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Winter is coming...


Swolte

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Just wanted to wish everyone here a mild winter and share protection plans!
 
Temperatures here in Central Texas have already been below freezing and next week we may see another dip (Fall basically lasted a week, ugh...).  I don't have a lot of zone-pushing palms, technically, however, I do have a lot of a newly planted and/or younglings in the ground. I have yet to lose a palm to cold (some spear pull, though). This is what I do:
- Get a big bale of straw and wrap the straw around the base of the palm where the spear is (if possible). I hold it in place by some sticks and cheap netting. 
- In addition, put a frost cloth over the top for the more sensitive palms or when weather gets really bad (e.g., a deep freeze). Sometimes a big plastic bucket.
- I have moon juice that I apply the night before a freeze (or after, if I forget). I haven't done any scientific comparison tests on it but I guess it can't hurt (we do know, scientifically, that watering before a freeze helps so anyway...) https://blog.moonvalleynurseries.com/moon-juice-to-the-rescue
 

Protection.JPG

Edited by Swolte
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Swolte,  you have gotten the right idea!  Do you remove these freeze protection apparatus when you/we get those warm winter days?  I am in a western suburb of Waco, so I experience very similar weather to you.  One day it will be 20 F and the next 65 F in winter.  Even the frost cloth gets warm inside.  It is a challenge in my experience.  Good luck and great inventing.

jimmyt 

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Cold start to the week. Hard freezes coming.  I only dropped to 31 last week but lots of frost...

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They claim record lows for November, next week, on the eastern half of the country. I was hoping this would be a mild winter again, I guess not.

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7 hours ago, jimmyt said:

Swolte,  you have gotten the right idea!  Do you remove these freeze protection apparatus when you/we get those warm winter days?  I am in a western suburb of Waco, so I experience very similar weather to you.  One day it will be 20 F and the next 65 F in winter.  Even the frost cloth gets warm inside.  It is a challenge in my experience.  Good luck and great inventing.

jimmyt 

Yes, I hear you! I am particularly annoyed that that freezes came sudden and early. I felt most plants were barely done with summer and not hardened yet for winter! I got quite some damage on some of my new Mangave's that I didn't protect.

I do remove the frost cloth, not the straw constructions, if it warms up again. It can get pretty hot under those cloths with a hot sun and I believe there's a risk of palms pushing out vulnerable new growth. This is bound to get damaged when we get a deep freeze (despite my protection).

Edited by Swolte
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Recent Autumns here (Zone 7/NJ) have seen this pattern before in recent years.  Early and Mid Autumn are abnormally warm big time, the foliage coloration of deciduous trees is delayed, then there is a sudden hard freeze.  As a result, Fall foliage has been dismal.  My Gingko goes from green to massive leaf drop overnight, so much for 'Autumn Gold'.

Late November seems to be much milder by comparison.

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That's funny, this is the first year my ginkgo had a deep golden color. It usually goes yellow green and drops. (I grew this one from seed I found on the sidewalk in front of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, about 20 years ago.) I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's a male.

If you cover a palm with stiff organic matter (like straw or dry leaves) inside a wire-mesh hoop, then you don't have to keep taking it away each time the weather warms. It won't heat up like a tent.

20191102_091315-1-1.jpg

Edited by Manalto
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24hrs of 20-40mph winds and dropped to 22f this morning.  High was only 39 and we have another low of 24-26 tonight.  Not even the Bradford pears have changed colors. 

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The cold front reached the east coast today, it was 60F earlier and it’ll be 22F tonight, tomorrow’s high will only be in the 30’s so I’m bringing all pots indoors for the next day and a half. Can’t wait to plant everything out so I don’t have to worry about relatively benign cold.

Edited by cm05
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We're supposed to hit 23F tonight with 10 MPH wind.  Not really lethal temps for most of my palms, but I went ahead and covered the stuff that is likely to burn.  I have a few plants other than palms that are gonna get zapped because they are pushing new leaves.  It hasn't been cold enough here for anything to go dormant - lots of maple trees are still green, and they're usually the first ones to color up in the fall.

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I see Chicago is 10F right now, and Detroit is forecast to hit 5F tonight! In mid November! :bemused:

That's absolute madness! I have NEVER, ever got that cold here. Not even in mid-winter. And to put it into perspective, Moscow in Russia only had a low of 35F overnight. My own low here was 42F.

I mean that has to be record low temps, this early on, for the Midwest and Great Lake states, surely?

Edited by UK_Palms

Dry-summer Oceanic climate (9a)

Average annual precipitation - 18.7 inches : Average annual sunshine hours - 1725

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We didn't get a freeze last night in San Antonio, but yesterday's high temp was only 45°F which set a 112-year-old record!  :hmm:

Jon Sunder

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Dang, I knew something unusual was up but this sounds... :o

We got down to 27F last night and it should warm up again later on in the week. Looks like everything pulled through. For college station, TX, in November this is close to record lows measured over a century ago.  I hope this isn't a sign of things to come...

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19F in our bottoms this morning. Earliest to go below 20F ever. 

Longview, Texas :: Record Low: -5F, Feb. 16, 2021 :: Borderline 8A/8B :: '06-'07: 18F / '07-'08: 21F / '08-'09: 21F / '09-'10: 14F / '10-'11: 15F / '11-'12: 24F / '12-'13: 23F / '13-'14: 15F / '14-'15: 20F / '15-'16: 27F / '16-'17: 15F / '17-'18: 8F / '18-'19: 23F / '19-'20: 19F / '20-'21: -5F / '21-'22: 20F / '22-'23: 6F

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Bottomed out at 24.9F...Im calling it 25 :P! WAY too early for this, but winter seems to be here already. Forecast goes from normal November tomorrow to bellow January averages to December averages and back to January and then back to November averages. There seems to be ZERO stability in our weather... There are still some green leaves (mostly sycamore or bradford) but Id say 85-90% of the leaves have been blown off due to that wind storm we have a week and a half ago. 

Edited by mdsonofthesouth

LOWS 16/17 12F, 17/18 3F, 18/19 7F, 19/20 20F

Palms growing in my garden: Trachycarpus Fortunei, Chamaerops Humilis, Chamaerops Humilis var. Cerifera, Rhapidophyllum Hystrix, Sabal Palmetto 

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