2022 2022_01 - January 2022 Florida Freeze Report

[LI_Pets]

In Florida a few weeks ago we had low temps.

I see new growth, how might I proceed to save this palm?

[kinzyjr]

@LI_Pets That's a Roystonea regia?  How cold did it get there?  The fronds look fried, but the spear appears to be green.  If we don't get another late-season visit from Old Man Winter, it has a chance to recover.

[LI_Pets]

Upper 20's one night

 

[Merlyn]

Here's photos of the two Royals in Lake Mary, they are about 90% defoliated but the one on the left has a new green spear opening.  The one on the right has a spear that will probably open in a week or two.  My best guess is these saw upper 20s, maybe 28-30F with frost:

The reason I say this is that the next-door neighbor's Foxtails were mostly but not completely burned.  The left one is burnt, the middle one is about 75% burnt, and the right one (partially hidden from view by the tree) is about 50% burnt.  They have two others also around 50% burned.  My Foxtails of a similar size were completely torched at 27.5F, so I'm guessing these may have seen 30F or just a bit below:

[D Palm]

Update: First is my high plateau coconuts…dead. A pineapple Guava untouched, along with my Sylvester showing slight burning on the tips. Royal all trimmed up, totally defoliated but not dead. King palm and orange BoP shared a blanket with hand warmers. A sabal causiarum I planted last Nov with some burning,  but now actively growing

[kinzyjr]

13 hours ago, Merlyn said:

The reason I say this is that the next-door neighbor's Foxtails were mostly but not completely burned.  The left one is burnt, the middle one is about 75% burnt, and the right one (partially hidden from view by the tree) is about 50% burnt.  They have two others also around 50% burned.  My Foxtails of a similar size were completely torched at 27.5F, so I'm guessing these may have seen 30F or just a bit below:

Foxtails exhibit quite a wide range of cold tolerance.  Just down the road, there is one that is bronzed completely 200 yards from a triple with none of the three having a scratch.  They're sited in a wide open parking lot with no other discernible difference other than genetics.  Traveling from Lake Hamilton to Winter Haven, there is a yard full of Foxtails on the south side of the lake.  Most of them came through with no damage from the winter last year, but one was 100% bronzed and eventually perished.

[Merlyn]

8 hours ago, D Palm said:

Update: First is my high plateau coconuts…dead. A pineapple Guava untouched, along with my Sylvester showing slight burning on the tips. Royal all trimmed up, totally defoliated but not dead. King palm and orange BoP shared a blanket with hand warmers. A sabal causiarum I planted last Nov with some burning,  but now actively growing

 

Unfortunately I guess we know the approximate bottom end on B. Alfredii seedlings...    Mine (same size) took a tiny bit of damage at about 27-28F, but 19F is really cold!  Did they hang on for a bit, or were they immediately burnt to a crisp?

[D Palm]

@Merlyn They were totally dead the next day.  A few weeks later I pulled the spears, hollow inside.  Sylvester took a long time to show damage.  Damage was about 60% burn on Royal but kept creeping in, spear has not pulled. I think the officially recorded temps was 21-22 for the night, but my neighbor recorded 19 with her set-up.  My foxtail in non-heated green house totally defoliated, but should come back.  I had royal seedling sprouts in the same green house, 3 dead, rest have some damage, 1 totally unscathed surprisingly...scratching my head but its a keeper.

Ice cream banana's are growing back form the same psuedo trunk...so no killing to ground!! def more hardy than a standard dwarf cavendish. 

My Livistonia Chinensis (5 total cluster plantings) took about 40-50% burn....less burn than my Washingtonia.

Sabal uresana unscatched...AND final putting out it's first non-strap leaf!!!

[D Palm]

@Merlyn On another note, the Royals in the photos look horrible for an upper 20 blast.  I never protected mine at those temps w/ frost and it did not show anywhere near as much damage.  23 fried a good bit of it last year, maybe as bad as the pics.

