Hurricane protection

[2palm]

I know it’s not hurricane season, but I do wonder what is the best way to prevent your palm from being torn apart or being pulled from the ground. I know most palms are quite resistant to hurricanes, but major hurricanes have been coming to Central Florida more often every few years. I’ve heard you could put steaks in the ground to hold the tree up, but that might not prevent from damage. I know there’s not much you can do as hurricanes are a natural and normal thing for palms, but I want to protect them, the best I can.

[Looking Glass]

1 hour ago, 2palm said:

I know it’s not hurricane season, but I do wonder what is the best way to prevent your palm from being torn apart or being pulled from the ground. I know most palms are quite resistant to hurricanes, but major hurricanes have been coming to Central Florida more often every few years. I’ve heard you could put steaks in the ground to hold the tree up, but that might not prevent from damage. I know there’s not much you can do as hurricanes are a natural and normal thing for palms, but I want to protect them, the best I can.

I actually think about this a lot.  Hurricanes are a natural part of living in Florida and though palms generally perform well in storms, they range from excellent, to poor storm tolerance depending on the specific palm species.  

I think most people just hope for the best.  I think the best answer though, is to plant hurricane hardy palms in hurricane country.  Planting them in groups helps, and in more sheltered locations for those that aren’t perfectly wind tolerant.  You can also stake young wobbly palms until they root in solidly.   Don’t plant poor performers within adult falling distance of the house or power lines.  

If you get smashed by a Cat 4-5, good luck.  You’ll have bigger worries than palms…  protect the house and cars. 

[PalmatierMeg]

7 hours ago, Looking Glass said:

I actually think about this a lot.  Hurricanes are a natural part of living in Florida and though palms generally perform well in storms, they range from excellent, to poor storm tolerance depending on the specific palm species.  

I think most people just hope for the best.  I think the best answer though, is to plant hurricane hardy palms in hurricane country.  Planting them in groups helps, and in more sheltered locations for those that aren’t perfectly wind tolerant.  You can also stake young wobbly palms until they root in solidly.   Don’t plant poor performers within adult falling distance of the house or power lines.  

If you get smashed by a Cat 4-5, good luck.  You’ll have bigger worries than palms…  protect the house and cars. 

Amen. BTW, hurricane season is 6/1 through 11/30. Major hurricanes have struck the US as late as end of Oct.. and into Nov. Your best chances of coming through any hurricane is to research diligently then plant trees and palms that evolved in stormy areas. You can’t go wrong with any of the Sabals (my Sabal Row has protected the east side of our house through two majors - Irma and Ian - and stand tall today), also Copernicia, Coccothrinax. Roystonea and other Caribbean palms. Maybe Washies, Braheas, Archonotophoenix spp

Per my personal experience, avoid: Bismarckia, Beccariophoenix (before trunking), Chrysalidocarpus pembana, Attalea (exc. phalerata), Gaussia maya, Elaeis, many Syagrus spp. They will fail in hurricanes of cat 3+

Some surprise survivals from Ian: Hyophorbe, Latania, Ravenea rivularis, Livistona decora & mariae

[Looking Glass]

3 hours ago, PalmatierMeg said:

Amen. BTW, hurricane season is 6/1 through 11/30. Major hurricanes have struck the US as late as end of Oct.. and into Nov. Your best chances of coming through any hurricane is to research diligently then plant trees and palms that evolved in stormy areas. You can’t go wrong with any of the Sabals (my Sabal Row has protected the east side of our house through two majors - Irma and Ian - and stand tall today), also Copernicia, Coccothrinax. Roystonea and other Caribbean palms. Maybe Washies, Braheas, Archonotophoenix spp

Per my personal experience, avoid: Bismarckia, Beccariophoenix (before trunking), Chrysalidocarpus pembana, Attalea (exc. phalerata), Gaussia maya, Elaeis, many Syagrus spp. They will fail in hurricanes of cat 3+

Some surprise survivals from Ian: Hyophorbe, Latania, Ravenea rivularis, Livistona decora & mariae

You can get a pretty good guess going from the appearance of the palm, coupled with where it grows.  Costal palms from hurricane battered areas, tend to do much better than rainforest palms.   And palms with thick trunks and thin whispy leaves, do better than those with giant stiff sails.  

