I'm at Virginia Beach right now and there are some ok looking Sabal palmetto here. Especially the ones in neighborhoods away from the actual shore. There are also TONS of volunteers in the planters, some look pretty old. 

 

I'll add more over time. 

3 hours ago, PalmTreeDude said:

I'm at Virginia Beach right now and there are some ok looking Sabal palmetto here. Especially the ones in neighborhoods away from the actual shore. There are also TONS of volunteers in the planters, some look pretty old. 

 

Those are some of the biggest palmettos I’ve ever seen in Virginia!

Naturalization in progress... good stuff!  Thanks for sharing!

Lots more that I found... volunteers everywhere! Even in small wooded areas, and they look really healthy! 

 

I thought this one looked nice as well. I took this picture at a weird angle. There is actually a lot of new fronds coming up in the middle, you just can't see them from this angle. 

 

Edited July 22, 20196 yr by PalmTreeDude

That's a lot of them.  Thanks for posting!

I wonder if these are the new standard for coldest hardy palmettos. If so I'd love to grow one from seed!

2 hours ago, mdsonofthesouth said:

I wonder if these are the new standard for coldest hardy palmettos. If so I'd love to grow one from seed!

Most of the older taller Sabal palmetto in Virginia Beach are Florida transplants. The ones in my pictures have survived the winters here while the weaker or improperly transplanted ones die the first winter. When these volunteers reach maturity and start to seed, those would be the best to collect. Although I may end up collecting some seed off of a few of the large ones, which are last years seed that didn't fall off yet, but I have germinated old seed from off of the palm before. 

Edited July 22, 20196 yr by PalmTreeDude

I understand the Florida vs elsewhere palmetto debate. But genetics are genetics and Virginia Beach is a colder area than bald head and thus my hypothesis that these palmettos must have truly hardy genes to thrive there.

It does look like some of them have been there for a while.  From Wunderground.com, it looks like the Norfolk area got hit with 10F in January 2018.  VA Beach may have been stayed warmer... or not.  Any verification that these have been hit with temperatures below 10F?

Zone 8a (10F-15F) is generally thought to be the limit for Sabal palmetto.  Exceptionally hardy populations should be able to tolerate lower than 10F.

I'm not sure exactly how cold it gets here during the Winter. Also, there are tons of other palms here that I am not taking pictures of, since this thread is about Sabal palmetto in the area. There are lots of healthy Butia with full crowns that I have seen there last year as well. There are also Windmills, which look fine, of course, but the ones right along the shore are beat up by the wind, no abnormal brown fronds or anything. Most palmettos can survive here just fine if cared for properly before they get established, there are some really nice ones in some neighborhoods inland from the beach. 

Edited July 23, 20196 yr by PalmTreeDude

Very nice! Thank you for sharing. The Sabal palmetto seem to be flowering in many of your photos, which means many more naturalized seedlings 

15 hours ago, kinzyjr said:

It does look like some of them have been there for a while.  From Wunderground.com, it looks like the Norfolk area got hit with 10F in January 2018.  VA Beach may have been stayed warmer... or not.  Any verification that these have been hit with temperatures below 10F?

Zone 8a (10F-15F) is generally thought to be the limit for Sabal palmetto.  Exceptionally hardy populations should be able to tolerate lower than 10F.

January 2018 was very cold, and everywhere in southeastern virginia stayed below freezing for about a week total before and after a blizzard on January 2/3rd. I’m not sure about absolute lows in Virginia Beach, but my house (25 miles northwest of Virginia Beach) hit 5 degrees Fahrenheit 2 nights in a row after the blizzard. If I remember correctly southeastern Virginia Beach stayed in the low teens as an absolute low, and central Virginia Beach(more inland areas) stayed in the high single digits. The Norfolk station (the airport) you were most likely referring to is surrounded by water on two sides with the Chesapeake bay around a mile away, so that probably helped moderate the temperatures more than other areas.

Edited July 23, 20196 yr by sevapalms

19 hours ago, kinzyjr said:

It does look like some of them have been there for a while.  From Wunderground.com, it looks like the Norfolk area got hit with 10F in January 2018.  VA Beach may have been stayed warmer... or not.  Any verification that these have been hit with temperatures below 10F?

Zone 8a (10F-15F) is generally thought to be the limit for Sabal palmetto.  Exceptionally hardy populations should be able to tolerate lower than 10F.

I think I recall reading that Virginia Beach saw 1F around 5 years ago.  Edit:  The lowest in Virginia Beach in 2014 was actually 6F, and Norfolk saw 7F during the same event.  This would certainly be enough to do substantial damage to non-trunking Sabal palmetto volunteers like the ones pictured above, but I suspect most would survive (except perhaps seedlings unless snow covered).  A number of the smallish Sabal palmetto pictured above look to have minor to moderate foliage damage, but then, this area averages in the upper 40s for January highs and lows below freezing at 30F, so that combined with 5-10 nights in the mid-upper teens could certainly do damage most years.

Edited July 23, 20196 yr by palmsOrl

@sevapalms Yes, I used the Norfolk Airport just as a quick reference.  Thank you for sharing your first-hand accounts.  There were reports that some Sabal palmetto have survived below 0F in OK.  With the observations by you and @palmsOrl, the palms that are growing there have survived low 7b temperatures recently, perhaps even lower in some cases.  Definitely a little hardier than the typical 10F, as noted by @mdsonofthesouth.