[D Palm]

Update: removed royal palm, totally dead. High plateau coconuts dead. All of my royal seedlings except 1 died in the unheated greenhouse. Foxtail growing in unheard greenhouse is dead. Everything else is growing nicely. Archontophoenix cunninghamiana is actually growing. 

[kinzyjr]

11 hours ago, D Palm said:

Update: removed royal palm, totally dead. High plateau coconuts dead. All of my royal seedlings except 1 died in the unheated greenhouse. Foxtail growing in unheard greenhouse is dead. Everything else is growing nicely. Archontophoenix cunninghamiana is actually growing. 

Not all great news, but sounds promising the the Archontophoenix cunninghamiana is doing alright.  Thanks for the update!

[kinzyjr]

An odd addition to the freeze damage from January - a homeowner in North Lakeland reported losing a Foxtail palm (Wodyetia bifurcata) and a Christmas palm (Adonidia merrillii).  They said their coconut defoliated but is coming back.

[Brian M]

Interesting observation that Ive been meaning to post for a few months, I found a monstera deliciosa growing in between a bunch of stuff between my house and my neighbors. It only had one dead leaf from the freeze, everything else was green as can be. Im sure the canopy it's under and being in between 2 houses helped a bunch, but was still surprised temps in the high 20's didn't kill it.

[kinzyjr]

A follow-up to the original post that illustrates the difference a UHI can make. 

Here are the Wodyetia bifurcata from the original photo today.  They each have one good frond out and will probably make it if we have a gentle winter:

Here are a few at Lake Miriam Publix.  They are healthy and undamaged:

The straight line distance between these two locations is approximately 5.5 miles.

 

[Tiffany8282]

I really need help! I am having a hard time finding a professional in the area that knows what to do with my royal palms. We had them planted one year ago, they are about 20’ tall.  I pulled the dead lose pieces off the crownshaft today and Splitting, moldy and narrowing.

 

Any ideas? We fertilized them two months ago after the freeze. 

Edited May 13, 2022 by Tiffany8282

[kinzyjr]

@Tiffany8282 Welcome to PalmTalk!  Which part of Florida?  Nearest big city is fine.

From the first photo, it looks like there is some kind of infestation.  Scale or mealy bugs.

From the other photos, the tissue underneath the split appears relatively healthy.  It appears that someone trimmed the old fronds off of these palms.  I'd advise not to let them do that anymore unless they present a risk to people or property.  These palms are self-cleaning and drop their fronds without human intervention.  When the leafy portion of the dying frond is trimmed off, the weight that would pull the dead frond off of the palm is gone and moisture can build up in the crown and cause disease.

A few of the fronds appear frizzly.  This could either be from cold, nutrient deficiency, or both.  What type of fertilizer was used?

Hope some other folks can weight in with additional insights.

[Steve the palmreader]

Location would help

[Merlyn]

Yeah, the UHI definitely helps!  I think there were a lot of localized cold spots too, as there were Philodendron Selloum clumps a mile or so West of me (furthrt from the UHI) that looked great...and mine wer 50-75% defoliated.

So far the confirmed deaths at my place are 5 Foxtails around 6-10ft tall, several young Dictyosperma Album/Rubrum (1-3ft tall), a Ptychosperma Macarthurii (1ft tall), Dypsis Lanceolata (1-2ft tall) and a couple of nonhardy agaves and aloes.  Surprisingly enough, several small Gaussia Princeps and a Dypsis Cabadae seedling were completely torched but pused a bit of new green spear in the last 2-3 weeks!  I'm starting to replant dead stuff now, so I should have a full damage report soon.

[kinzyjr]

1 hour ago, Merlyn said:

Yeah, the UHI definitely helps!  I think there were a lot of localized cold spots too, as there were Philodendron Selloum clumps a mile or so West of me (furthrt from the UHI) that looked great...and mine wer 50-75% defoliated.

