Call me crazy

[JLM]

Would a King Palm do well in z8b? Assuming that with copious amounts of protection throughout winter, it could be done? Would it even be worth trying? Would definitely be a backyard experiment if i was to try something like this.

[PalmatierMeg]

If you are willing to protect/heat it much of the winter, why not? Learning by experience will not only help you but also people on this forum. Archo cunningham is easy to find and relatively inexpensive. They do grow fast in warm weather and get tall.

[necturus]

I had a clump for several years here in Houston. Of course, we barely dropped below 30 during that time. I didn't try to protect them in the bad freeze, and they're melted.

I have two Alexanders in pots that went into the garage, and they will still potted as long as they can.

[DAVEinMB]

46 minutes ago, PalmatierMeg said:

If you are willing to protect/heat it much of the winter, why not? Learning by experience will not only help you but also people on this forum. Archo cunningham is easy to find and relatively inexpensive. They do grow fast in warm weather and get tall.

@palmbrad is growing them as semi-annuals in Summerville, sc. He might be able to share some insights

[Fusca]

Excellent points brought up here.  Big problem for you to try and protect (and you will most years) is fast growth and it's a crownshaft palm.  So protection will have to be up high which will get tricky when they get tall.  I'll be interested to hear how @palmbrad protects his.

[PalmTreeDude]

I have a small one with protection here in Virginia. Here it is from a few days ago, it’s back under the tarp right now but it will be coming off very soon. 

[PalmTreeDude]

[JLM]

37 minutes ago, PalmTreeDude said:

Wow! Good job! I would probably grow them from seed to give myself more time. Once i get most of my current seeds germinated and growing in pots i may see what i can do. My 3rd Bismarckia seed cracked open yesterday and should be ready for a pot in another week or so. Brahea seeds will take the longest though. Thanks for the input everybody! Much appreciated!

[jimmyt]

5 hours ago, JLM said:

Would a King Palm do well in z8b? Assuming that with copious amounts of protection throughout winter, it could be done? Would it even be worth trying? Would definitely be a backyard experiment if i was to try something like this.

I don’t have any advice but I would just like to call you Crazy!  Nothing personal ok.....

[JLM]

3 minutes ago, jimmyt said:

I don’t have any advice but I would just like to call you Crazy!  Nothing personal ok.....

I guess i kinda asked for that one 

[palmbrad]

I have a couple in ground and if we hit mid 20s I wrap the trunks and as much of the fronds as I can with blankets. This year they have only been wrapped once for a couple of days. It’s been an overcast and cool winter but after a week of sunshine and warmth last week they are visibly growing again. I lost a queen in 2018 so my crazy response was to replace with kings. When my queens were younger I used to wrap them in Christmas lights and frost cloth for the winter and that works well too. In dire circumstances would probably go that route with the kings but ultimately am fine with the cold killing them off eventually before they are too large and a huge pain to remove.

[climate change virginia]

if a guy can grow a washie in ontario you can grow a king palm in 8b. 

[JLM]

3 hours ago, palmbrad said:

I have a couple in ground and if we hit mid 20s I wrap the trunks and as much of the fronds as I can with blankets. This year they have only been wrapped once for a couple of days. It’s been an overcast and cool winter but after a week of sunshine and warmth last week they are visibly growing again. I lost a queen in 2018 so my crazy response was to replace with kings. When my queens were younger I used to wrap them in Christmas lights and frost cloth for the winter and that works well too. In dire circumstances would probably go that route with the kings but ultimately am fine with the cold killing them off eventually before they are too large and a huge pain to remove.

I would probably let it go once it got to a certain size so it wouldnt be as much of a pain to dig up. No way it would ever flower though, which sounds like a blessing lol

My Queens have gotten wrapped a few times this year, the two big freezes we had this winter which dropped us into the low 20s had the potential to be much lower than forecasted. Thankfully the big Texas freeze didnt affect us here as much, the lows were forecasted to be 21F and i got down to 24F, thank goodness. That freeze, had it took aim further east, would have been devestating all over the Gulf Coast potentially as far east as Tallahassee/Jacksonville area and west to the Corpus Christi area (Brownsville/SPI wouldnt have felt as much).

[DAVEinMB]

@PalmatierMeg oops meant to quote @JLM original post not yours, sorry

[JLM]

Do you think i could plant my Bottle Palm in April and then during winter wrap it up tight with sheets and lights? For extremely cold nights (for a bottle palm, <29F) i would wrap plastic on the outside. To my knowledge the soil never actually freezes, but for extra protection i could pile pine needle up against and around the palm, possibly out 1-2 feet from the trunk. Personally, i feel like its doable since its such a slow growing palm. Call me insane, go ahead lol
Also would be cheap to replace, they have them at Walmart for a decent price.

[PricklyPearSATC]

Texas 8b or anywhere not Texas 8b?

[JLM]

1 hour ago, PricklyPearSATC said:

Texas 8b or anywhere not Texas 8b?