Among the common palms, a lot is known about hurricane tolerance.   Queens and Washies are documented to perform among the worst, even with non-palm trees considered.  Pygmy dates/Roebelenii are #1, with Sabals, and Phoenix family palms doing quite well.  @PalmatierMeg listing above is a great one.   Coconuts and Dictyosperma/Hurricane palms are a mixed bag, depending of the specific subtype.   

What isn’t well known, is how the relatively rarer collector palms do overall.   With those you have to go by past experience and hearsay.   That’s where folks like Meg come in.  Many of the older, seasoned Palmtalk members with a lot of hurricane experience in my area, aren’t very active on this forum these days.

Dypsis/Chrysalidocarpus as a group tend to do kind of poorly.   Though I wonder how the larger species (rare in Florida) would hold up.  

Smaller fan palms from Florida, and the Carribean and Cuba do well.  Palms from Round Island do well.  Coastal palms from Asia have their standouts, as they are subjected to typhoons.  Satakenita and Heterospathe elata are said to perform very well.   But many of the species we grow as hobbyists and collectors are relative unknowns, so you have to just make a best guess.  
 

Here’s an old guide…

https://pamela-crawford.com/wind-tolerance-trees-palm-beach-landscape/

Edited October 8, 2023 by Looking Glass

[mnorell]

I have noted much of this before elsewhere in that past...but just to confirm and augment some of the above notes...we went through the eyewall of Irma on Big Pine Key. Aside from the 160+ mph winds there was plenty of mesovorticity (quick spin-up mini-tornados embedded in the eyewall), 4-8' of ocean water for 18-24 hrs plus tall, violent waves for open-water lots.

Standouts (almost 100% perfect condition) were:
- Latania (all three species);
- Adonidia merrillii;
- Phoenix roebelenii and canariensis (and I think most if not all other species);
- Hyophorbe lagenicaulis and H. verschaffeltii;
- Veitchia arecina;
- Pritchardia thurstonii and P. pacifica (the latter species temporarily lost many leaves);
- and the native Thrinax radiata.

Using all of the above you can pretty much make a hurricane-proof garden.

As far as Dypsis/Chrysalidocarpus went, C. lutescens did terribly. Many, many hedges destroyed permanently, though some in the neighborhood did resprout and have finally recovered with decent appearance today. My C. cabadae, strangely enough, did beautifully. I found it knocked over three weeks after the storm, having been drowned in seawater then its rootball just sitting out in the dry air, but looking like nothing had happened to it. I righted it and it cranked on like nothing had happened.

Roystonea, if large and established, well planted down into the rock, were generally fine though uniformly defoliated (as one would expect). Ditto for Ptychosperma elegans, often defoliated but usually survived. Cocos was often good though many were thrown over as well for various reasons, so far from perfect.

Washingtonia was odd in that some fell over on people's houses, others were unscathed, even fairly tall specimens...in contrast to most scientific studies that paint them as disasters. And I lost my four Dictyosperma although I think it may have been more physical damage from falling trees than anything. Livistona chinensis did surprisingly poorly. Most that were inundated were completely killed but some did recover.

Bismarckia didn't have a great record in our area but I'd say more than 60-70% survived.