So far the confirmed deaths at my place are 5 Foxtails around 6-10ft tall, several young Dictyosperma Album/Rubrum (1-3ft tall), a Ptychosperma Macarthurii (1ft tall), Dypsis Lanceolata (1-2ft tall) and a couple of nonhardy agaves and aloes.  Surprisingly enough, several small Gaussia Princeps and a Dypsis Cabadae seedling were completely torched but pused a bit of new green spear in the last 2-3 weeks!  I'm starting to replant dead stuff now, so I should have a full damage report soon.

Thanks for the preliminary report.  I'm most surprised about the Foxtails since some of them were above the 6ft line.  Were all of the fatalities in the area of the yard where you recorded ~24F or were there a  few in the section that saw 27F?

[Merlyn]

13 hours ago, kinzyjr said:

Thanks for the preliminary report.  I'm most surprised about the Foxtails since some of them were above the 6ft line.  Were all of the fatalities in the area of the yard where you recorded ~24F or were there a  few in the section that saw 27F?

All of my Foxtails were 6' or more, but still with skinny trunks.  All were defoliated except a couple of big ones in the SW side. 

• A triple in the back was out in the open and in the 24-26F area, it was completely defoliated and showed no signs of spear movement in ~4 months...so I yanked it and trashed it. 
• A triple in the East side yard has one that finally opened a partial frond and two with nothing.  One was stunted at 3-4' tall.  It'll probably end up as a single.  27-28F with frost.
• A double in the NE side yard had one collapsed trunk and one that finally opened a partial frond.  It's now a single.  27-28F with frost.
• A single in the front yard was completely defoliated, but seems to be pushing a frond.  27-28F with frost.
• A double and single large one in the SW corner were slightly damaged, but were near the house and also protected by nearby Viburnum, Queens, bamboo, and neighbor's 70' tall oak trees.  They probably had no frost.  They were about 10' from the "nursery area" that saw 27.7F minimum, so were probably in the 27-28F range.

Here's the E side triple:

And here's the mostly undamaged big ones in the SW side, near the nursery:

[Bkue]

I have a few hundred palms in Oviedo. Most faired well. The areca’s saw about 20% burn but have bounced back. The royals, slight browning, Sylvester’s no change, majesty nothing, cunninghamiana nothing, fishtails 30%,  but the adonidia’s got whacked. There are new spears but will it fill back out? They were getting toward 14ft. 

[kinzyjr]

7 hours ago, Bkue said:

I have a few hundred palms in Oviedo. Most faired well. The areca’s saw about 20% burn but have bounced back. The royals, slight browning, Sylvester’s no change, majesty nothing, cunninghamiana nothing, fishtails 30%,  but the adonidia’s got whacked. There are new spears but will it fill back out? They were getting toward 14ft. 

Welcome to PalmTalk!  The Adonidia merrillii should bounce back.  Keep an eye out for brown blotchy spots on the new fronds that could indicate a fungal infection in the crown.  What low temperature and duration below freezing did you see?

[RedRabbit]

On 2/20/2022 at 9:51 PM, RedRabbit said:

I found a small palm garden in Carrollwood Village Park today. I recorded 30f and it was probably about the same here, but these palms were completely out in the open so they probably saw 27-28f and frost.

Caryota mitis, Coccothrinax crinita, Dypsis decaryi, and foxtails all had minor to moderate burn. They also had something labeled Arenga engleri with moderate damage, but I’m skeptical since it should be able to handle that.

 

Hyophorbe lagenicaulis had severe damage. There was also some mystery crownshaft palms that all took severe damage

And I was very surprised to see a couple Polyalthia longifolia with minimal damage. This is supposed to be a 10a tree, but apparently it’s actually pretty hardy.

I visited the palm garden at Carrollwood Village Park again recently. Everything bounced back nicely with the exception of the bottle palms and what I think are P elegans. 3 out of the 4 bottle palms died. The jury is still out on whether or not these P elegans survive:

 

On a more positive note, the mast trees (which were mostly undamaged) look great and put on some good growth since I visited last.