Northwest Florida 8b, almost 9a. My average temp on the USDA interactive map is 19F.

Edited March 6, 2021 by JLM

[PricklyPearSATC]

4 hours ago, JLM said:

Northwest Florida 8b, almost 9a. My average temp on the USDA interactive map is 19F.

It's a joke!  Texas 9a got down to 9 degrees and 100 hours of freezing two weeks ago!

[PricklyPearSATC]

On 3/4/2021 at 6:15 PM, climate change virginia said:

if a guy can grow a washie in ontario you can grow a king palm in 8b. 

But ice shanties on the lawn don't go over very well in Florida. 

AKA: Palm shelters...up north, they're just ice shanties!

Edited March 6, 2021 by PricklyPearSATC

[palmbrad]

21 hours ago, JLM said:

Do you think i could plant my Bottle Palm in April and then during winter wrap it up tight with sheets and lights? For extremely cold nights (for a bottle palm, <29F) i would wrap plastic on the outside. To my knowledge the soil never actually freezes, but for extra protection i could pile pine needle up against and around the palm, possibly out 1-2 feet from the trunk. Personally, i feel like its doable since its such a slow growing palm. Call me insane, go ahead lol
Also would be cheap to replace, they have them at Walmart for a decent price.

I grew a foxtail this way for years. Tried a bottle this way as well but didn’t survive first winter.

[JLM]

Just now, palmbrad said:

I grew a foxtail this way for years. Tried a bottle this way as well but didn’t survive first winter.

A foxtail you say? Ive got one of those too. How many years did it survive?

[palmbrad]

Just now, JLM said:

A foxtail you say? Ive got one of those too. How many years did it survive?

Probably 6 to 8 at least. Last year we had a mild winter and I didn’t protect anything. Pretty much everything stayed green all winter and then come late February we had 1 night that hit 25 that killed it.

[JLM]

2 minutes ago, palmbrad said:

Probably 6 to 8 at least. Last year we had a mild winter and I didn’t protect anything. Pretty much everything stayed green all winter and then come late February we had 1 night that hit 25 that killed it.

That's pretty good for South Carolina! I hit 22F in December this winter and 24F a couple weeks ago, so it would take some decent protection. Frost happens once or twice every other week. My foxtail is recovering in a pot after the dog tried to eat it. I might just give the foxtail a go this summer and plant it, heavy protection on cold nights (<28F) during next winter to ensure survival. I think ill hold off on anymore experiments, as i already have Queens in the ground and Bismarckia on the way from seed.

[palmbrad]

7 minutes ago, JLM said:

That's pretty good for South Carolina! I hit 22F in December this winter and 24F a couple weeks ago, so it would take some decent protection. Frost happens once or twice every other week. My foxtail is recovering in a pot after the dog tried to eat it. I might just give the foxtail a go this summer and plant it, heavy protection on cold nights (<28F) during next winter to ensure survival. I think ill hold off on anymore experiments, as i already have Queens in the ground and Bismarckia on the way from seed.

I should mention my foxtail survived 13.7 in 2018 with frost cloth and lights so it is a method that definitely works. I only turn lights on when we are going below freezing so my guess is the overall coolness of winter is what the bottle couldn’t take.

[JLM]

2 minutes ago, palmbrad said:

I should mention my foxtail survived 13.7 in 2018 with frost cloth and lights so it is a method that definitely works. I only turn lights on when we are going below freezing so my guess is the overall coolness of winter is what the bottle couldn’t take.

That's some really good information! Did it survive without damage? Im sure with temps that low even inside the wrap it was below freezing. When i wrap my Queens i use lights and a sheet, which i assume would do just as good? The night that we reached 24F i wrapped plastic on the outside of the sheet layer to act as a wind break, and the temperature inside was 10F warmer than the outside temperature which was pretty good. Also good to know about the Bottle, i will let it grow in a pot instead of planting it. 

[palmbrad]

55 minutes ago, JLM said:

That's some really good information! Did it survive without damage? Im sure with temps that low even inside the wrap it was below freezing. When i wrap my Queens i use lights and a sheet, which i assume would do just as good? The night that we reached 24F i wrapped plastic on the outside of the sheet layer to act as a wind break, and the temperature inside was 10F warmer than the outside temperature which was pretty good. Also good to know about the Bottle, i will let it grow in a pot instead of planting it. 

There was some minimal frond damage but on the whole looked pretty good when unwrapped in the spring. I was pretty surprised. Yeah if you are able to maintain 10F warmer inside that’s a pretty good buffer to the outside temperature.

[PalmTreeDude]

On 3/4/2021 at 5:34 PM, JLM said:

Wow! Good job! I would probably grow them from seed to give myself more time. Once i get most of my current seeds germinated and growing in pots i may see what i can do. My 3rd Bismarckia seed cracked open yesterday and should be ready for a pot in another week or so. Brahea seeds will take the longest though. Thanks for the input everybody! Much appreciated!

Thank you! I grew this one from seed. 

