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It didn't look far on the map ! Curiosity has been killing this cat for quite some time so why not take a wee Sunday drive down to Halfway Creek ? I took the dust covers off my Miracle of Swedish Engineering, put on my Souvenir of Oodnadatta pure Irish Linen apron (made in China) grabbed a wondercloth (as seen on TV) gave it wipe down, chucked on some slap and hit the road. Me who only drives to the supermarket (0.8 klms) once per week at a maximum speed of 40 klms per hour, found her flustered little self facing 360 klms of freeway with a 110 kph speed limit. EEK. I am so glad I had a manicure the night before as my finger was very busy on that trip. All those Land Cruiser and Electric Buzzy Car drivers are so rude to sweet little matrons on the road and apparently quite envious of my stately Volvo. Of course I am too polite to mention the paupers who have to display their poverty by driving a Kia. (ugh) So I finally arrived at my destination, drove carefully up the little bush track (thanking providence that I have AWD) and found myself among the palms. Oooh la la. Rather than vulgarly announcing my presence, I took a little wander into the nearest greenhouse with my big handbag open in anticipation but was surprised by a nasty little camera hidden in there. Naturally it was all a mistake, I wasn't stealing any palms, I just put them in my bag for safe keeping. Richard found it wiser to believe me than to prosecute. He apologised for mistaking me for a common floraklept and I said sorry for pulling a switchblade, (hey it's dangerous for ladies out there) and we embarked on tour of the most amazing palm collection I have ever seen. I had to keep asking names as there were so many I have never seen before and a few I haven't even heard of. Even his Chamadoreas were huge. The he showed me another greenhouse the size of Grand Central Station, packed to the rafters with baby palms of every species know to man. Start saving up people as in a couple of years this part of the world will no longer retain the palm desert status it currently holds. But don't just wait till then, it is well worth a visit with a well padded wallet for purchasing a plethora of rare and gorgeous palms. You too can say pooh Pooh at those palm privileged people in Far North Qld. A big thank you to my host Richard for a better day out than any of my weddings, and thank you to those clever people in Gothenburg who thoughtfully included an enormous palm carrying area when designing their wonderful vehicles. I did not shop for palms, I pillaged ! What did I buy ? Well I will put up photos at a later date just to keep you hanging ! Peachy, palm purchaser and recent convert to motoring the proper way.

This is a great hybrid, get yourself one if you can find it. I really like the thin trunk.

Cold hardy palm trees in Dallas zone 8a at 15F after sleet storm. 🌴🥶

I bottomed out at 24F in the middle of the night and warmed up a couple of degrees by 6 am. Still below freezing though and heavy cloud cover. Forecasted high of 38F but it's not looking like we'll make that unless the sun comes out soon. I'm at about 24 consecutive hours below freezing. I haven't gone out to look at anything, but I did see my Philodendrons don't look so happy.

These model runs paint a dire picture and they are virtually on our doorstep, which is most concerning. The NWS Melbourne synopsis this morning is issuing a heads up. I will include it (edited for brevity) is it is worth a read. Of course, you can go to the NWS site for the complete synopsis. The door remains wide open for additional surges of Arctic air into the eastern United States over the next week to ten days. Teleconnection graphs show a `trifecta` of sorts for unusually cold weather. First, the Arctic Oscillation is reaching a nadir of -5 early this week and is forecast to remain negative for the balance of the next two weeks. NAO has also gone negative, and right on cue, the PNA is going positive. Hemispheric charts tell the tale as H5 heights are forecast to remain above normal over the Arctic. This displaces much colder air southward into the mid-latitudes. While below normal temperatures are favored for the foreseeable future, timing out and assessing the risks for impactful cold and freezing temperatures across Central Florida will require a closer look at individual disturbances within this active weather pattern. There are a pair of features worth keeping an eye on from later this week through the weekend. First, a piece of energy should pass from the Rockies into the Southeast around Thursday, reinforcing the Arctic air mass over the Eastern U.S. Trailing close behind appears to be another shortwave approaching Florida by around Saturday. Cluster analysis from the 25/12Z suite, along with early-arriving 26/00Z guidance, leaned toward some phasing of this feature with a lobe of the polar vortex to the north of the state. However, confidence remains very low, evidenced by a very large H5 height interquartile spread by next Sunday. If this disturbance interacts with the northern stream, the cold risks for Central Florida would become even more significant by the weekend. -------Sensible Weather & Impacts------- Weekend... To start off, there is no question that the forecast for the coming weekend will remain highly variable for at least two to three more days. The primary challenge is resolving whether two distinct pieces of energy, currently thousands of miles apart, will interact to form a large nor`easter-type storm along the Eastern Seaboard. While the trend has been moving in that direction over the last day or so, several ensemble members keep the features separated as they make their closest approach to Florida. This distinction is critical: when compared to a disorganized system, a strengthening low off the east coast could very effectively pull Arctic air much farther southward through the peninsula. What this means is a period of heightened uncertainty regarding both moisture and temperatures. We will carry low rain chances of 20-30% on Saturday as moisture tries to increase ahead of the arriving energy. If the two features mentioned before do interact, a blast of windy and much colder air would likely be felt here in Central Florida beginning sometime late Saturday and continuing into Sunday. Statistical guidance clearly illustrates the low-confidence scenario we are dealing with, as interquartile spreads jump to 10 to 15 degrees for both high and low temperatures from Saturday through Monday. Whether temperatures remain manageably cooler than normal or become significantly colder than normal is still in question. While this is more of a reasonable worst-case scenario signal, the overall pattern we are entering has historically supported major freezes and significant cold air outbreaks in Florida. Those making plans outdoors or whom have sensitive agricultural interests should keep a close eye on the forecast as this hopefully becomes clearer by mid-week. && The ramifications of an event such as this, if it plays out, will be felt far beyond the palm community. Let's hope that the worst scenario is avoided and best of luck to all.

