I bet another palm to try in the inner city would be…chamaedorea plumosa baby queen palm.

There were two devastating freezes in the 80s, one in 83 and another in 89 just as replanted gardens were coming back from 83. Many folks gave up on marginal plants, period. The double hit was just too painful. And the 89 freeze was even more devastating than actual low temps because of the way it hit. It had been an extremely warm fall and early winter. Just a few days before it was in the 80s. The blistering front, which got down to single digits in some places outright killed both plants and animals on a very wide scale. Lakes that have never before frozen over in recorded history had solid sheets of ice on them. In South Louisiana, just next door to Houston, millions of fish were killed in the marshes because early cool had not yet driven them to deeper water. Even New Orleans' heat island could only stop the low at 12 degrees. It was a 100 year+ freeze, but it altered the landscape and limited the vision for decades. Only in the last 10-20 years have people begun to be adventurous again.

To my knowledge Texas Phoenix Palm Decline has not been a problem in Houston, it has ravaged the Phoenix genus in the Rio Grande Valley, and has been present to a lesser extent around Corpus Christi, but not much north of there.

Whatevever the case, many of the old CIDPs are dead/dying.

How have the phoenix sylvestris been doing in Texas?

I've been poking around a little with google street view in downtown Houston. Extremely scarce palmage, worse than I had hoped, some nice palms at the aquarium though.

New Orleans did some nice P dact plantings after Katrina.

At 29 degrees latitude and less than 30 something miles from the nearest large body of water, the frustration is understandable. I feel lt's such a let down when areas that can sufficiently grow palms don't. And there are a multitude of areas with people that would do backflips at the opportunity of growing even a phoenix or a queen palm and you don't even see a trachycarpus or sabal in said area. With that said, I was pleased with Columbia Metro Airport near me. They recently have added about 8 more sabals outside of a newly renovated parking garage. They have the palmetto theme going on there; sad it isn't going on in a place like Houston where its a near perfect climate for most cold hardy palm trees.

+1 palm trees like Syagrus, Phoenix, Washingtonias, Sabal and Butias grow in Europe up to 43ºN

At 29 degrees latitude and less than 30 something miles from the nearest large body of water, the frustration is understandable. I feel lt's such a let down when areas that can sufficiently grow palms don't. And there are a multitude of areas with people that would do backflips at the opportunity of growing even a phoenix or a queen palm and you don't even see a trachycarpus or sabal in said area. With that said, I was pleased with Columbia Metro Airport near me. They recently have added about 8 more sabals outside of a newly renovated parking garage. They have the palmetto theme going on there; sad it isn't going on in a place like Houston where its a near perfect climate for most cold hardy palm trees.

+1 palm trees like Syagrus, Phoenix, Washingtonias, Sabal and Butias grow in Europe up to 43ºN

Yes, and this is true even as far north as 45 degrees latittude when you consider places like Genoa (Genova), Italy and the coastal Liguria region east of Genoa with all of the palm trees there. I have seen lots of phoenix canariensis there.

Actually, I have seen a lot of Washingtonia Robusta and Phoenix Canariensis in southern coastal regions of France like Alpes-Maritimes, le Var and Bouches-du-Rhône. Paris, of course, is at about 50 degrees north and it has plenty of Trachycarpus Fortunei around the city.

In the southern coastal regions of France, as well as in Greece and Italy, you have the impression that winter is always fluctuating somewhere between 8 degrees celcius and 12 degrees celcius. It's generally cold-ish coat weather all winter (not as warm as the southern coast of Spain and Portugal), except during random warm snaps. Yet, because the difference between night and day temperatures is minor, palms survive and thrive in those regions.

By contrast, Houston in Texas can sometimes have overnight lows which are extremely cold for a couple of hours. Yet Houston's typical winter afternoons are in the low 20s celcius with a much stronger sun than the northern Mediterranean coast. As a result, in the daytime Houston is generally warmer than the Mediterranean coastline of France, Italy or Greece, but it isn't a better place to grow palms. Houston's winter is like a German summer by day, and like a German winter by night --- on occasional nights, at least. I haven't spent a lot of time in Houston, but that has been my understanding.

New Orleans did some nice P dact plantings after Katrina.

That's one positive thing I've noticed in Houston, a fair amount of P dacty's when I do find palms, they look good, a bunch of them at the aquarium, a few others at hotels and stuff.

Someone asked about Archontophoenix. I got a ton of tuckeri seedlings from CA this spring and they are slowly melting. However, Chambeyronia and Actinokentias from same grower are loving it here. Also, have some Areca vestiarias from FL for my atrium.

On 8/18/2015, 12:59:26, Sandy Loam said:

It sounds as though you can get away with growing more tropicals in Houston than in San Antonio, TX, even though S.A. is farther south. Obviously your growing options are broader in Brownsville, TX and even in Corpus Christi, TX because those are places where coconut trees are growing. Yet would it be uncautious to say that Houston can rival even, say, Laredo TX for growing tropicals?

