Which one is cold hardier, Copernicia baileyana or Bismarckia nobilis?

[HolyNewBee]

specifically silver Bismarck, not the green form.

Does anyone know anything? Share the conclusion with winter conditions would be better.

[Fusca]

There seems to be a few varieties of the silver Bismarckia nobilis but the most silver form is more cold hardy.  There are specimens in Houston that survived 12° F (-11° C) in February 2021.  I personally had a small 7-gal sized palm survive 9° F with protection.  I don't think that Copernicia baileyana can come close to that.

[PalmatierMeg]

Agree with @Fusca. Bizzies are much hardier than any Copernicia.

[HolyNewBee]

8 hours ago, Fusca said:

There seems to be a few varieties of the silver Bismarckia nobilis but the most silver form is more cold hardy.  There are specimens in Houston that survived 12° F (-11° C) in February 2021.  I personally had a small 7-gal sized palm survive 9° F with protection.  I don't think that Copernicia baileyana can come close to that.

Thanks for sharing! That's very helpful for me. 

[HolyNewBee]

6 hours ago, PalmatierMeg said:

Agree with @Fusca. Bizzies are much hardier than any Copernicia.

Nice vote. Then I'll seek for the most silver form Bismarckia.

[ahosey01]

Before we close the door on this I would like @FishEyeAquaculture to weigh in with his experience here.  If I remember correctly, he had a very impressive bailey experience he texted me about a year or so ago.

[FishEyeAquaculture]

On 11/5/2022 at 10:56 PM, ahosey01 said:

Before we close the door on this I would like @FishEyeAquaculture to weigh in with his experience here.  If I remember correctly, he had a very impressive bailey experience he texted me about a year or so ago.

Our experience here with a low of ~27F, Bismarck would show cold damage on foliage within a couple days.  It took C. baileyana a month to show equal amount of damage that the Bismarck's received.  Long term, Bismarck's didn't seem to miss a beat and resumed growth, while the C. baileyana growth has certainly slowed down.  With that said, C. fallaensis had far less damage and didn't seem to slow in growth at all.  C. macroglossa had zero damage growth wasn't interrupted    

[Xenon]

I don't think any "cold" temperature (as far as leaf/meristem damage) is an issue at your latitude but what's more concerning is how cool your winters are (it seems your daytime highs are below 20C from Dec-Mar and only 12-13C in Jan-Feb). Both palms are very heat loving and probably won't grow much for 4-5 months of the year, the Copernicia is probably more heat demanding of the two. 

[HolyNewBee]

12 hours ago, FishEyeAquaculture said:

Our experience here with a low of ~27F, Bismarck would show cold damage on foliage within a couple days.  It took C. baileyana a month to show equal amount of damage that the Bismarck's received.  Long term, Bismarck's didn't seem to miss a beat and resumed growth, while the C. baileyana growth has certainly slowed down.  With that said, C. fallaensis had far less damage and didn't seem to slow in growth at all.  C. macroglossa had zero damage growth wasn't interrupted    

I'm delighted to hear your experience. It seems to be more likely for fallaensis and macroglossa to survive than baileyana in my yard. However, fallaensis gets more than three times the price of a baileyana, while macroglossa seedlings are hardly on sale due to its rarity in China.  That's why I ask for baileyana's hardiness only and other Copernicias are not included.😵 Hope I will add more and more Copernicia to my collection!

[HolyNewBee]

9 hours ago, Xenon said:

I don't think any "cold" temperature (as far as leaf/meristem damage) is an issue at your latitude but what's more concerning is how cool your winters are (it seems your daytime highs are below 20C from Dec-Mar and only 12-13C in Jan-Feb). Both palms are very heat loving and probably won't grow much for 4-5 months of the year, the Copernicia is probably more heat demanding of the two. 

Definitely right,. Here never goes down to lower than 28F in past 30 years.  Last winter, my Bismarck stopped growing since late December and started resuming growth in mid march.  But that kind of interruption doesn't seem to be a matter for Bismarck, seedlings or adults. In fact, guilin and ganzhou are the northernmost city where Bismarck can survive in central south China, based on plenty of practice and failure.  My Bismarck doesn't need any help in whole duration of winter, and I don't konw whether it's neccesary to protect my Baileyana in winter or not.  Baileyana is rather rare both in public green area and private family garden,  therefore the most valuable references for me all come from palmtalk, and it seems to be better to take comparison with other similar-habits palms as a reference, than ask for baileyana's survival&damage data merely, on account of wide variations of climate between different continents. Thanks of explanation, and now I decide to take some protections to my baileyana from this winter.

[Merlyn]

In my area of Central Florida we had a night of 24-26F and frost at the end of January 2022.  I have a Fallaensis (3' tall), a very silver Bismarck (15' tall), and a Baileyana (2' tall) all in the backyard in the same temperature area.  The Fallaensis took about 25% leaf burn, the Bismarck none, and the Baileyana about 50% burn.  And this is despite the Bailey having a small amount of frost protection from a 12' tall pygmy date to the West and a couple of overhanging Cycas fronds directly above it.  The Fallaensis was fully exposed to frost.

The same 3 palms took basically no damage at 28F with frost and 30F with heavy frost back in 2020.  So if you *never* go below 28F then hardiness might not be an issue for any of them.  Your specific location matters though, because my front yard is 2-3F warmer than the backyard, and my lot was about 8F colder than the airport about 10 miles away.  Not only that, but in my yard the Philodendron Selloum and white bird of paradise were about 75-100% burned...and less than a mile away there were clumps that looked totally fine and way less than 25% burn!