Edited June 9, 2022 by RedRabbit

[Missi]

Hey guys. I know I'm late on this, but checking in with my 2021/2022 winter in-ground palm damage. Worst I've had in quite some time, but I'm sorry, I don't recall the exact temps.  I'll note just the ones with damage:

• All four Hyophorbe lagenicaulis had completely fried leaves but lost only one.
• Both Elaeis guineensis (not trunking yet, but flowering) completely fried leaves, but fully recovered.
• All four mature growths on Dypsis cabadae killed, but younger offshoots were fine.
• All three Dypsis decaryi had some damage of the leaves but nothing terrible.
• Surprisingly, all of Satakentia liukiuensis leaves were completely fried but it appears to be making a slow come-back.
• Also surprisingly, the two Beccariophoenix alfredii had plenty of leaf damage but are fine.
• The two Syagrus schizophylla completely fried but came back.

Here is a positive experience some might find interesting...First winter outside and only with protection of bare Ceiba branches, Sabinaria magnifica in 15 gallon pot had ZERO damage!! 

[Missi]

Oops, forgot about a couple:

• Pritchardia hillebrandii had mostly fried leaves but came back nicely.
• There were two large potted Pritchardia pacifica and two large potted Verschaffeltia splendida both water stressed under bare Ceiba branches. Both splendidas croaked but the two pacificas had hardly any damage and have made a beautiful comeback.

[kinzyjr]

Thanks @Missi If you want to see some more of our reports, there are more here: https://www.palmtalk.org/forum/index.php?/topic/72092-january-2022-florida-freeze-report/&

[kinzyjr]

For anyone looking at comparing the low temperatures recorded at the NOAA stations, you can do so using this map:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=15r_mjBARz6pwRHM2kbcjB9DgppQ2VW4A&ll=26.666429396650365%2C-84.7685647209669&z=7

Or the attached spreadsheet.

202206241130_Jan2022_Records.xlsx

[South Carolina palms]

On 2/5/2022 at 11:36 AM, Brian M said:

Jacksonville Beach, FL.  Ultimate low was 26.2. 8 hours below freezing averaging around 28 for most of that time. Had a light frost in the morning. This was preceded by a frost on 1/24 which also caused minor burning. These photos were taken today.

Uncovered and no damage: bismarckia nobilis, sabal palmetto, chamaerops humilis, & phoenix roebelenii.

Covered with frost blankets, no supplemental heat source: 

adonidia merrillii - Over 75% burn.

ptychosperma elegans - Over 75% burn

wodyetia bifurcata - less than 30% burn

All of my tropical plants went unprotected and got fried including hibiscus, hawaiian ti, ixora, and crotons. This has happened pervious years and I suspect will bounce back as before.

Which ones faired better the Christmas palm or the foxtails?

[Brian M]

On 6/30/2022 at 10:33 AM, South Carolina palms said:

Which ones faired better the Christmas palm or the foxtails?

Well...I had to rip the Christmas palm out in order to put my ribbon palms in this spring. I'm pretty sure it would look pretty ragged still. The foxtail looks good, already pushing out it's 2nd frond of the year.

 

To be fair I wrapped them both without supplemental heat, so not sure either would've survived without that.

[South Carolina palms]

1 hour ago, Brian M said:

Well...I had to rip the Christmas palm out in order to put my ribbon palms in this spring. I'm pretty sure it would look pretty ragged still. The foxtail looks good, already pushing out it's 2nd frond of the year.

 

To be fair I wrapped them both without supplemental heat, so not sure either would've survived without that.

Ok just curious I planted two foxtails here in Charleston. I’m curious to see how they’ll fair this winter 

[D Palm]

Update: Sabal Causiarum is dead. It pushed out a new leaf strap then did nothing. I gently tugged on it a couple weeks ago and it all came out of the ground. Crumbled. 

[Merlyn]

On 6/8/2022 at 11:34 PM, RedRabbit said:

On a more positive note, the mast trees (which were mostly undamaged) look great and put on some good growth since I visited last.

That's great info, thanks!  If they survived 27-28F and frost with only some leaf damage, they'd definitely work for me!  I really thought they were a 10a or 10b plant too, so I'll have to look into these for spots I could use a "narrow column" of around 5' diameter and 30ish feet tall.

