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Finally, some more people who are agreeing with me lol... Best part is they can take this nonsense, and keep moving forward... Sabals FTW!

It's close to us here in NTX..... it's 60 right now here in North Dallas, and 28 just a few hours west in Wichita Falls, TX.... Who's ready for a nice zone 8 winter????? Buckle up boys! I recorded a video, walked around the property, and showed how we are protecting a few of our palms. https://youtu.be/yPKoHtVwF4I

Prediction for NTX... Word on the street is 60-75 hours of below freezing (marginally, mid to upper 20's), and some cold temps, albeit these moderated quite a bit. They had us getting 4-6f initially last weekend which has changed substantially. Still much can happen between now and saturday night\sunday morning.. it's cold, and the only three palms I am protecting with much of any effort include Butia x Jubea, Jubea x Butia, and a Butia. They will get a string or two of C9 incandescent lights, with a frost cloth on top. I did this last winter's blast, and they did swimmingly... The Sabals, are ALL up to their own devices. Many will get burned, look crappy for a few months, but a wet spring, and sun will allow them to outgrow their damage. It happened last year too, just wish it didn't happen two dang times in a row. Whatever doesn't make it, will be noted, and replaced with something bulletproof here.

Ad the holy grail of northern California palms: Dypsis decipiens

Was 50/50 if I was going to bring these in for the cold that’s about to happen. Decided to haul them in the garage, was a decent time to count them. If anyone wanted to know what 1400 Sabal seedlings looks like here it is.

@Palmensammler I think -15°C is already pushing it for Trachies so yours might be very healthy and I'm also a strong believer (from experience with some species) that growing seedlings in your location makes them more adapted. It doesn't do wonders but especially winter moisture tolerance seems to be somewhat "trainable". @Than I also left most seedlings out during that last cold spell - right next to the wall though... But I also left a clump of Phoenix dactylifera seedlings in wet soil outside. We had 3 nights of hard freezes (-5°C) and one day with a high just below zero. I wanted to test them and weed them out. P. canariensis has survived this with very little damage in a similar scenario. I know P. canariensis can handle moisture better but I'm very curious how well they will fare. I constantly eat dates so I have plenty of seedlings anyway...

It breaks my heart to see those poor hummingbirds dealing with the frozen feeders, not to mention winter flowers that have now perished in the PNW. I'm so happy that people do put out thawed nectar to keep these poor buggers going. Here in S. Central Texas, I haven't seen a hummingbird since November but see them still appearing on the local ebird accounts. I suppose I'm ready in San Antonio for the cold, as well as I can be. I've got my new Queen wrapped in frost fabric with lights strung within, as well as my two young Mexican Fan Palms that are still growing. Here's hoping the cold isn't so bad and we stay in the 20's and above freezing during the day. We all know that no matter what temperature they forecast for the high, if there are thick clouds and it's cold, it doesn't warm up. Pray for sun on the coldest days. Good luck y'all! This too shall pass. ☀️🌴

Ehh, those oceanic warm zones don't feel right to me. Sure, zone 9 or 10 but when it's 30s and 40s all winter with 0 sun and 0 UV and then 60s and 70s with clouds in summertime with a few warmer days.... idk, doesn't feel like a zone 9. I think Australians use a different system where they factor in heat as well. Sure you can grow some palms albeit slowly in these oceanic zones but what's the point of palms if the weather never even feels tropical? Western Europe has also largely lucked out on any crazy cold for going on 15 years now.

To me it's not irrelevant what grows in Europe at a latitude that's hundreds of miles further north because I'm here in Texas , not in Germany or England . Might be all true what you're saying but I honestly don't feel a disadvantage of growing palms here. It's not a competition right ? All I know and see is that severe freezes like that happen sometimes more or less in the U.S. . Nothing new but palms have been growing here before I was born and will continue after I'm 6 feet down. Sabal palmetto and mexicana are absolutely bulletproof as well as Washingtonia Filifera and Filibusta . 2021 only killed palms that should not be planted at first place. Everything else recovered well .

Here's a few perennials and tender plants on this mild, overcast January 12th

I don’t like when the first number is a 3 :-(

Pritchardia flynnii in center field catches the guava. That caught my eye as I walked by.

I don't really understand why many people have this attitude about them either. Imo they look tropical and exotic (especially when they're not over trimmed), more so than Washingtonia. You see them all over South Florida growing in the Everglades.

