Needle palms in Wichita, post arctic event

[jfrye01@live.com]

Went around and took pictures of needle palms around town, so far they are the only palms not to show damage. Even larger sabal minor and Louisiana have leaf spotting, with more damage showing up weekly...this event (12 consecutive days below 32F, official overall low temperature reading of -17F) gave me a whole new appreciation for needle palms! Temperatures for the past couple of weeks have risen up into the 60's and 70's, with nothing below 31F in the forecast.  Hopefully winter is over! Enjoy! 

Garvey Center, downtown Wichita. Collected seed from this one several days ago 

First Church of the Nazarene

Same palm as above, me for scale

Sorry for the crappy quality photo, but this is a massive needle in a backyard in North Wichita. At one point they had some nice sized trachies back here, but those were lost in the 2011 freeze...

[PalmatierMeg]

They look great. I appreciate them more and more when I see how tough they are. Too bad they aren't long term survivors in my yard. They failed my 3 strikes rule.

[jwitt]

-17f is crazy cold! How many nights below zero? They look amazingly good!

[jfrye01@live.com]

27 minutes ago, jwitt said:

-17f is crazy cold! How many nights below zero? They look amazingly good!

Luckily just the one night below zero, although that was enough for most everything else...in a week or so, once all damage has showed up, I'll post pictures of Sabals around town...it's not pretty... 

[Xerarch]

-17F! can these things die ever?

[GregVirginia7]

A truly resilient palm for colder zones with back to back days of freezing...These palms are great...from wet/full sun to dryer mostly shade...truly a no protection palm in my zone...would love to get some seeds but the squirrels see to it that doesn’t happen.

[jfrye01@live.com]

1 hour ago, Xerarch said:

-17F! can these things die ever?

They’ll be here long after the cockroaches are dead! 

[jfrye01@live.com]

1 hour ago, GregVirginia7 said:

A truly resilient palm for colder zones with back to back days of freezing...These palms are great...from wet/full sun to dryer mostly shade...truly a no protection palm in my zone...would love to get some seeds but the squirrels see to it that doesn’t happen.

Aren’t they great?!

[cm05]

Wow. Just wow. I used to think the stories of Needles surviving -15F and -20F were exaggerations but they look flawless. Makes you wonder just how far north their pre-ice age native range extended. These and Sabal minor seem almost perfectly suited to zone 6b+ zones in the eastern/central U.S., they get enough heat to look healthy and winters don’t harm them.

[ky_palm064]

In my experience, Needles are unbelievably leaf hardy.

From the records for central Kentucky (zone 6b), only the winters of 1917-18 and 1977-78 (2 months of below freezing polar vortex with snow cover) might have knocked out a well established specimen. Even then, a Needle palm under a drift and/or next to a house foundation may have survived- not that there were any around then!

[jfrye01@live.com]

11 hours ago, cm05 said:

Wow. Just wow. I used to think the stories of Needles surviving -15F and -20F were exaggerations but they look flawless. Makes you wonder just how far north their pre-ice age native range extended. These and Sabal minor seem almost perfectly suited to zone 6b+ zones in the eastern/central U.S., they get enough heat to look healthy and winters don’t harm them.

Definitely! It's exciting to be able to confidently call needles a long term survivor, seeing as these have just survived one of the worst cold events in recorded history! 

1 hour ago, ky_palm064 said:

In my experience, Needles are unbelievably leaf hardy.

From the records for central Kentucky (zone 6b), only the winters of 1917-18 and 1977-78 (2 months of below freezing polar vortex with snow cover) might have knocked out a well established specimen. Even then, a Needle palm under a drift and/or next to a house foundation may have survived- not that there were any around then!

Two MONTHS below freezing?! I can't even imagine...12 days in a row was bad enough for me! I certainly believe snow helps insulate, during this recent event, we had about four inches.  A few people I know had volunteer Sabal minor and louisiana seedlings survive underneath the snow! 

[Gator]

This makes me want to try a needle palm here in Utah.

Our daily temperature swings are just so extreme.

19 this morning.....going to 68 this afternoon

I have a 5 year old trachy that is doing great

 

[EastCanadaTropicals]

On 3/5/2021 at 10:20 AM, jfrye01@live.com said:

Definitely! It's exciting to be able to confidently call needles a long term survivor, seeing as these have just survived one of the worst cold events in recorded history! 

Two MONTHS below freezing?! I can't even imagine...12 days in a row was bad enough for me! I certainly believe snow helps insulate, during this recent event, we had about four inches.  A few people I know had volunteer Sabal minor and louisiana seedlings survive underneath the snow! 

Don't worry, we have 2 and a half months below freezing.

[tjwalters]

Definitely leaf hardy, but check spears in a month or two.  I've had spear pull at much higher temps on a "bull needle."  (It never recovered.)

[tjwalters]

On 3/4/2021 at 1:55 PM, PalmatierMeg said:

They look great. I appreciate them more and more when I see how tough they are. Too bad they aren't long term survivors in my yard. They failed my 3 strikes rule.

For you, rich damp soil in full shade would probably be best.

[PalmatierMeg]

2 hours ago, tjwalters said:

For you, rich damp soil in full shade would probably be best.

Tried it with the third one - palm still died.