Rio Rancho, NM z7b

same here at West Houston/Westchase area. I have areca palms out there covered with just regular tarp, nicolais and a few bromeliads. I checked them today and they looked... ok not as bad as I expected. We will see how they do with the freeze tomorrow morning. We are supposed to get to 21F. I'm concerned about next week and February... I just want this winter to be over but we still have a month down here in Houston. Tomorrow I will uncover my arecas and will post pics of the damage after it goes above freezing.

Interesting small palm with some pretty cool stilt roots. You can tell by the leaves that it’s an Areca. From the Bismarck Archipelago and Solomon Islands. Tim

19°F Saturday night, 25°F was the high yesterday , and 17°F last night in Lago Vista.

Took this, this evening

Super nice coloring there , makes me want to visit the islands again. I don’t get a true sunset on our place on this south facing hill. I do get some spectacular sunrises though! A SoCal sunrise with the Howea! Harry

Photos today following the ice storm. Low this morning got down to 22F, and the high got to 32F. Washingtonian robustas: Washingtonia filifera: Sabal uresana

Actually it was worse in the past by nearly every metric. In terms of absolute minimum temperature, The freezes in the 1980s, 1962, and 1890s were dreadful. Most of the places getting 20s and 30s next week went into the teens during some or all of those events. In terms of hardiness zones, the forecast from Weather.com has my minimum during this event at 32F. The minimum for the entire winter thus far is 31F. That's in line with the 2023 USDA Hardiness Map putting my portion of Lakeland in USDA 10a. The 1990 zone map had Lakeland in 9a and Orlando in 9b. That means the locations in question averaged low-20s and mid-20s each year, respectively. The zone maps from 1990, 2012, and 2023 show the change over time, even if they aren't great planting guides by themselves. In terms of long stretches of below average temperatures, January 1940, January 1977, Jan/Feb 1996, January 2010, and December 2010 had long stretches of cold that were much worse than this. While I wouldn't call it normal or typical, it does happen with regularity.

It was perfect tour weather for @PalmBossTampa and @Midnight Gardener over the weekend. The high at the airport today was 88F, breaking the old record by 3oF. Now we get about two weeks of garbage weather. Since the NWS and Weather.com forecasts are almost identical, we'll just stick with the graphic below +/-1. We'll see how this holds up and how the plants hold up to it:

Salam alaikum, sylvestris is always solitary, dactylifera is almost always suckering. Besides ratio of petiole's to entire leaf's length in sylvestris is 1/10 while in dactylifera is about 1/5. In other words petiole in sylvestris multiplied 10 times makes out entire leaf, while in dactylifera this is achieved through a multiplication by 5.

I know there are older threads with similar themes, but hopefully we can get this forum moving again. Post your pics before the snow melts.

