My 6 year coconut tree in Houston

[Coconut Jared]

There are not many people keeping coconut trees in Houston, so I would like to share mine. I bought 6 coconut trees in the summer of 2018. They were just sprouted coconuts back then. I live in Pearland Texas, inside Houston city limits. Of the 6 coconut trees, 2 live today. The 4 that died were in pots. 1 of the living ones is in a pot and is still quite small. But I will focus on the one that is in the ground.
 

The attached pictures were taken this year during the freeze that got into the mid teens. The tree actually took 12 hours of 28-32 degree weather before I could get to it. After that it was wrapped up as you can see with a 1500 watt infrared heater pointed at it with no heating cable. I was almost positive it was going to die. But It is doing quite well considering. The newest leaf is growing and 3 leafs besides that are 75% green.  

In 2021 it got down to 15 degrees! And in 2022 17 degrees. It was wrapped up in blankets and heating cables in 2021. I did not wrap all the leaves. It was completely defoliated and the center frond pulled and was rotten. But the tree recovered! It was mostly defoliated again in 2022. In the summer of 2023 it was over 100 degrees every day for 2 months straight. I have heard they can’t handle heat, but I have seen differently. It was watered 5 times a week.
 

mistakes- Using a heating cable that was 5 watts per foot burned the center part of the fronds, killing the entire fronds. Putting the heater too close has fried a few fronds. 
 

The tree has about 10” of trunk now at the base. I make sure to water it a lot during the summers. And I also fertilize a few times a year. 
 

Over the past few years I have lost a massive medjool date palm, 2 Sylvester date palms, 2 Beccariophoenix Alfredii, 3 king palms, 1 Cuban royal palm and 2 Christmas’s tree palms.The Christmas’s tree palms, king palms, and Cuban royal were covered and heated like the coconut tree with heating cables but not a infrared heater. And the coconut tree still lives! I can post more pictures in a week or so that are stored somewhere on my computer if people are interested. I can also take a picture of the coconut tree next to the defoliated cidp from the big freeze a few months ago if there is doubt that I am lying about my location.

[Harry’s Palms]

That’s dedication! I’m not sure how long that palm will hold on , but it won’t be for lack of effort. As these age , they require lots of direct sun from what I know about them. Harry

[Meangreen94z]

Pretty cool, especially considering the palms you lost with similar protection . What other palms do you have? 

[Coconut Jared]

5 hours ago, Meangreen94z said:

Pretty cool, especially considering the palms you lost with similar protection . What other palms do you have? 

I have 2 fairly large canary island date palms. They are the only palms besides the coco tree to make it through these crazy freezes we have had. I have a mule palm, a 2’ trunk medjool palm, and a 15 gallon royal palm on order to arrive in 4 days. My next door neighbor has 2 mule palms that made it through the 17 degree weather without any issue. Every palm I have die from here out will be replaced with a mule palm.

[Dwarf Fan]

On 2/29/2024 at 1:57 PM, Coconut Jared said:

There are not many people keeping coconut trees in Houston, so I would like to share mine. I bought 6 coconut trees in the summer of 2018. They were just sprouted coconuts back then. I live in Pearland Texas, inside Houston city limits. Of the 6 coconut trees, 2 live today. The 4 that died were in pots. 1 of the living ones is in a pot and is still quite small. But I will focus on the one that is in the ground.
 

The attached pictures were taken this year during the freeze that got into the mid teens. The tree actually took 12 hours of 28-32 degree weather before I could get to it. After that it was wrapped up as you can see with a 1500 watt infrared heater pointed at it with no heating cable. I was almost positive it was going to die. But It is doing quite well considering. The newest leaf is growing and 3 leafs besides that are 75% green.  

In 2021 it got down to 15 degrees! And in 2022 17 degrees. It was wrapped up in blankets and heating cables in 2021. I did not wrap all the leaves. It was completely defoliated and the center frond pulled and was rotten. But the tree recovered! It was mostly defoliated again in 2022. In the summer of 2023 it was over 100 degrees every day for 2 months straight. I have heard they can’t handle heat, but I have seen differently. It was watered 5 times a week.
 

mistakes- Using a heating cable that was 5 watts per foot burned the center part of the fronds, killing the entire fronds. Putting the heater too close has fried a few fronds. 
 

