Notable Survivors of Corpus Christi

[Xerarch]

Nicest Aceolorrhaphe wrightii I have noticed, all survived but this is the only one I’ve seen where the existing trunks survived, even a big one on the island died to the ground and started regrowing. There were only ever a handful around to begin with that I’m aware of. 

[Xerarch]

Almost all P. sylvestris survived and look like nothing happened. Please excuse dashboard pic. 

[Xerarch]

Almost all Bismarcks died, this is a notable survivor in decent shape, I know of only a small handful of others. This one is on the island

[Xerarch]

These what I suppose are Medjools look pretty good except for small crown, I’m not sure if this is all the regrowth they’ve had or if the landscapers got to them. Very nearly all P dactylifera survived, although there aren’t a ton of them around, wouldn’t mind if they used more. 

[Xerarch]

Most of the W. robustas survived, I think I’ve only noticed a couple in this large parking lot at the mall that never made it back. 

[Xerarch]

Not sure variety here, but a nice Phoenix 

[Austinpalm]

Great pix.  On another subject, jow do the black mangrove around Harbor Island and the university look now?  Did most re-sprout from the roots or are they generally dead?

[Xerarch]

Ok not an excellent photo, and was taken a few months ago, queen palm on right recovering well enough, the one on the left was off to a good start, but declined and has since died I believe. There are some other queen survivors around, but I’m never in a position to get photos. 

[Xerarch]

 Best surviving roebelenii, 2 out of 3 trunks survived, almost all others perished. 

[Xerarch]

Honorable mentions around town, all cell phone pics, so you know, quality 

[Xerarch]

11 minutes ago, Austinpalm said:

Great pix.  On another subject, jow do the black mangrove around Harbor Island and the university look now?  Did most re-sprout from the roots or are they generally dead?

Black mangrove in general fared quite poorly, I was really worried about it. But now there is a lot of resprouting, both new seeds sprouting and growth resuming from existing plants, there are still many sizable plants with no regrowth.  

[Austinpalm]

About 4 months or so ago I went down to check on the red mangroves at Boca Chica.  Before the freeze there was 1 red with about 30ft diameter clump of roots and a couple of 10-15ft diameter clumps as well as many young saplings along the rivers edge.  I am sure there are a couple of nice sized plants I was not aware of and have not seen before, but to my knowledge, this was the largest red mangrove in Texas.  When I checked last all but the very largest were dead.  The largest red mangrove was reduced to the center stem with a few scraggly branches growing a bout 5 ft off the ground.  Very disappointing to see it damaged so much.    Based upon that inspection, I now believe that buttonwood is the 2nd most common mangrove in Texas after the black mangrove.  All of the buttonwood had significant die-back as well,  But almost all seemed to be re-growing from the main stem fairly strongly.  Hopefully this winter will not get any worse than it already has and all our tropical plants will be able to recover some.  

[Xerarch]

This Pseudobombax has shown strong regrowth, the main trunk is quite large but looks pretty bad, we’ll see if/how long it can support the new growth. 

[Xenon]

How did silk floss/Ceiba speciosa do? Jacaranda? 

[Xerarch]

Ceiba/Chorisia were all heavily damaged, I've seen quite large specimens in older parts of town.  Regrowth is anywhere from ground level to moderately large branches.  Actually I haven't checked up on the largest ones in quite a while and don't have pics, but there is one small/medium one here in the neighborhood that has made a decent comeback, will have to grab a recent pic.

I have not identified a Jacaranda yet here, they must be here but certainly didn't flower this year or I would have noticed.  It doesn't help that I didn't live here pre-freeze, so I don't have a good baseline for what was where beforehand.  I can only suppose that since Ceiba survived, they must have as well.  There are dead trees around that I can't identify, even my next door neighbor has one with a notable form and I don't know what it is, and I've seen others like it, also dead elsewhere but can't get anyone to tell me what it was.

[Xerarch]

Another queen survivor I had a pic of 

[Xerarch]

This small bizzy survivor is at the beach in Rockport of all places 

[ExperimentalGrower]

How cold for how many days?

[Xerarch]

8 hours ago, ExperimentalGrower said:

How cold for how many days?

Temps for the airport from Weather Underground , but unfortunately coastal areas didn't really fare better than this , water was no protection is this system.  Absolute low here says 19, but I saw lots of 18's around town on other stations, embarrassingly low temps for a location on the coast, below 28 degrees latitude.  

Temperature
Date	High	Avg	Low
2/13/2021	37.6 °F	35.8 °F	35.1 °F
2/14/2021	37.9 °F	34.2 °F	26.8 °F
2/15/2021	30.2 °F	24.9 °F	19.0 °F
2/16/2021	36.7 °F	30.0 °F	22.8 °F
2/17/2021	41.2 °F	36.8 °F	31.8 °F
2/18/2021	45.7 °F	37.2 °F	33.4 °F
2/19/2021	51.3 °F	39.6 °F	31.8 °F
2/20/2021	61.9 °F	50.0 °F	38.8 °F
2/21/2021	73.2 °F	62.4 °F	54.1 °F

[Xerarch]

Black mangrove in recovery 

[Xerarch]

Sea grape looks like nothing happened save there are no tree-like specimens around, proves this is a great choice for coastal areas here. I have 3 of these thanks to @Mr. Coconut Palm I’m thinking of pruning one to grow up into a tree form like I’ve seen in Floriduh. Clusia back there looks good too. 

