2022 January 2022 Florida Freeze Report

[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

[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?

[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?

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?

Did your Foxtail make it?

[RedRabbit]

3 hours ago, kinzyjr said:

Did these ever recover?

Did your Foxtail make it?

Sorry, I haven’t been back since so I’m not sure.

[kinzyjr]

On 2/11/2022 at 12:28 AM, kinzyjr said:

Dypsis pembana

Correction on this particular palm: This is likely an Allagoptera - possibly an arenaria that looks a bit different than the one in my south border garden bed.