What will survive

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

Ovatifolia in 5g pots still look fine here.  Havardiana are spotless as well.  Montana are already showing heavy damage but the nolina la Siberia which is found a few feet away in habitat looks perfect.

[Keys6505]

Does anyone know what they use on the roads for the ice down here?  Do they actually spread salt or just sand?  If it's salt I wonder if all of the runoff would affect palms planted along roadsides like all of the palms planted along I-45.

[Meangreen94z]

No salt, just sand

[Swolte]

On 2/18/2021 at 5:20 PM, Meangreen94z said:

It will be interesting to see how the Sabal Uresana, Nannorrhops Ritcheana ,other palms ,and plants fair at John Fairey Gardens (formerly peckerwood), especially if it only dropped to 8*F in that area as CollectorPalms suggests. Obviously heavy losses, but some optimism.

Here’s a little color on a very gray day.

Got a little update from the nursery manager today. Their outside thermometer measured 6F with, indeed, very little protected. In a last minute effort, they did move what they could into the nursery so there's hope some of the smaller favs may live. Brahea, mules, serenoa (arghh!), phoenix, and butia look very bad and may not recover. That's all I know for now. I will try to drop by for a visit when I have time next month and share some pics. 

Edited February 22, 2021 by Swolte

[Collectorpalms]

7 hours ago, Swolte said:

Got a little update from the nursery manager today. Their outside thermometer measured 6F with, indeed, very little protected. In a last minute effort, they did move what they could into the nursery so there's hope some of the smaller favs may live. Brahea, mules, serenoa (arghh!), phoenix, and butia look very bad and may not recover. That's all I know for now. I will try to drop by for a visit when I have time next month and share some pics. 

The horrors.
 

Mercer arboretum in northern Harris county will be devastated. While not as cold and duration was shorter, they have a lot less hardy plants. 

Edited February 22, 2021 by Collectorpalms

[jwitt]

On 2/19/2021 at 6:30 PM, TexasColdHardyPalms said:

Ovatifolia in 5g pots still look fine here.  Havardiana are spotless as well.  Montana are already showing heavy damage but the nolina la Siberia which is found a few feet away in habitat looks perfect.

Ovatifolia survived the 2011 event here in ABQ mostly unscathed. One of the few "larger" agave to do so. 

I am personally curious of nolina longfolia. 

Edited February 23, 2021 by jwitt

[necturus]

On 2/22/2021 at 5:30 AM, Collectorpalms said:

The horrors.
 

Mercer arboretum in northern Harris county will be devastated. While not as cold and duration was shorter, they have a lot less hardy plants. 

Yup, Mercer is going to look bad. I think a lot of their big palms will be okay or come back, but it may take a long time. The smaller plants in the tropical garden are almost certainly all dead.  Hopefully, their cycads aren't too devastated. They were tempting fate when they planted a small jackfruit this year.  

[Xenon]

8 minutes ago, necturus said:

 They were tempting fate when they planted a small jackfruit this year.  

I had a volunteer jackfruit survive 3 winters in the ground. It's very very dead now along with the volunteer mangos.  

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

Trachycarpus nanus and large guihaia argyrata are 100% alive and pushing growth.   Trachycarpus takil is second hardiest and pushing spear growth as well. All other trachycarpus species are in bad shape.  

[KsLouisiana]

Lake Charles area had alot of cold damage to the palms around. The lowest lows were around 15 and days of freezing temps. Canary island dates look pretty brown.  Other dates look terrible. Washingtonian palms are terrible looking. Queen palms I assume are dead. Sabals and pindo palms are fine. We recently planted 2 queens and a pygmy date palm at our new house. Luckily we dug them up and put them in the garage and they're fine! We put them back in the ground already

[ahosey01]

2 hours ago, KsLouisiana said:

Lake Charles area had alot of cold damage to the palms around. The lowest lows were around 15 and days of freezing temps. Canary island dates look pretty brown.  Other dates look terrible. Washingtonian palms are terrible looking. Queen palms I assume are dead. Sabals and pindo palms are fine. We recently planted 2 queens and a pygmy date palm at our new house. Luckily we dug them up and put them in the garage and they're fine! We put them back in the ground already

Years later some explorative PalmTalk zone pusher will see your queens and say “these pre-date the 2021 freeze!” Not knowing what sorts of protective shenanigans you were up to.

