Live Oak Canopy to the Rescue Hard Freeze 2022

[Lou-StAugFL]

Since the freeze happened during the Christmas holidays I was too preoccupied with family activities to protect my palms.  I did protect fruits and veggies at our small farm but not enough time to protect our ornamental plants.  I am located just a few blocks from the Intracoastal Waterway.  As I reviewed by data we did indeed hit 27 here in St. Augustine South, FL one night for short period.  We had at least 6-8 hours of freeze each night of the event.  I am most shocked that I see zero burn on Adonidia merrillii, archontophoenix cunninghamiana or Beccariophoenix alfredii.  I provided zero protection, they were on their own to survive. I am beyond thrilled at how they look today.  I expected to see some leaf burn at least.  These three are must palms if you can provide canopy even if you live this far north in Florida. You can see the pothos and Angel trumpet are fried from the cold but the palms look great. 

Edited December 27, 2022 by Lou-StAugFL

[bubba]

Great to see you did so well. Saint Augustine is a very special area. Those gigantic live Oakes are not only beautiful, but provide great protection for the tropicals you are growing in the area.

[kinzyjr]

22 hours ago, Lou-StAugFL said:

Since the freeze happened during the Christmas holidays I was too preoccupied with family activities to protect my palms.  I did protect fruits and veggies at our small farm but not enough time to protect our ornamental plants.  I am located just a few blocks from the Intracoastal Waterway.  As I reviewed by data we did indeed hit 27 here in St. Augustine South, FL one night for short period.  We had at least 6-8 hours of freeze each night of the event.  I am most shocked that I see zero burn on Adonidia merrillii, archontophoenix cunninghamiana or Beccariophoenix alfredii.  I provided zero protection, they were on their own to survive. I am beyond thrilled at how they look today.  I expected to see some leaf burn at least.  These three are must palms if you can provide canopy even if you live this far north in Florida. You can see the pothos and Angel trumpet are fried from the cold but the palms look great. 

Canopy makes a world of difference.  They look great!

[Merlyn]

I had similar experience with my 5 Beccariophoenix Alfredii.  They were not protected and all out in the open.  One probably gets some help by being about 12' from the house, but they are all pretty much fully exposed and the tallest things around at 15-25' or so.  I didn't notice any substantial damage with this last weekend, I hit lows of 27.7, 26.4, 31.3 and 34.2 for the 4 cold nights.  Last January the same 5 Alfredii took maybe 25% damage at 24-26F with frost.  I'm very impressed with their hardiness.

Adonidia, on the other hand, croaked after the first dip into the 30s.  I'm sure it was a bud infection, because they just quit growing new leaves.  I was too busy with other stuff and didn't notice until about 6 months later that they were losing old leaves but not growing new ones.  So that triple got yanked and I haven't tried another one.

I do have five small Archontophoenix clumps here, about 2-3' tall in the ground.  On the West side there's a couple of A. Cunninghamiana that I got from @palmsOrl, and a couple of A. Maxima that I got from @PalmatierMeg.  The ones under canopy have no visible damage.  Only one of the Maxima has a bronzed leaf, it's the biggest of the bunch and that frond was sticking out into the open.

[ruskinPalms]

Canopy is the one thing very sorely lacking in my yard. I live in a newer development so no oak canopy.

[chad2468emr]

I logged in for the first time in a while to post about the same thing! Saw the same in my yard here in Winter Springs outside of Orlando. Even with frost covers, here’s how an archie purpurea made out just a few feet from the canopy’s edge: 

 

Meanwhile, zero noticeable damage on this archie alexandrae and even a COCONUT that didn’t get any cover because I ran out of blankets and had to rely on the canopy to do its thing: 

 

Other slight burns on anything without canopy cover, even if they had blankets, but largely happy how little damage was taken with how cold it got for how long. Of course the bananas and elephant ears all look torched because even with cover, the low of 29°F was too much for their leaves to handle by itself. They froze. They’re fast growers though, so they’ll bounce back quickly I’m sure.