single digits (6F). 

Edited January 27, 2018 by mthteh1916
delete sentence

[mthteh1916]

5 hours ago, Laaz said:

12 hours ago, Laaz said:

Yes they are. Coldest temp recorded at the airport was 16F. My place is next to the Ashley river and always a few degrees warmer. Probably hit 19-20F at my house.

Yes they should come back no problem.

 

10 hours ago, Laaz said:

Crap...

 

Silvers are pretty much all fried. The CIDP's seem to be the least damaged of all the dates in the area.

 

 

 

Just talking in FB messanger with someone on James Island and they say robusta the last few years are being removed and replaced with sabal because they get brown and ugly every winter. Said no one plants robusta anymore, and filibusta are not available. That is what I thought would start happening after 2010. As winters get colder people get tired of ugly palms even if they recover and they just return to the original boring sabal palmetto. That keeps up there will be no robusta in the Charleston area again and only sabal. They may quit also with phoenix palms as they brown out too. unfortunately a zone 9a in Charleston is no match for a zone 9a in Europe, Australia or for that matter anywhere else in the world. Far too unstable and wild winters in the Southeast USA to grow tender stuff.

[Matthew92]

1 hour ago, mthteh1916 said:

 

Just talking in FB messanger with someone on James Island and they say robusta the last few years are being removed and replaced with sabal because they get brown and ugly every winter. Said no one plants robusta anymore, and filibusta are not available. That is what I thought would start happening after 2010. As winters get colder people get tired of ugly palms even if they recover and they just return to the original boring sabal palmetto. That keeps up there will be no robusta in the Charleston area again and only sabal. They may quit also with phoenix palms as they brown out too. unfortunately a zone 9a in Charleston is no match for a zone 9a in Europe, Australia or for that matter anywhere else in the world. Far too unstable and wild winters in the Southeast USA to grow tender stuff.

I shake my head all the time at the mass, piecemeal plantings of palms throughout the entire Southeast that is north of the real sub-tropics because people are so addicted and attracted to a semblance of "tropical-ness." Just because there is not snow on the ground all the time in winter and it can get in the 60's and 70's for brief periods of time in between cold snaps, many people from farther north think it might as well be the tropics!- bring out the coconut palms and bananas!!!The truth is, hardly anyone stops to analyze how dang cold places as far as northern FL and the shores of the Gulf of Mexico get, especially compared to real tropical areas. I mean, it regularly gets cold enough to kill a human being (it already happened in my town this year!).

I really think that the focus should be on what grows best in your area- namely, native flora. Most regions in the Southeast have some very unique natives not found anywhere else in the world (think Frankliana tree, Ashe magnolia, Florida Torreya...) These gems (and even the more common natives) need to be showcased in the landscape so visitors out of the area can see what makes that region unique (of course, tastefully mixed in with other natives so there's not too much of the same thing all over).

And not to say that the love of things tropical related or growing exotic flora in your area is bad. There is a place for them and it should simply be done tastefully.

It is awesome to see what other plants of the world can grow in your part of the world. I love the spectacle of seeing non natives flourish and stand out among the common vegetation.

Also not to say zone pushing is bad as well. It is most exciting to have a healthy specimen of something otherwise not thought to grow in your area.

The part where it goes wrong is when they are planted piecemeal on a massive scale to perpetuate a false image/stereotype for commercialization and profit.

[mthteh1916]

8 hours ago, Opal92 said:

I shake my head all the time at the mass, piecemeal plantings of palms throughout the entire Southeast that is north of the real sub-tropics because people are so addicted and attracted to a semblance of "tropical-ness." Just because there is not snow on the ground all the time in winter and it can get in the 60's and 70's for brief periods of time in between cold snaps, many people from farther north think it might as well be the tropics!- bring out the coconut palms and bananas!!!The truth is, hardly anyone stops to analyze how dang cold places as far as northern FL and the shores of the Gulf of Mexico get, especially compared to real tropical areas. I mean, it regularly gets cold enough to kill a human being (it already happened in my town this year!).