[KsLouisiana]

54 minutes ago, ahosey01 said:

Years later some explorative PalmTalk zone pusher will see your queens and say “these pre-date the 2021 freeze!” Not knowing what sorts of protective shenanigans you were up to.

that'd be great! Might have the only ones in the area for quite a while

[Fusca]

1 hour ago, ahosey01 said:

Years later some explorative PalmTalk zone pusher will see your queens and say “these pre-date the 2021 freeze!” Not knowing what sorts of protective shenanigans you were up to.

Funny as I did the same thing with my similar sized queen.  But your point is exactly why I don't put much stock in some of these 'streetview' palms posted from folks in a different state who know nothing about the palm in question.

[ahosey01]

1 hour ago, Fusca said:

Funny as I did the same thing with my similar sized queen.  But your point is exactly why I don't put much stock in some of these 'streetview' palms posted from folks in a different state who know nothing about the palm in question.

I think it's fair when it's a slow growing palm like a Jubaeaopsis and it's 38ft tall, but I agree 90% of the time.

[John Derek]

In North Louisiana my windmills were vaporized the most. I had everything wrapped up with blankets and a tarp for a week. My Med fan palms and Butias look good being an all time low of 0 F(120 hours below freezing). I hope that keeping mine dry kept the center spears good? Birds were living under the cover I made for the plants.

[Sabal_Louisiana]

Never, ever thought I'd see the day when a windmill palm would suffer within the confines of Louisiana.

Just a few weeks ago, a friend of mine were debating the practicality of growing a Washingtonia in Shreveport.

Saving grace, blows my mind that Monroe got no lower than 16F this month. 10 in Ruston,  -1 in Plain Dealing.

They were saved by cloud cover!

[Sabal_Louisiana]

KSLouisiana,

Been examining the impact between Houston and Mississippi. I figured y'all probably got it rough over there.

We had it bad over here but it could have been even much worse. Cloud cover kept us from dropping below 20 but the Sun did not come out on the coldest day so it did not get higher than 26 after that low. 50 hrs below freezing. Most ice I've ever seen. Coldest 7 day stretch in recorded history they say but 1895 and 1962 was just as bad or even worse I bet.

Most Queens around us didn't make it after 2018 but of those that did - They appear to be retaining a good bit of green but still look droopy.  Tricky prognosis, I think they will make it but like everything else, it's a wait and see. Time to take a harder look at Silver Queens instead of sitting on eggshells each winter.

Most Queens should be alright, with low mortality, south of line from Morgan City to Slidell, Houma and New Orleans inclusive, where temps held up a bit and ice was lacking,  from what I can tell.

Sylvesters look uniformly brown but I hear they come back. CIDPs show moderate discoloration but I've seen worse for sure. Medjools are mostly fine. Sagos, no worry in the long run but a strange mixed bag of unaffected next to roasted specimens.

Biggest winners: Livistonia chinensis, came thru like a champ, some look great, those more exposed show some fading, white tips,  but others look almost unfazed. 

Sabals, Pindos, Trachycarpus, the usual uber hardy - nothing different.  Surprised they got zapped so bad in central Texas.

Biggest losers: Washingtonias. Quite common so many to compare against. Robusta largely brownish, but mostly intact.  An occasional victim. Hybrids a little better. Filifera even more so but even a good many of those look affected to some degree. I doubt if these are pure filifera though. 

Even in New Orleans, robellini and Triangle palms got hurt pretty bad but those can't take a hard freeze of any sort.

Citrus got damaged, esp limes and grapefruits, even some navel oranges. The latter should recover by next year I think and satsumas should be okay.

 

[NBTX11]

1 hour ago, Sabal_Louisiana said:

Sabals, Pindos, Trachycarpus, the usual uber hardy - nothing different.  Surprised they got zapped so bad in central Texas.

 

Depends on your definition of Central Texas.  If you include San Antonio, Sabals look completely unfazed, and trachycarpus look completely fine as well.

I haven't looked around Austin, maybe they look worse there. 

[Sabal_Louisiana]

Depends on your definition of Central Texas.  If you include San Antonio, Sabals look completely unfazed, and trachycarpus look completely fine as well.