24.8 in my backyard- Manvel much better than the 17° predicted a few days ago . dwarf bird of paradise look a bit sad as expected they all recovered nice from last January just to be fried again haha . And of course the bananas look gross

I'm staying here but I will 100 percent be retiring to key west or a coastal island.

If I lived in Australia, I would definitely have bought plants from Richard, and I'm sure he would have given me a discount on the price.

So far not as bad as predicted but not really far off either , it seems to be it's going to be like a typical San Antonio 8b winter even we didn't get below 21f but the forecast is 18f for tomorrow morning. The ice didn't melt as much as I hoped on my palms. Most palm fronds are still partially covered in ice. A lot of stuff outside of my palms are turning into compost . We're supposed to be well above freezing today so I hope that'll be enough to melt the rest of the ice .

My lows ranged from 23.9f to 26.1f, fairly uniform thanks to it being advective. Last I checked, it looked like SPI or Rio Grande City did the best in Texas. Both were around 37-38f at that time.

Looks like a low of 24-25F across most of Houston that was hit around midnight. The temp has actually risen to 26-27F across much of the metro area in the early morning hours! This is actually higher than the 21-23F forecast by NWS and local media for Houston (incl central Houston). The forecast was off in our WARM favor!!! A rare rare moment hahaha. Only one more night to go! My Bismarck and Queens still have a chance of not defoliating. Hope tonight is warmer than forecast again. Screenies from 6:10 AM

Those 'poisonous' and elusive details...😏

The microclimate right in front of a café in Thessaloniki can be much warmer than that of my exposed garden inside a valley in front of a creek in inland Messinia... Especially if the cafés use the common halogen stoves in winter 😅

Pay attention please, -5 C refer to large, mature specimens established in the ground. For potted juveniles I reckon -2 C is their limit.

It is the most reliable and suitable crowshafted palm for your climate!

My cunninghamiana took -2 C for several hours with zero damage. It was of course under canopy, but no extra protection. I have read they can take -4C for short periods.

I'm starting to get nervous about how many seeds you've sent me...should I take a trailer to the PO tomorrow?

Needmore pennsylvania z7a the first picture from today. I'll take some more tomorrow From december 5 2025 From december 5 2025 From december 15 2024 From december 15 2024

Cold hardy palm trees in Dallas zone 8a at 15F after sleet storm. 🌴🥶

Adventitious roots on C. costaricana and T. fortunei lending a bit of tropical flair to our cool-weather garden

Same here in Big D! Rough last couple days and it looks like almost 70 hours below freezing from what i calculate. Gawd knows how low it will go tonite if the skies clear as the whole region is compacted frozen sleet, snow. I guess the 2020s will go down as the icy epoch, will it continue into the 2030's? I covered and did the xmas lite addition thanks to all the peeps on here giving me the idea🤓 But, to my dismay, I was unable to find my old xmas lites in the attic or basement! Oh well, i think it will be more like the previous 5 winters- heavy leaf damage on Sabal bermudana and even Trachys but the minors and needle palms, minimal if any damage! Another cold wave next weekend but dry so far predicted, not that these forecasts have been worth a hill of beans😑

I've only been living around the Phoenix metro area for about 4.5 years but I would imagine it would take a lot for the type of event you're referring to. Anything is possible of course but Phoenix has grown substantially along with its UHI effect. The area is very shielded from the arctic air...The weather is much more stable and less prone to arctic outbreaks compared to the eastern two-thirds of the US. The more recent winters of 2022-23 and 2023-24 were more on the chilly side (especially 2022-23) with a lot of wet weather. However, the chilly weather basically consisted of long, drawn out periods of below average temps (i.e. highs in 50s and lows in 30s). I believe this coincided with an El Nino setup. There's the other poster who knows a lot more about the southwest climate and weighed in a bit about previous cold snaps here in 2007 and around 1990 +/- if I'm not mistaken. Apparently they weren't quite as bad as some people made them out to be but again, I didn't live here during those times. Bottom line is that the natural west to east flow of weather patterns across the US in addition to the terrain, helps shield the southwest from much of the arctic air when it comes down out of Canada.

Never have I heard such tall tales of a sweet lady at mass, with her Volvo that is only driven to 0.8ks a week to church on a Sunday! Richard

Salam. Thank you very much both of you for answering my request. I appreciate also the clue about the ratio of petiole's to entire leaf's length distinguishing the two species. I've learned something new today. Best wishes.

