South Texas Jubaea Squad

[amh]

I now have 6 Jubaea chilensis seedlings and one Jubutia. I will likely keep these potted to at least 5 gallons before planting them in the ground along the forests edge.

I am located just north of San Antonio, but at over 1,000 feet above sea level, my nights are cooler and my daytime humidity is much lower.

I am hoping that these can survive my zone 8A or colder winters, and the Dallas area survivors have brought me some solace.

The Jubutia is the 1 gallon pot on the left.

[Fusca]

4 minutes ago, amh said:

I now have 6 Jubaea chilensis seedlings and one Jubutia. I will likely keep these potted to at least 5 gallons before planting them in the ground along the forests edge.

I am located just north of San Antonio, but at over 1,000 feet above sea level, my nights are cooler and my daytime humidity is much lower.

I am hoping that these can survive my zone 8A or colder winters, and the Dallas area survivors have brought me some solace.

The Jubutia is the 1 gallon pot on the left.

Sweet!  Hope they all do well for you - cold shouldn't be an issue (at least when they get bigger).

[amh]

3 minutes ago, Fusca said:

Sweet!  Hope they all do well for you - cold shouldn't be an issue (at least when they get bigger).

I hope the cold wont be an issue, but the warmest winter I've experienced lately was 10-11F. It will be nice if the latter half of the 2020s can have normal weather.

My soil is deep(10+ feet) fast draining clay loam, so wet feet shouldn't be a problem either.

[Fusca]

2 hours ago, amh said:

I hope the cold wont be an issue, but the warmest winter I've experienced lately was 10-11F. It will be nice if the latter half of the 2020s can have normal weather.

My soil is deep(10+ feet) fast draining clay loam, so wet feet shouldn't be a problem either.

Sounds like your soil is similar to what I had in SA.  How cold did you get in February 2021?  Sounds like recent winters have been brutal!  

[amh]

7 minutes ago, Fusca said:

Sounds like your soil is similar to what I had in SA.  How cold did you get in February 2021?  Sounds like recent winters have been brutal!  

I'm on a mild slope, so my soil is deep and the high organic content keeps the pH low for the area. The neighbors with physical thermometers had readings of -2F and -7F, which is just obscene for south Texas. There was no power, so all of the weather stations were down. My normal winters are 14F to 13F, with the occasional 8F to 9F lows every 5 years or so. 

[Fusca]

2 hours ago, amh said:

I'm on a mild slope, so my soil is deep and the high organic content keeps the pH low for the area. The neighbors with physical thermometers had readings of -2F and -7F, which is just obscene for south Texas. There was no power, so all of the weather stations were down. My normal winters are 14F to 13F, with the occasional 8F to 9F lows every 5 years or so. 

That's insane!  Hard to believe the disparity in temps in such a short distance.  You were at least 12° colder than my area in 2021 and before that I never saw anything below 20°F.

[amh]

13 hours ago, Fusca said:

That's insane!  Hard to believe the disparity in temps in such a short distance.  You were at least 12° colder than my area in 2021 and before that I never saw anything below 20°F.

The coldest temperatures since 1949. The temperature disparity is driven by topography. I am higher in elevation and located in a valley within a valley, so without wind or clouds, I get extreme radiational cooling(almost a perfect linear 2^o per hour drop until sun rise).I can be below freezing and weather stations located within 3 miles of my yard will be in the 40's and 50's.

[Fusca]

On 4/22/2024 at 10:11 AM, amh said:

The coldest temperatures since 1949. The temperature disparity is driven by topography. I am higher in elevation and located in a valley within a valley, so without wind or clouds, I get extreme radiational cooling(almost a perfect linear 2^o per hour drop until sun rise).I can be below freezing and weather stations located within 3 miles of my yard will be in the 40's and 50's.

That makes sense - after all there's snow occasionally on the mountain tops of Hawaii.  I didn't realize how high up you were.

[Austinpalm]

On 4/21/2024 at 4:37 PM, amh said:

I now have 6 Jubaea chilensis seedlings and one Jubutia. I will likely keep these potted to at least 5 gallons before planting them in the ground along the forests edge.

I am located just north of San Antonio, but at over 1,000 feet above sea level, my nights are cooler and my daytime humidity is much lower.

I am hoping that these can survive my zone 8A or colder winters, and the Dallas area survivors have brought me some solace.

The Jubutia is the 1 gallon pot on the left.

Good luck!  I left a 10-gallon sized Jubaea in the ground in Austin when I moved, a few months before the vortex hit.  Am not sure just how cold it got, am guessing you might hit those temps occasionally, but hopefully for nowhere near as long.  Jubaea are great palms.  Very slow, but great.

[amh]

23 hours ago, Austinpalm said:

Good luck!  I left a 10-gallon sized Jubaea in the ground in Austin when I moved, a few months before the vortex hit.  Am not sure just how cold it got, am guessing you might hit those temps occasionally, but hopefully for nowhere near as long.  Jubaea are great palms.  Very slow, but great.

I am hoping that these will survive with minimal protection and become acclimated to the cold. One of my biggest worries is that sometimes my first hard freeze will occur just after a rain storm. Imagine going from the 80's and raining to 20F in less than 48 hours.