Did you say, "more" Dave? Say no more fam

I am not able to id this Anthurium, is it cristallinum, clarinervium or something else? A friend of mine reported growing this species successfully outside here in Rome, so I acquired a plant too. He, I think, has lost his, mine is still alive, growing in a pot, I recover it when the temperature goes lower than 0°C. Is it a miracle it surviving, or not? I see it is recomended for zone 11 and higher

I feel bad for you guys, our PNW canadian friends. You guys hadn't had any breaks from the arctic lows these past two or three years. My low this year is 14/15F, I am back into zone 8b. Even Portland, OR got much colder this year 13F. 🤐. Hopefully, there won't be any palm casualties.

Agreed. It is hard to tell from an immature leaf. Yes Florida does ship to probably every state and certainly into Canada. Their ornamental plant industry is huge. I used to have a nursery and frequently bought P. selloum in Florida. Can not say some of the old types selloum are not shipped out now but do know that I keep an eye out at nurseries and have only seen "Hope" type (or so the labels say) for several years now on my travels around the east. "Hope" is probably better for indoors but the older type would be larger and so more impressive outdoors I would think. If anyone knows where to get seed please post here.

It depends on the size you're getting and how quickly you want to create a solid screen. 2-3' would be fine and staggering would create an appearance of greater depth. Thankfully, Chrysalidocarpus Lutescens grows very quickly in Florida 10A and should create a great hedge for you. A slightly less cold-sensitive alternative, with similar results, would be using Caryota Mitis. Side Note: In my opinion, the Areca Palm doesn't look its best in full FL sun. In part sun, you'll get a more impressive, healthier palm. You could achieve this by planting a tree sporadically (every 20-30 ft.) along your hedge that will eventually offer it a bit of shade and frost protection.

That's why they're referred to as islands, they're surrounded by water. 🤣 There's somewhat of a mitigating factor to extreme cold here (Vancouver Island) as well, although not as pronounced as England. Our proximity to the mainland and a northerly latitude are aspects that work against us. I haven't seen any birds since the vortex started.

Day 2 of the "vortex" and not as cold overnight as yesterday 20.5°F (-6.4°C).

Jeff sold this palm to Gary Gragg, who dug up and transplanted it. The palm did not survive. Gary documented this activity in his Youtube videos.

Sounds promising, never thought they could be that hardy. Hopefully I get enough survivors for a trial. First part of the seeds (6 out of 30) will be the ones where I hope to learn how to keep them alive. Eckhard

Hummingbirds are one of my favorite birds in the wild . We do have a lot of plants in our yard that also attracts Hummingbirds and bees when everything is blooming.

Ended up with ~3.5 inches of rain in December. A good haul and nothing below 43F, so less chance of root rot than when we get a few of those nasty nights where the first number is a 2 or a 3 It's an above normal year from the statistics, but the bulk of the summer rain fell in one or two events each month. We did have some trace rain amounts that didn't register on my gauge the last two months. After the next day or two, the area should be over 3.5 inches of rain for the start of 2024, but with a few nights in the 30s to ruin that whole zone 11 dream.

That is what I try to do here take advantage of my microclimate and grow and experiment with palms and tropical plants. There might be better places to on Earth to grow palms, but since they will grow and some do pretty well here might as well take advantage of that. It is certainly a lot nicer to look into the garden and see king palms ect than just a grass lawn and deciduous trees. I'm guessing that is why most people on here grow palms because they look nice and make the garden more visually appealing.

As Tracy said, they got a Bismarkia of mine (as well as CIDP) and...I'm going to dig into this today, but this Sabal is almost certianly a victim. I also have a Pritchardia acting odd and just went out and pulled some leafbases down and found a tunnel. So can confirm Pritchardia too. On both the Sabal and Pritchardia, the first sign I noticed of anything off was that on each palm a single leaf suddenly died/dried up. In both cases the leaf was about half-way down the crown, which is confusing to me and made me skeptical it was the weevil. But clear now that it is. At this point I think my main goal is to get in there and kill all the grubs to limit spread.

Like I mentioned earlier I'm originally from Germany and I traveled around Europe a lot. The only places that weren't known for being overcast and rainy for numerous days each year were France, Italy and Spain . The weather in the UK and Ireland is awful. Mostly overcast, not really warm, only in the summer and rain fall is common. Sure some places allows them to grow some palms which is good . I just don't like these comparisons about who can grow what . I focus on my yard not in the UK , Key West or Honolulu and I certainly don't want to move to these places and worry about cost of living or hurricanes just to tell everyone hey look and see how great my coconut palms look like . If you already live there that's a different story I'm just saying I'm here I'm stuck in San Antonio that's my home and I try my best to successfully grow palms and it isn't even nearly as cold as the 1980s and so far there many palms in this area ( not like coastal cities here in TX or Florida) .