I really think that the focus should be on what grows best in your area- namely, native flora. Most regions in the Southeast have some very unique natives not found anywhere else in the world (think Frankliana tree, Ashe magnolia, Florida Torreya...) These gems (and even the more common natives) need to be showcased in the landscape so visitors out of the area can see what makes that region unique (of course, tastefully mixed in with other natives so there's not too much of the same thing all over).

And not to say that the love of things tropical related or growing exotic flora in your area is bad. There is a place for them and it should simply be done tastefully.

It is awesome to see what other plants of the world can grow in your part of the world. I love the spectacle of seeing non natives flourish and stand out among the common vegetation.

Also not to say zone pushing is bad as well. It is most exciting to have a healthy specimen of something otherwise not thought to grow in your area.

The part where it goes wrong is when they are planted piecemeal on a massive scale to perpetuate a false image/stereotype for commercialization and profit.

A zone 9a around Charleston is no real zone 9a when it can drop to 14F and has gone colder than that numerous times in past decades. Let's face it, the eastern US has probably the most frustrating annoying winter climate in the world. Do folks in Australia at the latitude of where Laaz lives ever go down to 14F. NEVER. They have never even gone below 25F probably ever. Lowest temps ever in Nice France at latitude 44N is 19F. Winter after winter they stay right in their zone with incredible consistency in day to day temps. We just don't do that. It is incredible to thing that in the subtropical areas of the Southeast you can have a day stay below freezing sometimes two in a row. The area is simply not meant for tender plants. Laaz is very good gardener, but most people there I have interacted with say sweet oranges will just not survive there long term. Eventually they end up becoming the root stock. True story. In the late 80's we visited my friends grandfather in Lakeland FL and he had a big old orange tree. He told us at one time they were delicious, but he said they are insipid and inedible now. Why, because the tree became the root stock after the 80's. That was Lakeland FL.

[Laaz]

Meh, my citrus look fine. They dropped all their fruit but will survive. All my palms will be fine as well, give them a few months...

[Las Palmas Norte]

Yes ... we'll need a before and after pic 

Cheers, Barrie.

[Matthew92]

3 hours ago, mthteh1916 said:

A zone 9a around Charleston is no real zone 9a when it can drop to 14F and has gone colder than that numerous times in past decades. Let's face it, the eastern US has probably the most frustrating annoying winter climate in the world. Do folks in Australia at the latitude of where Laaz lives ever go down to 14F. NEVER. They have never even gone below 25F probably ever. Lowest temps ever in Nice France at latitude 44N is 19F. Winter after winter they stay right in their zone with incredible consistency in day to day temps. We just don't do that. It is incredible to thing that in the subtropical areas of the Southeast you can have a day stay below freezing sometimes two in a row. The area is simply not meant for tender plants. Laaz is very good gardener, but most people there I have interacted with say sweet oranges will just not survive there long term. Eventually they end up becoming the root stock. True story. In the late 80's we visited my friends grandfather in Lakeland FL and he had a big old orange tree. He told us at one time they were delicious, but he said they are insipid and inedible now. Why, because the tree became the root stock after the 80's. That was Lakeland FL.

Yes. And I've mentioned this before, but in a scientific article I found once on feasibility of growing Eucalyptus in the Southeast US, it says that the regions weather is comparable to that of Siberia (minus extreme freezing temps) with the temperature swings.

Having said all that though, I wouldn't want to go anywhere else. I look at it as a challenge- to landscape my yard or plan a botanical garden in my area that would showcase what can grow well in this region and tolerate the "roller coaster" weather.

[PalmTreeDude]

My latitude in Europe (extreme southern Europe) can grow date palms, Washingtonia, and some areas are borderline Coconut areas (that are off by just a few degrees). We need a huge thing of water in between the boarder of Canada and the U.S. or maintains. The mainland U.S. really has the most unfair climate.