Were you on the east or west side of Austin?

[Meangreen94z]

I put a couple 15 gallon size specimen in the ground in Lago Vista, Texas this spring. I’ve been told that’s the preferred size, right when they start to pick up speed. They are in a protected spot in my backyard, heres one them. 

[Austinpalm]

20 hours ago, amh said:

I am hoping that these will survive with minimal protection and become acclimated to the cold. One of my biggest worries is that sometimes my first hard freeze will occur just after a rain storm. Imagine going from the 80's and raining to 20F in less than 48 hours.

Were you on the east or west side of Austin?

Off Slaughter lane to the north about 1/2 mile and about 1 mile west of IH-35 and in the UHI. 

[JeskiM]

"amh",

You are the first person I've seen around here who has reported temps in the 2021 cold snap to be below zero.

I am in Georgetown TX and ~ 4 miles due south of the airport off of Hwy 29. The ASOS station at the airport was not recording any data in the worst part of that cold snap so I don't know what the temps were there. However, I have a mercury thermometer that always tracks very closely (+/- 1 to 2 degrees F) of that site and the on the coldest morning my thermometer was at -9 F. 

I lived in Colorado for many years and have lots of experience to cold, dry artic air masses that drop south, and that morning felt like many other mornings where I have seen sub-zero temps.

I have a suspicion that lots of areas in the Hill Country were below zero in that cold snap, especially in areas where cold air drains down into. My house sits on a slope near the peak a broad high point. I have a 50 foot drop from one corner of my property to another with the house right in the middle of the slope where the arroyo bisects my property ... so I know it's a cold air drainage location.

I lost a lot of palms and cycads like Sagos and also some native trees such as a very large (50') Texas Red Oaks and Mountain Laurels .. stuff you would have thought could take our extremes wo problems.

-Matt

 

 

[amh]

6 hours ago, Austinpalm said:

Off Slaughter lane to the north about 1/2 mile and about 1 mile west of IH-35 and in the UHI. 

I'm not too familiar with Austin, but I think that area wasn't hit too bad. Hopefully, the new homeowner was patient enough to let the  palm recover.

[amh]

23 hours ago, Meangreen94z said:

I put a couple 15 gallon size specimen in the ground in Lago Vista, Texas this spring. I’ve been told that’s the preferred size, right when they start to pick up speed. They are in a protected spot in my backyard, heres one them. 

That looks like a good location, has there been any transplant shock?

It will be quite a few years before mine are ready to be planted, but I will likely have them on the south side of the forest. So far, I have found that the jubaea are growing much faster than the butia seedlings that I have started.

 

[amh]

4 hours ago, JeskiM said:

"amh",

You are the first person I've seen around here who has reported temps in the 2021 cold snap to be below zero.

I am in Georgetown TX and ~ 4 miles due south of the airport off of Hwy 29. The ASOS station at the airport was not recording any data in the worst part of that cold snap so I don't know what the temps were there. However, I have a mercury thermometer that always tracks very closely (+/- 1 to 2 degrees F) of that site and the on the coldest morning my thermometer was at -9 F. 

I lived in Colorado for many years and have lots of experience to cold, dry artic air masses that drop south, and that morning felt like many other mornings where I have seen sub-zero temps.

I have a suspicion that lots of areas in the Hill Country were below zero in that cold snap, especially in areas where cold air drains down into. My house sits on a slope near the peak a broad high point. I have a 50 foot drop from one corner of my property to another with the house right in the middle of the slope where the arroyo bisects my property ... so I know it's a cold air drainage location.

I lost a lot of palms and cycads like Sagos and also some native trees such as a very large (50') Texas Red Oaks and Mountain Laurels .. stuff you would have thought could take our extremes wo problems.

-Matt

 

 

I haven't traveled as much as usual over the past few years, but I saw a lot of cold damage in Comal, Kendall, and Kerr counties following that freeze and I am certain that there were a lot of micro-climates below 0F in the hill county.  A lot of the exotic hunting ranches lost their deer and other game due to the cold. I did noticed that most of the native plants and animals survived, but most of the hill country natives are cold hardy. 

I have lived in Texas most of my life, so I did not have a way of knowing what subzero temperatures felt like, but when the cold literally hurts, seems to be a good metric. I found this out because propane generators do not work at these temperatures.

Most if not all of my neighborhood sagos survived and a few Sabal mexicanas and very old Washingtonias(probably pure filifera) did as well.  The sago survival rate could have been attributed to the snowfall. The mountain laurels and Texas persimmons were all defoliated and some lost branches, but they all survived. The escarpment live oaks were burned and some defoliated, but they survived too. The rest of the big trees were cold hardy and deciduous, so they were unfazed.

[csuehs]

I'm in San Antonio. Gonna try germinating some Jubaeas.

[Hu Palmeras]

On 21/4/2024 at 17:37, amh said:

Ahora tengo seis plántulas de Jubaea chilensis y una de Jubutia. Probablemente las mantendré en macetas de al menos 19 litros antes de plantarlas en el suelo, junto al borde del bosque.

