Is CFL 9b now 10a?

[Bkue]

Certainly feels like it. Been seeing many new comer plants and palms. Always been a zone pusher but less and less concern. Anyone else think the same? Maybe just a decade from the killer cold snap. 

[kinzyjr]

6 hours ago, Bkue said:

Certainly feels like it. Been seeing many new comer plants and palms. Always been a zone pusher but less and less concern. Anyone else think the same? Maybe just a decade from the killer cold snap. 

Even with the map and the data lining up to put everything along the I-4 corridor minus a little blip between here and Tampa in zone 10a, I'd go with option 2.  We're still susceptible to 1980s and 1890s events, they just haven't happened.  2010 has pretty much become the benchmark for most of the people growing palms here.

The cold snaps of note since 2000 have been Jan. 2008, 2010, 2018, and both Jan. + Dec. 2022.  Whatever the minimum temperature was during those instances for an area ensures that whatever plants have been able to sneak through those are now large specimen palms.  If you planted a palm in 1999 that survived all of those cold snaps, you now have a 25 year old palm.  The minimum in my area over this time was 26F vs. 23F at the airport.  As a result, the landscaping here only 6 miles away is radically different.  A similar situation exists in Orlando - inside of the city it looks almost like an entirely different world than outside of it because of the milder overnight temperatures.

More of the longtime growers state, "If you had told me you were going to grow a Queen Palm in the 80s, I'd have told you that you were nuts!".  They saw what happened in that decade.  If and when we do get another big one, there's going to be a lot of compost available.

[flplantguy]

Come back and look at the data after the next cold period in the atlantic multidecadal oscillation. We have been warm since the 90s and a flip to cold like the 60s to 80s is likely soon. Then we can see for sure what the "zone" is here. All the major freezes in florida have occured during the cold periods outside a few, and all the major all time records are during cold periods. I think the next 30 years will be the tell on who is right but i fear for my garden after learning about that cycle.

[sonoranfans]

On 8/20/2024 at 6:50 AM, kinzyjr said:

Even with the map and the data lining up to put everything along the I-4 corridor minus a little blip between here and Tampa in zone 10a, I'd go with option 2.  We're still susceptible to 1980s and 1890s events, they just haven't happened.  2010 has pretty much become the benchmark for most of the people growing palms here.

The cold snaps of note since 2000 have been Jan. 2008, 2010, 2018, and both Jan. + Dec. 2022.  Whatever the minimum temperature was during those instances for an area ensures that whatever plants have been able to sneak through those are now large specimen palms.  If you planted a palm in 1999 that survived all of those cold snaps, you now have a 25 year old palm.  The minimum in my area over this time was 26F vs. 23F at the airport.  As a result, the landscaping here only 6 miles away is radically different.  A similar situation exists in Orlando - inside of the city it looks almost like an entirely different world than outside of it because of the milder overnight temperatures.

More of the longtime growers state, "If you had told me you were going to grow a Queen Palm in the 80s, I'd have told you that you were nuts!".  They saw what happened in that decade.  If and when we do get another big one, there's going to be a lot of compost available.

This is a good point. I planted out some small zone 10a stuff in 2010, most of it was killed in dec13-15?) cold.  Since then we have had a low of 30F(2018).  That window of 8 years with no freezing events allowed my palms to get some size and now the buds are far off the ground.  A 2010 event now would have a minor impact on my yard.  2010 did kill off cocos and adonidias in the area and that could happen again.  But with bunched palms t4rapping heart in my zone 10 area I am not worried by 28F radiational cold.  I keep about 10% of my palms that might get killed in a 20 year cold event.  You can probably push half a zone(2 degrees) if you pack in the yard and hit the warm window where no bad freeze events occur.  The Texas "palmageddon" freeze a few years ago showed us that a one or two decade long weather trend cannot be depended on to predict survivability of zone pushed palms in the future.