The tree has about 10” of trunk now at the base. I make sure to water it a lot during the summers. And I also fertilize a few times a year. 
 

Over the past few years I have lost a massive medjool date palm, 2 Sylvester date palms, 2 Beccariophoenix Alfredii, 3 king palms, 1 Cuban royal palm and 2 Christmas’s tree palms.The Christmas’s tree palms, king palms, and Cuban royal were covered and heated like the coconut tree with heating cables but not a infrared heater. And the coconut tree still lives! I can post more pictures in a week or so that are stored somewhere on my computer if people are interested. I can also take a picture of the coconut tree next to the defoliated cidp from the big freeze a few months ago if there is doubt that I am lying about my location.

 

 

Welcome to Palm Talk and thanks for sharing about your Texas Coconut Jared. What is the tree to the left with the leaves touching your Coconut?

[N8ALLRIGHT]

22 minutes ago, Dwarf Fan said:

Welcome to Palm Talk and thanks for sharing about your Texas Coconut Jared. What is the tree to the left with the leaves touching your Coconut?

Selloum?

[Chester B]

44 minutes ago, Dwarf Fan said:

Welcome to Palm Talk and thanks for sharing about your Texas Coconut Jared. What is the tree to the left with the leaves touching your Coconut?

Looks like a papaya to me.

[Coconut Jared]

3 hours ago, Dwarf Fan said:

Welcome to Palm Talk and thanks for sharing about your Texas Coconut Jared. What is the tree to the left with the leaves touching your Coconut?

Thank you! It’s a papaya, and that picture was taken the last day of its life lol. I’ll post a pic of what everything looks like now. Papaya, hummingbird tree, and plumerias all very dead from the freeze. Canary island date palm lost all its leaves but is sending up multiple new leaves and should be fine.

 

The papayas and hummingbirds die every year, but new ones planted in the spring grow into good size trees in 1 season. 

[Coconut Jared]

Post freeze, taken today. You can see the papaya tree, plumeria, and hummingbird trees are gone. Canary island date palms pushing new leaves, and the coco looks pretty good considering.

Edited March 6, 2024 by Coconut Jared

[Coconut Jared]

[Coconut Jared]

@Walt About 7 years ago, reading about your coconut palm in North Florida inspired this tree. Houston is a bit colder than where you are, but I wanted to give it a shot. Listed at 9a, I think Houston is turning more into a 8b. 3 of the past 6 years it has been below 17, 2 of those years getting down to 15. The winters seem to be warmer over all, but with more frequent colder vortex’s. 

[Coconut Jared]

Brand new medjool and Cuban royal. This Cuban royal is massive! It was only 300$. Hopefully it fares better than the small one I had before.

[Meangreen94z]

I’m hoping for an 8-10 year mild span for you. 

[Chester B]

I see someone is selling a medium sized coconut in a grow bag here locally in Houston.  If it’s not you then there is someone else growing one albeit not in the ground. 

[Meangreen94z]

13 hours ago, Chester B said:

I see someone is selling a medium sized coconut in a grow bag here locally in Houston.  If it’s not you then there is someone else growing one albeit not in the ground. 

They sell them every spring at the Great Outdoors Nursery here in Austin. At one point the price point was low enough that it sounded like a brief fun patio plant that could be sold later to a friend in South Texas. This year they wanted $80 for a 2 gallon specimen. 

[Chester B]

10 hours ago, Meangreen94z said:

They sell them every spring at the Great Outdoors Nursery here in Austin. At one point the price point was low enough that it sounded like a brief fun patio plant that could be sold later to a friend in South Texas. This year they wanted $80 for a 2 gallon specimen. 

You can usually get them at HomeDepot for $30.  This one that is for sale is as big as the one shown in this thread.  It has a few feet of trunk so they must've grown it up and successfully overwintered it.

[Coconut Jared]

On 3/13/2024 at 9:51 AM, Chester B said:

I see someone is selling a medium sized coconut in a grow bag here locally in Houston.  If it’s not you then there is someone else growing one albeit not in the ground. 