 

Clearly, Houston doesn't get as cold as Austin TX, and Dallas TX must be like a completely different planet with its brutal, freezing winter weather.

From 1990 onwards. Houston (at least in the warm heat islands, and water-moderated areas) matches, or even exceeds Laredo, in terms of annual winter minimums over the period. Houston Hobby and Laredo are exactly the same, an average of 28F. However, Laredo obviously has more heat during the winter days.

Even though many areas of South Texas (especially the coast) offer warmer winters for palm growing than Houston.... I actually have a preference for the "look" seen in Houston, due to the wetter climate that allows for more verdance.

On 8/28/2015, 9:16:22, Sandy Loam said:

By contrast, Houston in Texas can sometimes have overnight lows which are extremely cold for a couple of hours. Yet Houston's typical winter afternoons are in the low 20s celcius with a much stronger sun than the northern Mediterranean coast. As a result, in the daytime Houston is generally warmer than the Mediterranean coastline of France, Italy or Greece, but it isn't a better place to grow palms. Houston's winter is like a German summer by day, and like a German winter by night --- on occasional nights, at least. I haven't spent a lot of time in Houston, but that has been my understanding.

Sort of a "yes and no" deal. Frostless areas of the Med certainly have far broader options, but for palms that can grow in Houston, I feel that they can take advantage of the winter heat/soil warmth not seen in the Med.

Even with a record low of 9F, there are still a lot of options.  With all the oil money there, they surely can afford to spruce it up a little.

On 8/18/2015, 1:39:46, Xerarch said:

I think that the problem in Texas is that native large Sabals are not widely distributed as they are in Florida. These days, the native range of S. mexicana (texana) is just a very small area along the Rio Grande, and Sabal X brazoriensis perhaps never had a wide distribution. Contrast this to Florida where just about the entire state is covered with mature S. palmetto, an easy source to dig and plant all over town. It is a real shame however that even though large parts of Texas are thick with native S. minor, that they don't appear to get adequate landscape use. No doubt they are seen by "none palm people" as less attractive and not very desirable.

 

In spite of all this, I believe that Houston ought to be thick with various Sabals, even a repeat of 1989 wouldn't put a dent in them. After all, Washingtonia isn't native and they seem to be planted all over the place and are less hardy to boot. I know, they are cheap and grow fast, etc. but there is little doubt that the climate is more suited for Sabal.

Meanwhile, the common palm of the city, the Washingtonia, is native only to a state thousands of miles away..

 

On 8/19/2015, 7:35:47, meteorologistpalmguy said:

 

It took it.. but not well. Was heavily wrapped and under canopy but still had plenty of burn (was only one night that cold). Still pushed through and looks good now after last winter being relatively mild. I fully expect that puppy to get killed by the cold at some point (I treat it more as an annual).

 

The problem with Houston is that indeed we are 9a/9b/10a most winters, but the nature of our location (in reality not that far displaced to the east of the Rocky Mountains (at least from a meteorologist's perspective), means that when a true polar airmass rides down the front range (due to density gradients) it can pour right into Houston unabated ala late 1980s or 2011 for a more recent example. These airmasses then tend to moderate as they spread eastward and/or traverse over the Gulf of Mexico so places like Florida do not get it as bad as we do, but in these 1 out of 25 year events we see an 8a winter and it eliminates everything that looked like it was cold hardy for the prior 24 years. Certainly the expansion of Houston's population is helping moderate even the coldest of winters, but in my opinion we can almost bet on a zone 8 winter still at least once every 25. We probably will not ever see the all time record low of 5 degrees again though, or even the 7 degrees seen in 1989. The lowest Houston (IAH) has seen since 1989 is 19 degrees on a couple of occasions. Take all that and add about 2 degrees for Hobby airport or the south side of Houston.

Florida is really the only place to the east in the US that is warmer at equivalent latitude. Places in coastal Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Carolinas are farther east, yet get much colder temps than Houston sees (on average, and in extremes). Coastal Louisiana around New Orleans is around the same as Houston in winter warmth (probably slightly warmer at best), and that's with having a moderating water body to the north.

Houston needs more Bismarckia! It got just below 20F last winter (I live in a colder part of town) and the few Bismarckia around here fared even better than the queen palms! Many of the ones growing closer to town were nearly undamaged...

This one survived 17F in 2010, 18F in 2011, and 19F last winter. To be fair, the palm was nuked after the first two sub 20F winters and didn't really look decent until 2014. It handled last winter much better - no stunted growth (probably because we had a pretty extreme warm-up...January averaged a mean temp 6-7 degrees above average at 60F and February was downright tropical). Picture is from March...has grown several more fronds by now. 



Livistona decora should also be more common. Seems to be more hardy than a queen palm. Strange that the only place you see them is in the medians off Interstate 45 as it goes southbound from downtown. 

Edited June 29, 20178 yr by Xenon