Garden work has been minimized during winter time, which leaves me time to post pictures of two Phoenix hybrids from same mother (not only as a species but also as an individual), Phoenix loureiroi, but from different father, Phoenix theophrasti and roebelenii respectively. First the x louphrasti hybrid And spine details Then the x loureilenii hybrid And spine details

I need @Philly Jto come get his weather

I know they will def handle 0 to -1 degrees Fahrenheit because I had about 10 clients with them, and no one lost any. and don’t seem to mind humidity, so for sure worth a try in your climate. They have surprised me, one thing I have noticed in my climate were some of them are receiving weekly irrigation and heavier rain fall than they ever get in habitat, they seem to keep their leaves the entire growing season

Out of the 40 species I have, only my Thrinax Radiata is getting any protection everyone else I am not too worried about but I will report any damage I notice. Fortunately even though I am supposed to drop below freezing on Tuesday my outlook is much better than most in Texas:

Lerwick Scotland UK in the northern Shetland Islands is at 60 degrees north and is zone 9. Some winters are near zone 10 with no hard freeze. It has colder summers but milder winters than even western Norway where there is a botanical garden with palms at about 59 degrees north in Stavanger. The annual average temp in Shetland is 8 C or 46 F which is cold but that's at a Stevenson screen weather station on a hill outside of Lerwick city. Stavanger is a bit colder in the winter with more frost but has a more defined warm season with summer several degrees warmer than the northern isles. Copenhagen also had a 9b or 10a winter a few years ago with no hard freeze.

👀Euro Jan 20 and 21st 👀

We're about to get smoked by the vortex over here as well. There is a bit of a split going on with one going down North America, which you will get, one going down Scandinavia and through western Europe, which I will get, and a third going down far east Russia, China and Japan. The American vortex doesn't even look that bad to be honest, but you have no seas or oceans there to moderate the polar airmass like we do in western Europe. The European vortex looks bigger and worse, but the effects are more mitigated over here by the time it crosses open water. I can see Monday night night going down to 30F at London City airport even. A few of those days are barely rising above freezing as well too. These are crap temperatures ffs. 🙄 We already fought off one bombardment of cold over the past week, but will need to fight off another next week. The European continent has just been smoked. Some of it reached across the English channel into southern England, but the difference on the other side of the channel was about 5C / 10F of protection. This time it will be coming from the north however. These were midday / lunchtime temperatures on Tuesday. Look at the temperature (°C) gradient between the continent and eastern England... The cold airmass tried to make a final push across on Wednesday night, but the English channel ate it up mostly. The exposed St James Park in London went down to 0.3C / 33F. Now we await round two, involving the actual vortex displacement. We are going to need some luck on both sides of the pond.

Went by today to see if this P. roebelenii was still there. No it is not. I have seen a few survive in this same area for several years in a row before but they all sooner or later get the killer freeze.

Last 5 days constantly below zero. Night temps droped down to -8,5°C / 16,7°F while during days temps did only reach -2°C / 28,4°F. Forecast says it should become warmer for a few days and then we will have cold temps again. My trachies are still unprotected (11 plants from 3m to few cm) I hope spring will come soonest, can't wait to go out and do some work in the garden. Eckhard

Bottomed out at 9F this morning! It’s only 14F and sunny at 11am here in Metro Vancouver. Another brutal night down to 10F. Pretty sure some plants will get destroyed before we send the vortex packing south to Texas!

Downtown Houston Robustas swaying around before 22/24° @Xenon here are updated daytime pictures:) IMG_7743.mov

Hummingbirds have been here all day, time to defrost again.

The trouble with tissue culture and palms is that you have to get material from the growing bud deep inside the palm. To do that you kill the main plant. That’s not an issue if you have many many of that species still around. In this case we have one and if you get it wrong…………. Im of the opinion that this one last palm may have been remnant wild vegetation. Unlike its neighbour Reunion island which has mountain peaks in the 2500m plus range, Mauritius although mountainous is older geographically and doesn’t have a peak as high as 900m. Curepipe is in the 600-700m altitude range. Hyophorbe amaricaulis was first described in the 1770s from further north around a mountain called Peter Bothe (I need to check spelling). If you’ve been to Mauritius you will recall a fairly prominent mountain that sticks out quite dramatically in the landscape. It’s in the mid 800m range from memory. No remnant forest exists there any more and probably hasn’t for 200 years. It’s basically bare with cane fields and grassland now. This was the type locality for Hyophorbe amaricaulis and it was reportedly abundant there. (One can only imagine what that forest and in fact all of Mauritius would have looked like in 1770, with most of its old growth forests still intact and untouched.) So I think the one last one in Curepipe is in it’s correct climactic area to fruit. It does flower regularly if you see it from pics on the web and does fruit too. Just germination is near impossible without heroic efforts, and the growing them on has been the sticking point so far. We are almost there though. If we can just figure out how to keep the seedlings alive. I know from growing H indica, that although they germinate well, if something doesn’t suit them at that young age (too wet, too hot etc) they can almost die instantly. Once older they are fine. We shouldn’t be giving up, we are almost there.