[Merlyn]

And an update on mine, at least 3 Bottles dead but a couple of more Bottles and Spindles out in the open survived and are growing stunted fronds.  Two more of the 6-10' tall Foxtails died.  They had kinda green frond trying to open at the top, but the trunks started collapsing.  It was clearly a trunk rot so I cut them down today.

[kinzyjr]

On 4/24/2022 at 10:35 PM, kinzyjr said:

An odd addition to the freeze damage from January - a homeowner in North Lakeland reported losing a Foxtail palm (Wodyetia bifurcata) and a Christmas palm (Adonidia merrillii).  They said their coconut defoliated but is coming back.

An update from this particular homeowner - the coconut was starting to come back and then gave up the ghost similar to how @Merlyn's foxtail palms did.  The location was in NE Lakeland toward Polk City.  While the homeowner in question did not provide a temperature reading, there is a CFPACS member not far from this location that reported a minimum temperature of 22F.  That would put this area on par with the Hawk's Ridge station in NW Lakeland at ~23F. 

@Jimbean had mentioned how minute distances translated into much different results.  2 miles east of Hawk's Ridge, there are flowering Adonidia merrillii. 

The area in NE Lakeland with the dead Foxtails, Adonidias, and coconuts is a little more than 3 miles straight line distance away:

 

[Merlyn]

@kinzyjr yeah that's what happened to my Adonidia a couple of years ago.  It got burned (but not completely defoliated) and started growing new fronds.  Then around the middle of summer it quit growing and just sat there with a couple of deceptively green fronds.  Those fronds just slowly died off one by one.  I finally looked at it closer and discovered that the "trunk" was completely hollow with just a few stringy fibers and the old leaf bases holding the thing together.  It looked like a classic Thielaviopsis photo:

I didn't cut up the Foxtails, just hoping to avoid spreading any fungi around the yard. 

[JDawgs]

I have a 10-12 ft foxtail palm that was completely defoliated this January. It has pushed out some brown fronds and has some green coming out now, but it’s August now. Is it normal to take this long to recover or is it likely not gonna make it?

[TampaPalms]

4 minutes ago, JDawgs said:

I have a 10-12 ft foxtail palm that was completely defoliated this January. It has pushed out some brown fronds and has some green coming out now, but it’s August now. Is it normal to take this long to recover or is it likely not gonna make it?

Mine finally recovered in July. I have four brand new green fronds now after I applied sunniland palm fertilizer. The same in the neighborhoods here in Tampa, the green fronds are really pushing through this month on the foxtails that were damaged during the freeze. I think it just takes a while to recover.

Edited August 26, 2022 by TampaPalms

[Steve the palmreader]

On 8/26/2022 at 9:17 AM, JDawgs said:

I have a 10-12 ft foxtail palm that was completely defoliated this January. It has pushed out some brown fronds and has some green coming out now, but it’s August now. Is it normal to take this long to recover or is it likely not gonna make it?

Post a picture

[kinzyjr]

On 2/12/2022 at 11:29 PM, kinzyjr said:

Just remember, not far from us, it is a challenge to grow things we consider lay-ups.  If you take Knights Station Rd to Tampa from central Lakeland, you get a glimpse of what could have been.  As I was headed down the road, I was stunned after I got past Galloway Rd at the common 9b palms with damage.  After I passed FL-39/Alexander St./Paul Buchman Hwy, it was even more pronounced  This verifies that the numbers posted outside of the small heat island here were accurate.  A Phoenix roebelenii doesn't typically burn 100% until the low 20s.  I counted no less than 3 dead coconuts on the way.  Dypsis lutescens, Hawaiian Ti, and other plants that have little or no damage here were 100% freeze burned.  The map below shows a few routes you can take to verify the damage:

Toasted Pygmy Date Palms

 

An update on these: I went past them today.  One is dead, one fully recovered.

[kinzyjr]

On 6/8/2022 at 11:34 PM, RedRabbit said:

The jury is still out on whether or not these P elegans survive

Did these ever recover?