[mthteh1916]

4 hours ago, Laaz said:

Meh, my citrus look fine. They dropped all their fruit but will survive. All my palms will be fine as well, give them a few months...

but Laaz you are an exceptional gardener. If it was that easy there would be sweet orange trees in every back yard down there as you see in Italy and it is just rare in my experience to see orange trees there in backyards. Even in Mobile AL they say they only get meyer lemons two out of three years due to cold. The guy I know on James Island says navel oranges are very difficult to get to survive long term even there due to winters like this. And he said people are pulling out robusta and planting sabal palms cause people don't like the dead look every other winter. He even said landscapers near him don't offer robusta anymore.

[Laaz]

Robusta's are everywhere & are still selling like crazy. My citrus has been in the ground for over 10 years now & I get thousands of fruit every year. I give away all I can & still end up throwing a ton away. I have Navels, Cara cara, Satsumas, Ponkan, Hamlin, Ruby reds, etc....

[Las Palmas Norte]

Is there co-relation to the Artic air mass that periodically descends, and the general tendency to shift eastward? This mainly stays more northerly as it moves, but in some cases (as seen here) doesn't.

Here on the Pacific Northwest coast, winter Artic air periodically moves southward but doesn't reach the coast very often. By then it diminishes and the natural tendencies keep these patterns away moving to the east.

Cheers, Barrie.

[mdsonofthesouth]

Well the jet stream does head slightly south the more east it heads, and speaking from a lifetime on the fall line/last real stop for true US humid subtropic this southern movement is very apparent. The way the gulf and jet streams work in the eastern US allows for 70s and 80s in winter time (literally every winter we get these warm spurts) and then plunge the region WELL bellow average. Every year we will have a quite a few warm streaks in the 50s to 70s +, some years we get blooms in Dec-Feb, and every year we see teens. Alot fo times these events can be back to back. For instance the early jan event we all just went through was followed by high 60s to low 70s days with lows in the 50s. 

 

To say the eastern US weather is unstable is putting it mildly in my opinion, but for the most part it comes in cycles. For us its usually every 10 years but sometimes it sooner. Despite being a zone 7a, its very rare to see bellow 8a temps...but we certainly do see them. Last time I experienced true 7a weather was 2012, but back then I didn't watch the weather as intently, rather just when going outside or waking up. 

Edited January 29, 2018 by mdsonofthesouth

[CroToni]

On 26/1/2018, 23:13:54, Laaz said:

Silvers are pretty much all fried. The CIDP's seem to be the least damaged of all the dates in the area.

 

 

Ok,that kind of damage from a 20 degree freeze is,dont attack me,but impossible.I don't wanna doubt you,and we palm growers always wish it was a few degrees warmer,but that looks like the high teens and I am not talking about 19.8 F,but temps from 16-18.

Full defoliation on washies happens when the mercury goes bellow 20,and not for just a degree.

[Cikas]

17 minutes ago, CroToni said:

Ok,that kind of damage from a 20 degree freeze is,dont attack me,but impossible.I don't wanna doubt you,and we palm growers always wish it was a few degrees warmer,but that looks like the high teens and I am not talking about 19.8 F,but temps from 16-18.

Full defoliation on washies happens when the mercury goes bellow 20,and not for just a degree.

It is not impossible. Washies are not that hardy as you think. Even - 5C can kill Robusta. Duration of the freeze is important. 

[CroToni]

6 minutes ago, Cikas said:

It is not impossible. Washies are not that hardy as you think. Even - 5C can kill Robusta. Duration of the freeze is important. 

we got our coldest temp in 20 years last winter(-8)and the washies were not completely fried.

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

51 minutes ago, CroToni said:

we got our coldest temp in 20 years last winter(-8)and the washies were not completely fried.

Cold damage in Mediterranean climates to that of the US South/ southeast is like comparing apples and oranges. The only time i see similar results to those posted in Mediterranean climates are in my sealed, frostless cold frames.

[mdsonofthesouth]

Yeah we have a humid/wet piercing cold in the US. Usually my coldest temps dont last terribly long maybe an hour or 3, but this winter has been all about extended cold timeframes. The damage we are seeing is mostly from duration of cold over absolute lows. 