Not me

[Ivanos1982]

Interesting that the infra red heater worked better than the heating cables. How did you manage to heat your palm during the Feb 2021 vortex when many people lost power? I lost power at my house and I live in Westchaase/alief area. I bought two king palms and planted them in the ground this spring. They are close to the house so I could easily get a heater pointing at them as there is an outlet nearby them. However, I was thinking of using 'hand warmers' they sell on amazon inside and wrap them up for our next vortex. Not sure if it will burn them as they get pretty hot. They last at least 12 hours so I could replace them every six hours or at least until temps get back to above 25 degrees. I'm just planning for these vortex frosts to happen every year now. Houston is not what it used to be. The landscape changed yet Im stubborn with my palms. Thanks for sharing your pics.

[Coconut Jared]

On 3/18/2024 at 11:27 AM, Ivanos1982 said:

Interesting that the infra red heater worked better than the heating cables. How did you manage to heat your palm during the Feb 2021 vortex when many people lost power? I lost power at my house and I live in Westchaase/alief area. I bought two king palms and planted them in the ground this spring. They are close to the house so I could easily get a heater pointing at them as there is an outlet nearby them. However, I was thinking of using 'hand warmers' they sell on amazon inside and wrap them up for our next vortex. Not sure if it will burn them as they get pretty hot. They last at least 12 hours so I could replace them every six hours or at least until temps get back to above 25 degrees. I'm just planning for these vortex frosts to happen every year now. Houston is not what it used to be. The landscape changed yet Im stubborn with my palms. Thanks for sharing your pics.

I only lost power for a few hours during the day in 2021. I used a generator to power the heating cables and my 235 gallon saltwater aquarium that year. I’m not sure the hand warmers would put off enough heat. I’ve used them many times in Montana, they work okay in your pocket. But the second you take them out they get ice cold. I’ve been trying to figure out ways to keep it going in a power outage too, but haven’t come up with anything. Yes Houston winters seem warmer overall but with colder extreme temperatures with the polar vortex’s. I think there is a way to make the heating cables work as good or better than the infrared heater. But you have to know what you’re doing and spend time putting them on right. Some of these winters I wasn’t able to do them myself and ended up burning the fronds and killing all the leaves. I was very surprised the infrared heater kept the tree alive by itself this year. For sure thought it was going to die. Interesting also that the very bottom of the tree wasn’t wrapped all the way down. And the roots had no protection from the cold. Didn’t seem to matter.

[Allen]

On 3/18/2024 at 11:27 AM, Ivanos1982 said:

 However, I was thinking of using 'hand warmers' they sell on amazon inside and wrap them up for our next vortex. Not sure if it will burn them as they get pretty hot. They last at least 12 hours so I could replace them every six hours or at least until temps get back to above 25 degrees. I'm just planning for these vortex frosts to happen every year now. Houston is not what it used to be. The landscape changed yet Im stubborn with my palms. Thanks for sharing your pics.

 

[Ivanos1982]

3 hours ago, Coconut Jared said:

I only lost power for a few hours during the day in 2021. I used a generator to power the heating cables and my 235 gallon saltwater aquarium that year. I’m not sure the hand warmers would put off enough heat. I’ve used them many times in Montana, they work okay in your pocket. But the second you take them out they get ice cold. I’ve been trying to figure out ways to keep it going in a power outage too, but haven’t come up with anything. Yes Houston winters seem warmer overall but with colder extreme temperatures with the polar vortex’s. I think there is a way to make the heating cables work as good or better than the infrared heater. But you have to know what you’re doing and spend time putting them on right. Some of these winters I wasn’t able to do them myself and ended up burning the fronds and killing all the leaves. I was very surprised the infrared heater kept the tree alive by itself this year. For sure thought it was going to die. Interesting also that the very bottom of the tree wasn’t wrapped all the way down. And the roots had no protection from the cold. Didn’t seem to matter.

oh ok yeah I dont have a generator, I have to learn how all that works/cost etc. I mean I could use heating cables too but the infrared seems easier, still a bit of a fire hazard no? specially if the blankets covering the palms get too hot. The thermocube sounds like a great idea if you have electricity that is. One of the reasons why I dont install a greenhouse to grow orchids in Houston. Too many outages and storms/wind. A lot of risk.

Edited March 23, 2024 by Ivanos1982

[Ivanos1982]

2 hours ago, Allen said:

 

the thermocubes shut down when outside air temperature gets above 45. What worries me is that the temperature of the heating cables inside the blankets can kill the fronds if gets too high. Not sure if the heating cables have a similar concept as the thermocube were it will shut down if it gets hotter than 45.