Estoy ubicado justo al norte de San Antonio, pero a más de 1.000 pies sobre el nivel del mar, mis noches son más frescas y la humedad durante el día es mucho menor.

Espero que puedan sobrevivir a mi zona 8A o a inviernos más fríos, y los sobrevivientes del área de Dallas me han traído algo de consuelo.

La Jubutia es la maceta de 1 galón que está a la izquierda.

Hello, friends, wonderful Jubaeas Chilensis. You'll all look glorious if you could stand near that palm tree. You'll be like King Solomon, full of glory and charm.

[amh]

The plants are only about shin high right now, so I'd probably look more like Paul Bunyan.

[csuehs]

Hi everyone,

I'm going to record my little Jubaea experiment here, and hopefully find it again in the future.

2025-08-07: Put 20 Jubaea seeds to soak in distilled water. Changed water morning and evening. Kept everything in the garage (a naturally very warm place).

2025-08-11:  Put the 20 Jubaea seeds in a baggy with moist perlite. I check on them and mist with distilled water every day. Still in warm garage.

2025-08-18: Three of the seeds had opened one or more germination pores.

2025-09-06: Nothing new happening since the August 18th, except that the baggy is about to get icky, despite also adding some H2O4 to the distilled water.  I also need to leave for a few days and can't be around to rescue anything. So I rinsed the nuts off in distilled water and planted them shallowly in a container at the base of a giant elephant ear.  They will have regular water and shade here. Texas provides the warmth. (It is a container that I dolly into the garage whenever temps threaten to go below freezing).  I will check on them in a few weeks.

 

[amh]

32 minutes ago, csuehs said:

Hi everyone,

I'm going to record my little Jubaea experiment here, and hopefully find it again in the future.

2025-08-07: Put 20 Jubaea seeds to soak in distilled water. Changed water morning and evening. Kept everything in the garage (a naturally very warm place).

2025-08-11:  Put the 20 Jubaea seeds in a baggy with moist perlite. I check on them and mist with distilled water every day. Still in warm garage.

2025-08-18: Three of the seeds had opened one or more germination pores.

2025-09-06: Nothing new happening since the August 18th, except that the baggy is about to get icky, despite also adding some H2O4 to the distilled water.  I also need to leave for a few days and can't be around to rescue anything. So I rinsed the nuts off in distilled water and planted them shallowly in a container at the base of a giant elephant ear.  They will have regular water and shade here. Texas provides the warmth. (It is a container that I dolly into the garage whenever temps threaten to go below freezing).  I will check on them in a few weeks.

 

I'm sorry I did not respond to your earlier post, the forum has had issues with bots, so I'm reluctant to engage with new members. I've learned a lot by doing things wrong over the years, so I'll give you a little bit of advice.

1. Always thoroughly wash perlite before you use it, and then don't use it for seed germination in an enclosed environment. The fine dust will hold too much water causing fungal problems.

2. Do not use the baggy method in the summer.

3. You do not want your medium to be wet when using the baggy method because the seeds will rot.

4. Peat moss or peat moss with a small amount of perlite is the only safe medium to use for seed germination in the area.

5. Warm is good for Jubaea germination, but hot will kill the embryo, which is likely what has happened to you. I killed about 20 JubaeaXbutia F1 seeds because I did not know this.

The seeds have rotten, that is why the baggy is icky, but hopefully some have survived and will sprout inside their current container.

[csuehs]

Nothing looked rotten. The open pores still had little root tips in stasis.  Hopefully I didn't kill them with too much heat!!

[csuehs]

Ok back in town, and the squirrels are terrifying, so I dug up my Jubaea seeds and went back to a baggy with 1/2 moss and 1/2 non compacting soil (light and fluffy) so I can keep a better eye on them.  There is more activity at one of the open pores... I hope it's a root forming, but I didn't want to risk brushing the dirt off and breaking it.

[csuehs]

Contrary to expectations as temperatures in TX have dropped for several days now, I now have my first Jubaea rootling!  My little Halloween baby.  That makes almost three months to get the first germination.

Another Jubaea seed that had an open pore had barely visible something moving inside.  I set it in the sun to dry it out a bit, and the invisible yet moving microscopic maggots started boiling out of the poor.  And then I got distracted by something, and the nut was gone.   Probably got snatched by a squirrel.

So out of 20 seeds, I now have 1 rootling, 1 maggot infested squirrel sacrifice, and 18 little balls of potential.

 

[amh]

On 10/31/2025 at 7:44 PM, csuehs said:

Contrary to expectations as temperatures in TX have dropped for several days now, I now have my first Jubaea rootling!  My little Halloween baby.  That makes almost three months to get the first germination.

Another Jubaea seed that had an open pore had barely visible something moving inside.  I set it in the sun to dry it out a bit, and the invisible yet moving microscopic maggots started boiling out of the poor.  And then I got distracted by something, and the nut was gone.   Probably got snatched by a squirrel.

So out of 20 seeds, I now have 1 rootling, 1 maggot infested squirrel sacrifice, and 18 little balls of potential.

 

Keep at it, these can germinate all at once or take over a year.