[JLM]

I planted my Foxtail today! I decided to plant it on a date that i would remember fairly well, my birthday lol
I want to be able to keep track of how long its been in the ground, so i will definitely remember this date and shouldnt have a problem with that. 
I planted it in the front yard near the house, now i know i was going to plant it in the back yard but there arent too many places in the backyard that would work out. This spot is close to an electric outlet so i shouldnt have a problem with extension cords.

[JLM]

Heres the Foxtail today, it has finished putting out its frond that got its top chewed off late last year when it was still a spear. New spear coming in!

[JLM]

The new spear mentioned last month has grown quite a bit! The base of the palm is starting to get fatter so its putting on some good growth. This spear, when it opens, might end up hanging a little bit over the sidewalk 

[maskedmole]

If you could somehow get it to grow sideways along the ground to a certain point and then train it to grow up taller vertically to a manageable height, I think that would be ideal. I read somewhere about someone trying to get a coconut tree to grow in a greenhouse but it would have grown too tall for it, so they came up with the idea to grow it in a pot or something tilted sideways so it grew along the ground and only grew to the canopy in the greenhouse the rest of the way. It would be easy to protect a trunk crawling along the ground, just mulch it up, throw on blankets, etc. What gets more difficult is when palm trees grow too tall. Really anything can be grown about anywhere, it's just the lengths you are willing to go to protect something and the creativity in the ideas you come up with thinking outside the box.

[OC2Texaspalmlvr]

On 3/5/2021 at 5:43 PM, JLM said:

Do you think i could plant my Bottle Palm in April and then during winter wrap it up tight with sheets and lights? For extremely cold nights (for a bottle palm, <29F) i would wrap plastic on the outside. To my knowledge the soil never actually freezes, but for extra protection i could pile pine needle up against and around the palm, possibly out 1-2 feet from the trunk. Personally, i feel like its doable since its such a slow growing palm. Call me insane, go ahead lol
Also would be cheap to replace, they have them at Walmart for a decent price.

I'm not gonna say this is a bad idea but will say this is pretty much futile. Very slow growing palm with maybe 3to4 fronds a year. If said fronds get toasted you will have an ugly palm for a long time. I have a bottle in a pot for over 5years now where I winter it in my garage from Dec to March

T J 

[Fusca]

1 hour ago, OC2Texaspalmlvr said:

I'm not gonna say this is a bad idea but will say this is pretty much futile. Very slow growing palm with maybe 3to4 fronds a year. If said fronds get toasted you will have an ugly palm for a long time. I have a bottle in a pot for over 5years now where I winter it in my garage from Dec to March

T J 

Nice bottle TJ!  

[OC2Texaspalmlvr]

12 minutes ago, Fusca said:

Nice bottle TJ!  

Has been a carefree palm other then having to winter in my garage. It's in full sun and loves it =) 

T J 

[Fusca]

17 minutes ago, OC2Texaspalmlvr said:

Has been a carefree palm other then having to winter in my garage. It's in full sun and loves it =) 

T J 

Mine basically defoliated in my garage during the freeze so it only has one leaf at the moment.    Slowly but surely it is coming back.

[JLM]

3 hours ago, OC2Texaspalmlvr said:

I'm not gonna say this is a bad idea but will say this is pretty much futile. Very slow growing palm with maybe 3to4 fronds a year. If said fronds get toasted you will have an ugly palm for a long time. I have a bottle in a pot for over 5years now where I winter it in my garage from Dec to March

T J 

Good to know, mine just put out a new frond, stands out a lot compared to the other fronds which are sun burnt! Do they like full shade?

[OC2Texaspalmlvr]

34 minutes ago, JLM said:

Good to know, mine just put out a new frond, stands out a lot compared to the other fronds which are sun burnt! Do they like full shade?

I have no shade in my backyard so I wouldn't know. 

 

1 hour ago, Fusca said:

Mine basically defoliated in my garage during the freeze so it only has one leaf at the moment.    Slowly but surely it is coming back.

That suxs how cold do you think your garage got down too ? Mine barely hit 32° 

T J 

[Fusca]

13 hours ago, OC2Texaspalmlvr said:

I have no shade in my backyard so I wouldn't know. 

 

That suxs how cold do you think your garage got down too ? Mine barely hit 32° 

T J 

Not sure but probably about the same.  All fronds turned black just a few days after I took it back outside and the spear stayed green.  It's much smaller than yours.

[JLM]

Foxtail has been in the ground for almost a year now (March 16th will be 1 year). It has survived the winter! It got wrapped up quite a lot throughout the winter but i expected that. It managed to throw out two fronds last summer, but it only has 2 fronds right now (the one in the picture above and the second one put out over the summer). The reason it only has two is because the first whole frond it put out got broke when the people doing the roof dropped a bunch of shingles on the palm. Luckily it only broke that one frond. I was pretty pissed about that frond being broke. Anyways, its growing fine now and should be opening a new spear soon. Looking forward to another growing season!

[DAVEinMB]

@JLM where's the pic??