Among the more unusual palms: Arikuryroba (Syagrus) schizophylla looked great; and a Heterospathe elata, which looked beautiful at a neighbor's house a block away from us but subjected to some of the worst-force wind and water, and for some reason the owner ripped it out about six months after the storm(!). A gorgeous and robust Ptychococcus paradoxus I had grown up to about 20' height did fine but was leaning too close to the power lines after being pushed over, and the power company decapitated it before I could get to it. Argh. Cyrtostachys renda was blackened immediately by the saltwater; while its hybrid actually held on for nearly a year before finally giving up; and one Licuala also survived (L. distans); and my several small L. grandis tried to return but most of them gave out later, months after opening new leaves. I assume these failures were from lingering salt-related dehydration because I didn't flush their roots with freshwater thoroughly/consistently in the period that followed the storm. My bad.

Surprising thing was how poorly most of the natives did. Many losses of both Coccothrinax argentata and Leucothrinax morrissii in the forests surrounding us as well as on our own property, almost always apparently from torquing of the bud or physical damage from falling trees or other flying objects smashing their crowns. Serenoa looked really terrible and mostly collapsed, though within 2-3 years they often resprouted some new heads. Acoelorrhaphe did beautifully and in fact seemed to lose its typical chlorosis after being drowned in saltwater. Go figure.

I'd say a huge lesson that I learned in re dealing with hurricanes in the Keys was that, as painful as it may be, most palms need to be planted down into the rock, whether that's done with a pick or a bobcat with an auger. I crossed my fingers often thinking planting on top of the rock and building up a thick layer of humus would be fine after a period of adjustment, but I know now it can take years for a palm (even Cocos) to really get its roots down into the rock so that it can withstand such forces. Unfortunately we got hit by one of the worst storms ever just five or six years after most of my landscape got planted, and they weren't prepared.

A side-note is that we had a terrible forest fire a few months after the storm that tragically ripped a mile-long swath through some of the densest forest of Coccothrinax and Leucothrinax in the Keys. Most Leucothrinax resprouted after the fire. In contrast, virtually all Coccothrinax were completely killed. That was a major loss.

[SeanK]

As @PalmatierMeg points out, those species that evolved in tropical, hurricane/typhoon areas will fare the best. I will guess that Acoelorrhaphe also does well.

[sonoranfans]

From IRMA and IAN, both Cat 1 in my area what I saw that was most impressive was not so much the species but the height and openness of the position.  All tall palms took a big hit losing many leaves, some had spear decapitated.  Yet I had no damage to a 25' sabal mauritiiformis growing adjacent(touching) on the leeward side  of a big magnolia and several chambeyronias plus all my small palms no leaf wind damage.  This limited foliage loss also extended to crotons and other plahts on the leeward side of the house under canopy.  All canopy palms lost at least several leaves, sometimes that included newer ones.  My lot has a strip of oak forest to the south so from the south it is wind protected by 30 to 60 foot oaks that slow the wind.  SO even if the winds came out of the south they would be reduced.  Wind velocities we see on TV are not necessarily what your palms see.  The standard meteorological wind measurement for hurricanes is at 33' above the ground and of course not in a protected area or an area with ground structures to slow the wind.   33' can be 10-15 mph more wind velocity than the ground.   Ground structures and forests that have a lot of wind drag cut that wind velocity number down quite a bit, maybe 20-25%.   Using this in your landscape plan may help for a Cat 1 maybe a Cat 2 but those hurricanes that have the really high winds may wreak havoc on that plan.  Yes Caribbean palms probably survive hurricanes better than most but the example of sabal mauritiiformis(terrible palms in wind for leaf damage) growing with the magnolia, the shorter chambeys, teddys and crotons had a lot less damage than my more exposed carribean palms in IAN(97mph max gusts).  The key I think is how strong winds will your palm see?  Before IRMA we saw nothing even hurricane strength for 80 years in my area, but both IRMA and IAN were Cat 1 in 2017 and 2022.  There probably isnt enough statistical data to decide that tampa was somehow a low hurricane hit zone but perhaps lower winds can be expected.  Conditions change and so to the stats, making statistical interpretations of the probabilities of these events in a given area very tough.