I haven't looked around Austin, maybe they look worse there. 

My bad. Was going by the post showing damage to the Butias in suburban Austin. Even those may recover. I'm hoping.

[Collectorpalms]

1 hour ago, NBTX11 said:

Depends on your definition of Central Texas.  If you include San Antonio, Sabals look completely unfazed, and trachycarpus look completely fine as well.

I haven't looked around Austin, maybe they look worse there. 

Central Texas is not San Antonio. It’s Austin area. There is a heck of a difference in Austin that was near zero, and San Antonio that saw 10.

Austin to Waco to College Station: Central Texas. We all saw less than 5F

San Antonio is South Texas. Areas above 10F

Houston is South East Texas. 12-15F

...thats my definition anyhow.

Edited February 25, 2021 by Collectorpalms

[Benjamin D.]

Serenoa repens on UT campus looking good

[Collectorpalms]

50 minutes ago, Benjamin D. said:

Serenoa repens on UT campus looking good

UT a balmy 9 degrees, try The Serenoa in Hempstead were 5ish degree colder and have trunking creeping stems.

[Collectorpalms]

1 hour ago, Collectorpalms said:

Central Texas is not San Antonio. It’s Austin area. There is a heck of a difference in Austin that was near zero, and San Antonio that saw 10.

Austin to Waco to College Station: Central Texas. We all saw less than 5F

San Antonio is South Texas. Areas above 10F

Houston is South East Texas. 12-15F

...thats my definition anyhow.

I keep forgetting there was a small area inside Austin that was between 5 and 10F. Near downtown/UT.

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

San Antonio is where south texas begins and is included in that geographic area. 

[NBTX11]

3 hours ago, TexasColdHardyPalms said:

San Antonio is where south texas begins and is included in that geographic area. 

I've heard people refer to San Antonio as Central Texas before, but yes generally it's where South Texas starts and is considered either South Texas or South Central Texas. 

[RCC-DALLAS]

Noticed today the Sabal palmettos that were planted at the In and Out  and another take out turned into a Eyewear outlet at Midway and LBJ are showing fresh green growth. It quite apparent that the Sabal Palmetto are doing better than the Sabal Mexicana in our hood.  Even leafing out faster than the windmills at my home.  None of my windmill palms were protected as they were just too tall. The Chamaedorea  Radicalis is an amazing plant.  Planted them beneath little Gem Magnolias unprotected since the time I bought them from Peckerwood Gardens down in Hemphill some 20 years ago, they are shaking off damage and growing at a good clip.  

 

[smatofu]

1 hour ago, RCC-DALLAS said:

Noticed today the Sabal palmettos that were planted at the In and Out  and another take out turned into a Eyewear outlet at Midway and LBJ are showing fresh green growth. It quite apparent that the Sabal Palmetto are doing better than the Sabal Mexicana in our hood.  Even leafing out faster than the windmills at my home.  

 

It could be more because of some micro-climates than other factors, for example, tall buildings protecting from wind, or palms planted on south walls of buildings. I live north of Dallas and no Sabals show any green here, they all look dead.

 

[RCC-DALLAS]

Driving by a home in Schrieber Manor . The area south of LBJ and north of Forest Ln, between Inwood and Midway . The owner has at least 10 palms in his front yard . His Texas Sabals are sending up bright new green  growth. however his Trachs are hit and miss mostly pitiful looking,   and his Chamerops are dead but  new growth from the base. Another Texas Sabal in Bluffview emerging as well.  I realize the topics here are about palms, but an observation on Hope Philodendron I have used as a bedding shrub along with alocasia for my palms. It held up to mid 20s in Dallas. When the temps were forecast in the single digits and teens I cut them down to about 8inches and covered them with mulch.  To my surprise they have emeged with leaves as large as when they were pruned back.  My sister in New Braunfels and friend in Houston use them in the ground, but had no idea that they were this hardy.  Anyone else in Dallas use them?

Edited May 14, 2021 by RCC-DALLAS

[BeyondTheGarden]

 

What is this gorgeous clump of palmy madness!?

[Swolte]

Serenoa Repens (saw palm) at JFGardens (I think). Survived unprotected.

Edited May 14, 2021 by Swolte