Is this cold damage or did my palm get too hot?

[trachydude]

Hi guys, long time lurker, first time poster. I apologize if this is in the wrong forum. 

I live in zone 7 (Oklahoma City, OK).  We bought our windmill palm last march. It has been doing excellent up until a few weeks ago. Had a nasty cold snap where Temps dipped to 8°F for about 48 hours. I tied the fronds up and wrapped the tree in old style xmas lights. Plus mulched around the base. I unwrapped a few days later when Temps returned to around 55deg daytime. 

I was shocked at how bad the fronds looked, and now I'm panicking. I went up to the local nursery where I purchased the palm and there's look beaten up a bit, but not too bad. They have a few in ground that are close to 15ft tall. 

 

I've attached pics of what the tree looked like prob mid September,  how I wrapped it, and how it looks now. Trunk is about 6ft tall, with fronds, prob close to 10ft. Any advice is greatly appreciated. I did give the spear a little tug, it's still in there good, and green for the most part. 

[atlantisrising]

I'm not that familiar with windmills in cold, mine is doing fine for now in supposedly too hot Key Largo. If by getting too hot you are referring to possible excess heat from the bulbs, I doubt they could have thrown off enough heat to damage it, most likely culprit is cold. That's terrible nonetheless, it looked very healthy in before pic. Maybe it will grow out of it. BTW hats off to the Macguyver idea of using incandescent bulbs, very creative.

[trachydude]

I'm hoping it'll come back once spring hits. I think all the palms here took a hit with that cold snap. 

[Xerarch]

Welcome to the forum and getting out of lurker land!  I think the culprit is more likely the cold.  What did you wrap the fronds in? I hope it wasn't any kind of plastic, that could do more harm than good.  Depending on your location you may have gotten colder than the nursery which might account for the difference, also your palm is newly planted and theirs I'm supposing are not.  Whatever the case, I hope it pulls through when temps get warm again!

[Walt]

With respect to the fronds, did you use the string lights around them too? And you wrapped over the fronds? What did you use, if so? Did you leave the lights run 24/7 for days?

I'm an old hand (and getting old, too) at wrapping palms and using supplemental heat. I've damaged palm fronds/leaves using heating cables contact the foliage for too long. While the cables only ran warm, after 10 hours or so of direct contact the foliage got scorched. I lost an adonidia palm when I directly wrapped a heating cable around the crown shaft. Too much heat transferred into the crown shaft and basically cooked it.

I agree your windmill palm looks bad. Hopefully, the meristem (growth bud) wasn't heat damaged, as it should regrow a nice crown this spring and summer.

Below is how I used to protect my adonidia palm (I don't do so anymore as it's grown taller and it's too hard -- unsafe -- to try and total protect it).

What I've learned over the years is that you don't need lots of heat. Rather, you need good insulation. Good insulation will keep enough heat to keep a palm from freezing.

I use lots of flannel sheets and/or quilted mattress covers. The make great insulative wraps. However, they are no good if they get wet -- like when a cold front comes through and brings rain first (and the palm is already wrapped).

I have a coconut palm that's been in the ground 13 years. When it was small I use to bundle the fronds, wrap it with some heating cables, then wrap it with insulative sheets. It's much too big now, so I only wrap the trunk up past the meristem with heating cables, then wrap over the cables with mover's quilts, mattress covers, or flannel sheets. In December of 2010 I had 11 straight nights below 40 degrees, with six of those nights below 30 degrees, and three of those nights below 25 degrees! My lowest temperature of those nights was 20.8 degrees. Had I not protected my coconut palm's trunk and  meristem, it surely would have been killed.

One thing you could have done is built an enclose (down and dirty construction) using some 2x3's and 6 mil poly. In essence, making a small greenhouse (with fronds bundled so as to keep the enclosure as small as possible. Then install a heat source inside. The string lights would work, or, I use old discarded electric skillets my wife threw out.

Lastly, your palm should be easily protected without doing damage to it. Learn from this experience and try a better technique next time.

 

[trachydude]

Thanks for the tips!

What I basically did was tie the fronds up, then wrapped plastic around the bottom area, close to the growth bud area. I used plastic because there was supposed to be precipitation with the cold front. I then strung those old style xmas lights around that area, as well as down the trunk. They were on for two days, while the temp didn't ruse above 20deg. There was minimal contact of the lights on the fronds. I attached a close up pic. 