I believe I saw this movie on Brit Box, it was terrific. Tim

Growing up out there, vs. speculating on it via questionable record keeping, Yes, 1990 was cold, but definitely didn't " wipe out " all the interesting " tender" palms / other stuff that was ..and still is.. growing where i grew up ..inc. numerous Kings, White and Orange Bird of Paradise, Philodendron, Floss Silk tree, etc.. Remember too that many spots that were once undeveloped, pasture and ag. fields back in the late 80s / early 90s are now filled to the gills with concrete and buildings so, it will be much harder for ..areas in my own neighborhood that bottomed out the upper teens in the 90 freeze for example, to see the same deg. of cold again should a similar event occur there. Could it happen again? of course ..but i would be shocked to see the same readings.. Couple mornings waking up to lows in the 28-30F range? ..happens every few years.. Doesn't seem to bother anything. Even most of the " rural " spots south of San Jose, that can dip into the 20s on a few mornings every few winters, are warmer than way back then. Same idea across much of S.Cal.. 2007 wasn't much different.. and there is plenty of stuff planted at that time that shrugged off that event. MOO, damage seen during the significant frost / freeze events while living in FL seemed much more apparent / extensive than i can remember seeing after any extended cold event i'd experienced back home in San Jose.. Outside of the Central Valley, 99.8% of folks won't want to live in any of the far flung valleys out there that can still dip below 25F -with regularity- these days..

Syagrus would’ve been my guess as well on the first one but would not have had a clue to species. The second one stumped me but I remember seeing a similar leaf pattern on a palm that was posted here. Both are very nice palms . Harry

Lovely! I am glad you got to see something the rest of us in other continents could only imagine. I just hope you left a few for others that are lucky enough to make the journey😂. Looking forward to a follow up on your new acquisitions . Harry

Appear to have bottomed out around 30F at my place. Currently 30F right now and was up with my son around 2:00AM - it was 30F then too. Interestingly - temperature appears to be higher futher west. Rio Grande City is at 31 (usually they're colder) and Laredo (usually also colder) is only around 29F. NWS was predicting 26F for them.

Not for our climate? I am grateful this palm exists. For those of us who do not collect palms but we rather want to create a jungle-like garden and we don't care about having many species, it is a godsend. I don't wanna say too much because it is only January and we still have two cold months ahead; however, my kentia has seen the same conditions and also looks OK so far, although less happy than the Archontophoenices. The latter is still pushing a leaf right now, although very slowly. I hope both Archontophoenices and Howea survive. Nurseries in Messinia insist kentias cannot survive outdoors, even inside Kalamata. I hope they can. I'll know in April.

Yes I have noticed that too most sources say that king palms are not hardy at all or that they can minimum take a very short dry -2 but even with a.alexandrae nurseries that don’t really know about palms just let them sit outdoors even in the winter. Eventually they are left with 2 or 3 fronds but they do indeed survive without care.from the seeds that I ordered only the a.cunninghamiania had the “new” label so I’m really optimistic that most of them will sprout since I bought a heating mat too

If we are lucky enough when far North Queensland (cairns) has cyclones if it tracks south we can get a full wet week, the east coast low when that sets in my area becomes that true subtropical climate. The whole mid north coast area once was what they called the big scrub before settlement one huge rainforest. Close to 400 square kilometres of pristine environment a small Amazon jungle. Now settlement and land clearing has broken that up into large reserves national parks and state forest. A place where the rainforest from the tablelands met the ocean!

can’t believe i forgot the textbook difference of nonsuckering and suckering. and the petiole fact… i learned something new today too

Beautiful (when it's short lived)! I covered my Washingtonias last week since they just got put in the ground last spring. So no pictures. They will be uncovered again this week as temperatures get back up. The Sandia and Manzano mountains did there thing in protecting us from the brunt of the arctic blast once again!

Thanks! Yes, the "twins" or curved filifera are settling in. The largest filifera is about 16' tall.

Sandias did the protection And a microclimate definitely helps 40f in ABQ 41f double eagle 20f Moriarty 6f in Amarillo 50f+ something in my backyard/porch with partial sunshine! Might be a different story if the low pressure was to our west.

Good for you, Harry! They look super healthy now. You almost can’t walk through my landscape without seeing Archotophoenix. They’re everywhere. Nothing here seems to ever bother them either. Without them, I’d have WAY fewer palm species since they are the main shade producers. The low winter sun manages to get through though which is a plus.

Patiently waiting for the seed to mature