[Laaz]

This wasn't just cold damage, we had nasty freezing rain that lasted for hours before turning to snow. Our local news reported a low of 16F at the airport.

 

[mthteh1916]

On 1/27/2018, 10:32:14, Laaz said:

Meh, my citrus look fine. They dropped all their fruit but will survive. All my palms will be fine as well, give them a few months...

that is great news to hear, but didn't they lose all their leaves as well? My friend is Beaufort said his are defoliated now and another guy on James Island said the same thing. They don't believe they will get any fruit this year just like in 2014.

You must have an incredible heat island around you to be able to get a blood orange or a cara cara navel to survive 16F and a day below freezing and still produce fruit the following Autumn. What is your secret? Maybe your trees really harden off well in the Fall.

[Cikas]

2 hours ago, CroToni said:

we got our coldest temp in 20 years last winter(-8)and the washies were not completely fried.

2 hours ago, CroToni said:

we got our coldest temp in 20 years last winter(-8)and the washies were not completely fried.

Filifera or Robusta?  Filifera is more cold hardy than Robusta. At the start of 2017. we have a cold wave in Dubrovnik. We got down to - 5.4C. These were our coldest temperatures in last 40-50 years. Duration of the freeze was not normal. We were 48h below freezing. Which was crazy (abnormal). Some 100 years old Robustas were damaged, and some even killed. Duration of the cold is more important than temperature minimum. Also in wet conditions,  plants are less hardy than in dry. There is many different factors which are important, not just temperature. 

Edited January 30, 2018 by Cikas

[CroToni]

10 minutes ago, Cikas said:

Filifera or Robusta?  Filifera is more cold hardy than Robusta. At the start of 2017. we have a cold wave in Dubrovnik. We got down to - 5.4C. These were our coldest temperatures in last 40-50 years. Duration of the freeze was not normal. We were 48h below freezing. Which was crazy (abnormal). Some 100 years old Robustas were damaged, and some even killed. Duration of the cold is more important than temperature minimum. Also in wet conditions,  plants are less hardy than in dry. There is many different factors which are important, not just temperature. 

Filibustas and Robustas both burned on the outer fronds.

Wow had no idea you guys got that cold.Last winter was hell.The south had it worse than the north coast.

 

[Laaz]

mthteh1916  you're funny. You seem to have the idea we get this type of weather often. Hell I guess I should be educating peole in south Florida on growing tropicals... After all, I'm as qualified as you are as to growing in my area...

Grapefruit have all been defoliated as have the oranges. Mandarins still have a decent amount of leaves.

This waz a very rare event to say the least. Most winters we have between 7-10 nights a year where we drop below freezing. Many years we have 9b winters & most are 9a...

Have a great day.

[CroToni]

2 hours ago, Laaz said:

This wasn't just cold damage, we had nasty freezing rain that lasted for hours before turning to snow. Our local news reported a low of 16F at the airport.

 

oh ok freezing raing at 25 will defoliate most palms.

That sucks I am eager to see your beautiful washies with a full lush crown.

[Laaz]

Oh, and far as no quality fruit.... You're right...

 

Cara cara.

 

Ruby red.

 

[mdsonofthesouth]

Yeah this type of weather is far from normal. But it does come in cycles, just no where near as bad as it has been this year.

 

My goal in life is to live out my years being able to pick citrus off a tree in my backyard nearly year round. Going out to the lanai and getting fresh citrus in the AM is one of my favorite things about Flroida!

Edited January 30, 2018 by mdsonofthesouth

[CroToni]

2 hours ago, Laaz said:

Oh, and far as no quality fruit.... You're right...

 

Cara cara.

 

Ruby red.

 

pick them and juice them then freeze the juice.If it hasnt been warm the day after the freeze they can be salvaged.

[Laaz]

I picked what I could, but still had hundreds of fruit on the trees..

[PalmTreeDude]

Wow, fruit looks better than I would have thought! I am not going to lie, I never knew you could grow citrus outside of FL, California, or Hawaii until this post. I never did any research on citrus though and was not to interested in them until now... 

Edited January 30, 2018 by PalmTreeDude