The bud area is still green,  so you think there's hope? And should I trim off the brown ones now or wait until spring?

[Walt]

Actually, your palm doesn't look that bad in the close up photo  you posted (with fronds pulled up and bundled). If that white wrap is plastic, you need to get rid of it. That's going to help hold moisture in the bud area.

What I would do is remove everything, then re wrap the lights. Get a long pole (1" PVC pipe, bamboo pole, wood furring strip, etc.) and cut it to length just above the top of the bundled fronds. Then start from the top of the pole and install flannel sheets, blankets, whatever you can get.  If I use flannel sheets, I take one corner and affix it to the top of the pole. I then wrap the sheet around and around, over lapping it to where it forms 2-3 layers. Naturally, the sheet will not cover the entire palm. Then you take another sheet and attach it to the bottom of the first sheet using spring type clothes pins. You do this until the entire palm is covered. BTW, the pole is for holding the static weigh of all of the sheets so that the palm isn't supporting the sheets (possibly breaking the fronds).

Now you have the palm wrapped with lights and sheets, so it's now nicely insulated with supplemental heat. Any risk of rain? You need to buy some 6 mill clear poly (like at Home Depot, Lowes, etc.). Cut it to length and cover the entire palm. That will keep the sheets dry. Also, if dew forms it will also keep the sheets dry. You palm is small enough so that you should be able to do what I described above.

The meristem is probably the most protected part of the palm in terms of cold, as it's more insulated than any other part of the palm. Your palm is probably okay. Don't remove any fronds as long as there's still green in them, as they will still provide some photosynthesis, plus help insulate the meristem. But if you just can't stand looking the almost dead fronds, then go ahead and remove them.

Also, I wouldn't even plug the lights in unless temperatures are going to drop below 20 degrees. I'm just guessing here, considering your palm is a windmill. 20 degrees for short duration shouldn't even faze your palm, I would think. I remember those old style X-mas string lights, but don't remember how hot/warm they are.  I'm only asking because if you cover them up with a sheet you might get hot spots. Having the lights wrapped around the trunk but with no insulative sheet to hold the heat in isn't going to do much to protect the palm.

I suggest that if you plan on keeping your palm indefinitely, you buy a length of thermostatically operated heating cables. I have many sets of them in various lengths. They run 7 watts per lineal foot, so they are not hot, but mildly warm. But they are very supple, much more supple than an extension cord, and you get heat throughout the length of the cable, not every 6-8" where a light bulb would be on string lights. Also, to wrap over them with sheets there's no danger of a hot spot. You can buy the cables off Amazon. Or, I ordered some once from my local hardware store. I'm talking about EasyHeat heating cables. There's other heating cables out there that are very stiff, especially in cold weather.

https://www.amazon.com/Easy-Heat-AHB-019-Weather-Heating/dp/B00002N6MB/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1483238508&sr=8-2&keywords=ez+heat+cables

 

[trachydude]

Thanks for the write up. Unfortunately that close up shot was the day before the cold snap. After I removed the plastic wrap and lights a couple days later it looked like hell, lol. 

I guess I'm going to wait until the damaged fronds completely brown, and clip them off. Then cross my fingers and she pulls through.  

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

Thats cold damage. Here is a pic of a few that went down to -3f 

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

Sorry, wrong pic. That was after 11f. This pic is two weeks after -3f in zone 6b texas.

[trachydude]

3 minutes ago, TexasColdHardyPalms said:

Sorry, wrong pic. That was after 11f. This pic is two weeks after -3f in zone 6b texas.

Yep, that's what I figured. Leaves almost looked burned, that's what kinda had me worried about over heating. Those look just like mine does now. 

 

These recent?...from that front that came through around mid December? Will they recover?....sorry for all the questions. 

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

Yes that pic was taken yesterday and sent to me. They were planted this spring and most will make it. If they had been in the ground longer and established all of them would probably have made it.  

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

Yours will be fine. There are windmills all around OKC that went through 2010 without issue. The ones at the zoo have been there a while. Make sure you fertilize in the spring and keep up the fert regimine throughout this next year.

[trachydude]

Gotcha,  thanks. Yeah, the zoo was one of my stops the other day to see how their windmills were doing.