March will be 7 years. Pic taken in early Jan, Orlando, FL

When we moved in, our house had: - 8 Queen Palms - 15 Washies - 15 Pygmy Dates For various reasons we started removing ALL of the Queens & Washies (the Pygmies got a pass - for now at least). ☠️ The first palms we replaced them with was two Caryota gigas (now obtusa), which we put in two corners of the yard. We also planted a Triple King Palm in another corner for shade. Then life got in the way... and our yard stayed empty for many years - which made me sad (though the two Caryota gigas did bring me a surprising amount of joy). In the meantime I focused on increasing my collection of Bromeliads, Hibiscus, and other small tropical plants. 🌺 Then several years ago I got sick of the empty spaces in the yard, and posted on Palmtalk - "If you had a relatively large blank slate - and lived in SoCal - what would you plant?" The answers came fast & furious and they were all palms I had never heard of. So I "took a drink from a firehose" and started researching. 💦 I put together a list of palms I liked, but was especially enthralled with Dypsis leptocheilos ("teddy bear")... and eventually found a small one locally. This is the plant I consider my "gateway palm" - and I now own several of them. 🐻 Then I went nuts... scooped up a bunch of other palms locally, and placed a massive Floribunda order (per a Palmtalk suggestion). My rationale was "If I have to wait years for my Teddy Bear palm to grow up, I might as well start the clock on some other interesting palms!" I wasn't sure which ones to get (even after all my research), so I bought ALL of the Dypsis and many many others. Floribunda's relatively low pricing made obtaining a huge collection possible - and I've been enjoying the experience of raising palms (in addition to owning them). 🌱 There are other factors that contributed to the Palm collecting bug... For example, I've always wanted to go to Hawaii and despite getting a trip on the calendar THREE times, it's always gotten cancelled for one reason or another. And at this point my special needs son is no longer "portable" - so I've instead decided to build "Hawaii" in my own yard (to some degree at least). I spend the vast majority of my days at home, so I figure it should be a nice place to be. I also discovered that working in a tropical-themed garden makes me happy (better than anti-depressants). 😊 At this point I have several "showcase" palms in the ground... many palms I'm hoping to put in the ground this spring... and a huge collection of baby palms in pots. Along the way, I also found a very nice group of people who I find funny & friendly (yes YOU guys). Despite being in the palm collecting hobby a relatively short time, I feel like I'm a part of the group, and have ideas to contribute. I love reading your posts and seeing all the beautiful photos every day. Yes, I'm totally hooked at this point, and am a true "palm nut" 🥥

Another year of growth on this now Chrysalidocarpus decipiens, so 11 years from when I bought it at a Palm Society Auction in 2013 (photo in the pot at beginning of this topic string). Still no visible trunk but I can tell when the leaf bases come off that it isn't too far below the soil line now on the larger trunk. The heel is still readily visible. This one has been a consistent performer, unlike the first one I planted (last two photos) which put all its energy into splitting into multiple trunks. The size difference is pretty amazing considering the smaller plant went into the ground in late 2010 or early 2011 from a pot similar in size to the other one was when I planted it years later. The first one I planted is acting more like a shrub in the garden than a tall growing palm, but I guess I just need to be patient.

2024 Save the Species campaign? Sounds like there have been partially successful attempts to propagate but seedlings don’t survive when transplanted from sterile to fertile media. Surely with the worldwide fascination into this species, enough funding could be generated to have a really good go of it.

Palmeraie-Union is pleased to propose you the brand new issue no. 50 of its associative magazine Latania. On the program: visits to Reunion gardens, a look back at the latest activities of our association, and as always, incredible botanical stories from all over the world. In particular, you will discover on the front page the incredible discovery made recently by our friend Pierre-Olivier ALBANO in Madagascar! The Latania 50 is available for download at the following address: http://www.palmeraie-union.com/latania_pdf/latania50.pdf For memory, all issues of Latania are now available at the following address: http://www.palmeraie-union.com/latania.php Very good reading

This CDIP is growing in our neighborhood. Wonder how many freezes it survived. What a true winner.

Not quite another 5 years from March of 2018, but within a couple of months. Maybe both of them will have even opened new leaves by the time March of this year arrives and the full cycle has been completed. Still no trunk on either but they are getting taller. Trunk thickness can be compared to the blocks in the wall behind which are standard 8"x8"x16" blocks.

I wondered since you mentioned friends in you original post.