[Xerarch]

These Giant BOPs had 10+ ft trunks pre freeze, making a nice recovery already, hopefully will replace those trunks 

[Xerarch]

Another Bizzy survivor 

[Xerarch]

Not a notable survivor but duuuuuuuuude stop planting these Washies with the base of the trunk so far above the soil line!!!! They look like trash like this and will still look like trash when they’re 50 ft tall and still have the base of the trunk floating in mid air. Come on guys out of all the crap causes in the world that people get all uptight about. This a cause I could get behind, stop this practice. Or just prop it up with a stick rather than plant it correctly, whatever. 

[Xerarch]

Man this guy really likes papayas, and bananas, I suppose the bananas are pre freeze, they all came back with a vengeance. 

[Xerarch]

One of my fears unfolding before my eyes, every one of these Sabals getting planted right now used to be a P. sylvestris.  They were newly planted before the freeze and every single one of them died. Now apparently the owners of this development are afraid to put them back, even though the vast majority of the established ones elsewhere recovered well.  There is such an opportunity here to landscape with some cool stuff, and the hotels etc. just can’t plant anything but Washingtonia and Sabal, what a waste of what could be. 

[Xerarch]

Recovering Ceiba in the neighborhood, new growth is a little bigger than this right now but there aren’t very many leaves. I would cut out that dead and thin living to the biggest sprout, still a chance to salvage a tree out of this going forward. 

[Xerarch]

Drumroll please……..these are the only surviving Foxtails I have seen anywhere around. There is no reason for newly planted foxtails to look this bad, and I can match most of them up to pre-freeze street views. They have to have had substantial protection, would love to hit up the homeowner about it. 

[Xerarch]

Here is a mango survivor, hard to see through the fence, but that trunk is decent size. This is actually pretty encouraging, this means you can grow and enjoy mango year in year out between catastrophic freezes, but even after catastrophic freeze, the tree lives and will again provide tasty fruit, provided you protected the graft or it is seed grown. I’m going I have to pick up some more, @Xenon based on your recommendation I’m now in the market for a lemon zest. 

[ExperimentalGrower]

41 minutes ago, Xerarch said:

Here is a mango survivor, hard to see through the fence, but that trunk is decent size. This is actually pretty encouraging, this means you can grow and enjoy mango year in year out between catastrophic freezes, but even after catastrophic freeze, the tree lives and will again provide tasty fruit, provided you protected the graft or it is seed grown. I’m going I have to pick up some more, @Xenon based on your recommendation I’m now in the market for a lemon zest. 

Did that one resprout above or below the graft?

[Xerarch]

1 hour ago, ExperimentalGrower said:

Did that one resprout above or below the graft?

Hard to say, I haven't got out and looked close or anything, I don't know the homeowner.  If it's a seedling it wouldn't matter anyway.

[Mr. Coconut Palm]

On 1/12/2022 at 12:48 PM, Xerarch said:

Man this guy really likes papayas, and bananas, I suppose the bananas are pre freeze, they all came back with a vengeance. 

I would love to have an equal number of Coconut Palms in my yard, LOL!!!

John

[Xerarch]

6 hours ago, Mr. Coconut Palm said:

I would love to have an equal number of Coconut Palms in my yard, LOL!!!

John

Speaking of, that coconut over at Snoopy’s is still doing fine. 

[Mr. Coconut Palm]

4 hours ago, Xerarch said:

Speaking of, that coconut over at Snoopy’s is still doing fine. 

I need to interview the owner and see how he protected it.  As far as I know it was the ONLY surviving Coconut Palm here in Corpus Christi.  Altan REALLY protected his and the ones I planted at the park on the island, and yet they still died, so this guy must have wrapped his in a heating coil with a blanket or quilt over it to have survived 19F/20F on the island here.

John

[Mr.SamuraiSword]

On 1/12/2022 at 1:54 PM, Xerarch said:

One of my fears unfolding before my eyes, every one of these Sabals getting planted right now used to be a P. sylvestris.  They were newly planted before the freeze and every single one of them died. Now apparently the owners of this development are afraid to put them back, even though the vast majority of the established ones elsewhere recovered well.  There is such an opportunity here to landscape with some cool stuff, and the hotels etc. just can’t plant anything but Washingtonia and Sabal, what a waste of what could be. 

Better than planting washies at least....

[Xerarch]

These aloes survived and look great! They just made it onto my list for acquisition. Anyone know what variety this is? striata?

[Xerarch]

Ponytails weren’t a complete loss, here’s a decent size one recovering. 
 

[Xerarch]

Australian pine were hit surprisingly hard, some died outright, some making recovery from mid-way up. 
 

[Xerarch]

Lots of rubber trees look about like this/other ficus, prior to freeze there were some pretty large ones in town. 
 

[Xerarch]

Then there is this Ceiba, bigger than the last one I posted. There are larger ones in town that look a little better, but believe it or not I’m not always in a position to just go around town taking photos.