Roystonea on the Florida Panhandle

[Xhoniwaters1]

I was driving through Destin yesterday and saw this guy at one of the Gulf front hotels. Decided to pull over and snap a picture. First one I have ever seen around here and looked pretty darn good. It had a few small cracks in the bottom of the trunk but overall looking like it has been thriving well. Great news for those zone pushers up here like myself

[Alicehunter2000]

A mexican restaurant on Hwy 98 in Panama City tried a few back in 2009....didn't make it past that bad winter. If the winter is mild, like last year, it might survive .....but first "real" freeze and all bets are off. Good find though, will be interesting to see how long it makes it.

Where exactly is it located...would like to watch it as well.

[Xhoniwaters1]

I was surprised to see it seeing how I would LOVE to stack my property with the same tree If you are heading east I believe it is gulf side at the last hotel before bass pro shop.

[Joey Powell]

Here's a few pics of my Cuban Royal Palm in Enterprise AL, one taken in March 2008 (for reference) and three taken just a couple weeks ago in November 2012. I planted it in February of 2008.

MARCH 29, 2008 ==========

NOVEMBER 15, 2012 ==========

NOVEMBER 15, 2012 ==========

NOVEMBER 15, 2012 ==========

[_Keith]

Great job Joey. I am astounded you can grow this. Do you protect it in the winter in any way?

[Halekuma]

wow joey, thats impressive!!! how did you manage to make a roystonea grow in a 8b zone?(considering you had 20F last year)...

[Keith N Tampa (ex SoJax)]

Artifical heat source required? Its amazing regardless.

[Joey Powell]

When it was smaller I bulit a makeshift heated greenhouse around it (and then stored other plants as well.) Now that it is large I tie up the fronds just before the first frost (typically around Thanksgiving.) Then I wrap it in Christmas tree lights. It stays that way until just after the last frost. During frost and freezes, I wrap it in old bedspreads/comforters and then plug in the lights (Throughout the winter I remove the bedspreads/comforters whenever there is no danger of frost.)

I am able to do this again this winter, and probably the next also. I have a 12' stepladder, The other day, when I tied up the fronds, I noticed that it is now about 14 or 15 feet tall.

After it gets too tall...well, I guess I will have the memories LOL.

[palmsOrl]

Since you are really determined to keep it alive, once it gets too tall to cover, I would utilize one or two (larger, industrial) forced air heaters on nights with temps in the 20s or below. It should be feasible to do this since it is just one palm and not a yard full. Great to see an update on this and the new Roystonea in Destin.

[Alicehunter2000]

:bemused:

[Alicehunter2000]

I've been thinking about something like this as well........12 hours on a tank....approx $20....might be worth it on a few really cold nights

[Walt]

I've been thinking about something like this as well........12 hours on a tank....approx $20....might be worth it on a few really cold nights

I have two of those forced air propane heaters and one forced air kerosene heater. While they can be beneficial, I can tell you empirically they aren't as effective as bundling and wrapping a palm and also incorporating string lights or heating cables.

I do this every winter on a few of the coldest nights with my adonidia palm shown below. Just a heavy wrapping by itself helps, as it prevents frost on the foliage. Of course, this works for me here in the low end of zone 9b.

But crownshaft palms must be wrapped first with a terry cloth towel (or equivalent) to keep hot light bulbs and warm heating cables from scorching it. But my wrapping method has never failed me, not even when I had a low of 20.8 degrees in December of 2010.

But on a palm too big to wrap the crown, say a royal palm, if the trunk and meristem is wrapped and heated, the fronds might get toasted, but the palm will recover because the trunk and meristem is not cold damaged. I do this with some of my taller zone 10 crownshaft palms. Also, my small coconut palm I've kept alive this way for 5-6 years now.

With regard to my coconut palm, it survives winter after winter, but it gets totally defoliated, then it takes all spring, summer, and fall to regrow the crown. And even then it's not full. This winter I want to try and construct some tarp walls around my coconut and then use my propane heaters to blow so that the walls direct the heat up into the fronds so as to prevent frost. But on the coldest nights those 30K BTU don't do all that much.