Edited March 23, 2024 by Ivanos1982

[Allen]

49 minutes ago, Ivanos1982 said:

the thermocubes shut down when outside air temperature gets above 45. What worries me is that the temperature of the heating cables inside the blankets can kill the fronds if gets too high. Not sure if the heating cables have a similar concept as the thermocube were it will shut down if it gets hotter than 45.

They do shut off but are harder to work with than mini lights and more expensive

http://amzn.com/dp/B0BKZNTNM9

Edited March 23, 2024 by Allen

[Meangreen94z]

8 hours ago, Ivanos1982 said:

the thermocubes shut down when outside air temperature gets above 45. What worries me is that the temperature of the heating cables inside the blankets can kill the fronds if gets too high. Not sure if the heating cables have a similar concept as the thermocube were it will shut down if it gets hotter than 45.

Heating cables only operate at freezing or below temperatures. 

[Coconut Jared]

The coconut tree is soaking up weather in the mid 40s inside its enclosure during a Houston snowstorm. Took a night in the upper 20s this year before I put up the greenhouse around it with only the lower half covered with no heat. No leaf burn! That really surprised me. But man this tree really is tough as nails. 

 

The enclosure I made is a 1.5” pvc frame that fits perfectly over t posts. Man it is solid, doesn’t even blow in the wind. I tried making the frame all together and it was such a disaster that I almost gave up. Ended up putting it up in sections and glued all the connections except the cross brace pieces(will store much easier). Put in a 40 gallon trash can full of water and a 600 watt aquarium heater keeping the water at 93 degrees. With this and an no lid, it kept it 15-18 degrees above the outside temp. But it caused a lot of condensation that I was worried would freeze the leaves touching the plastic (6mil greenhouse plastic from Amazon).  So I put the lid on the bucket and added a 500 watt external heater. Still holding 15-18 degrees above the outside temperature but with no condensation. Suppose to get into the upper teens to low 20s tonight, but I’m confident it will come out okay!

[Axel Amsterdam]

Fantastic, I love this experiment and have a potted cocos outside as well (with heating cables). Yours seems pretty cold tolerant, do you have a picture of the young sprouted coconut? I was wondering if this could be a tall variety (e.g. large husk)

[Austinpalm]

21 hours ago, Coconut Jared said:

The coconut tree is soaking up weather in the mid 40s inside its enclosure during a Houston snowstorm. Took a night in the upper 20s this year before I put up the greenhouse around it with only the lower half covered with no heat. No leaf burn! That really surprised me. But man this tree really is tough as nails. 

 

The enclosure I made is a 1.5” pvc frame that fits perfectly over t posts. Man it is solid, doesn’t even blow in the wind. I tried making the frame all together and it was such a disaster that I almost gave up. Ended up putting it up in sections and glued all the connections except the cross brace pieces(will store much easier). Put in a 40 gallon trash can full of water and a 600 watt aquarium heater keeping the water at 93 degrees. With this and an no lid, it kept it 15-18 degrees above the outside temp. But it caused a lot of condensation that I was worried would freeze the leaves touching the plastic (6mil greenhouse plastic from Amazon).  So I put the lid on the bucket and added a 500 watt external heater. Still holding 15-18 degrees above the outside temperature but with no condensation. Suppose to get into the upper teens to low 20s tonight, but I’m confident it will come out okay!

Congrats on getting a coconut palm to grow and keeping it alive in Pearland.  Your winter protection is impressive.  Once this cold weather has passed us, I would suggest throwing a gallon or two of salt water from the Gulf or a nearby bay on it.  I do that to my coconuts here in Port Isabel during the winter and it helps to keep fungus/etc... from getting out of control during the part of the year while our coconut palms are weakest/growing slowest.  It is also good for any other palms normally found on/near the beach.  Good luck! Hopefully you'll get a few winters soon that do not require such an effort.

[Than]

What kind of DNA mutation does this specimen have that makes it so unique, I wonder. You are very lucky!

You've given me an idea btw. I'll go to home depot - like stores and see if any keeps potted cocos outdoors. If they do, it means those cocos have taken some cold already. I may buy one. After I chat up an employee to find out how long the plant has been left outdoors of course

[SouthernCATropicals]

Some coco’s are just built different, wow that’s impressive 

[NC_Palms]

I love this so much!!