Any tips on ensuring the survival of my 80 foot Washingtonias - Louisiana once in a lifetime snow storm

[LouisianaWashingtoniaRobus]

I wrapped the base of my palms with blankets before the snow started. Temperatures might be as low as 13 degrees tonight for 2-3 hours. 

Does anyone have any tips or knowledge as to whether they will be okay? 
 

posting pics from last night when I wrapped versus today in the snow. We have gotten about 10 inches so far. 
 

love these palms and really hope they’ll be okay!! 

[Xenon]

I'm sorry to say but the wrapping you did is absolutley no help. The critical part of the palm (the bud/growing point) is 80 feet up in the air as you say, so not practical to protect.

Honestly there is nothing you can do at this point but hope they survive. The trunks on your palm are not the super ultra skinny kind so I'd say there is a decent change they mnake a comeback. 

[LouisianaWashingtoniaRobus]

Thanks for your feedback!! Should I remove the blankets? Are they hurting at all? 

[Jimbean]

Just now, LouisianaWashingtoniaRobus said:

Thanks for your feedback!! Should I remove the blankets? Are they hurting at all? 

Those blankets aren't doing anything.  Like Xenon said, the most critical part of the palm is the heart, or bud which looks to be around 30 feet or so up.  

Those palms are going to experience some damage.  If the temperature stays mostly above 20F with only briefly getting into the teens, then they should make it.  Hit them with some fertilizer before the summer, that will help them recover before next winter. 

[LouisianaWashingtoniaRobus]

Thanks for the feedback, really helpful. It will be below 20 degrees for a 12 hour period tonight where it’s now forecasted to get as low as 9 degrees 😳

[Jimbean]

Yikes.  I wish you good luck.  Yeah you might lose them in that cold, or maybe not.  Just take good care of them when it warms up. 

[Meangreen94z]

I’ve been following the predicted lows in Louisiana, that heavy snowfall is leading to near 1989 temperatures along the coast. Possibly colder. Someone sent me this weather map . Good luck.

[Than]

I'll never complain about my 29 F again...

[ChrisA]

Keep a close eye as it warms up. They may survive and I hope they do.  San Antonio also got down to 9F during our 2021 storm and we were below freezing for longer than this event.  Not sure what your low temp was but the screenshot I took this morning when I woke up looks rough.  
 

Within a few weeks you will notice if all the fronds collapse, including the spear.  With 10” of heavy snow most fronds and petioles will have broken.  If the spear remains upright and intact you stand a chance that it recovers.  If the spear has also collapsed there is very little chance it will survive.  Moisture and melt water are going to be the enemy here. Those palms are no where near 80 tall but still tall enough to make treating the growing point with fungicide very difficult. 
 

Please post some daytime photos  when you get a chance in the next week so we can take a look.  If you haven’t already there is a Texas-sized thread on what we went through here in Texas and what the palms looked like afterwards, you’ll see what a failed crown looks like.  San Antonio lost a good deal of robustas, but as Jonathan mentioned yourS aren’t super skinny so likely have some filifera genetics which would work greatly in your favor. We still have some nice tall robusta strong palms here but more than 50% perished. Nearly all obvious robusta/filifera hybrids here survived as did high percentage filifera.

 

Wishing you luck and a speedy warm up so your palms can get growing out of this if possible.

 

[SailorBold]

Whatever you do.. do not remove them prematurely thinking they're dead.. you need to wait until end of summer..

[KsLouisiana]

On 1/21/2025 at 1:31 PM, LouisianaWashingtoniaRobus said:

I wrapped the base of my palms with blankets before the snow started. Temperatures might be as low as 13 degrees tonight for 2-3 hours. 

Does anyone have any tips or knowledge as to whether they will be okay? 
 

posting pics from last night when I wrapped versus today in the snow. We have gotten about 10 inches so far. 
 

love these palms and really hope they’ll be okay!! 

Good luck buddy! I'm in the same boat as you. Mine aren't that tall though. Definitely going to replant what doesn't pull through and pray this never happens again lol

[Chester B]

I'll echo what people have said so far.

1) You won't be able to protect palms this big, the growing point and new spear is the area that needs it.

2) If you think its worth it and can afford it you could look into a tree company to come and spray copper fungicide in the crown.  Not sure if they'd be willing to climb these after this cold.

3) Wait and wait. It may take a long time (months) to see actual regrowth and if they survive it may take two years for them to look like they did.

4)  If you see new growth, fertilize the palms to aid in recovery.

Aside from that there really isn't much else you can do

[_nevi]

On 1/22/2025 at 12:53 AM, Than said:

I'll never complain about my 29 F again...

I used to loathe temperatures in the 20s. These freakish freezes down to teens and single digit °Fs in areas of the Southern US recently have made me appreciate those 20s more.

[SeanK]

On 1/22/2025 at 10:07 PM, ChrisA said:

Keep a close eye as it warms up. They may survive and I hope they do.  San Antonio also got down to 9F during our 2021 storm and we were below freezing for longer than this event.  Not sure what your low temp was but the screenshot I took this morning when I woke up looks rough.  
 

Within a few weeks you will notice if all the fronds collapse, including the spear.  With 10” of heavy snow most fronds and petioles will have broken.  If the spear remains upright and intact you stand a chance that it recovers.  If the spear has also collapsed there is very little chance it will survive.  Moisture and melt water are going to be the enemy here. Those palms are no where near 80 tall but still tall enough to make treating the growing point with fungicide very difficult. 
 

Please post some daytime photos  when you get a chance in the next week so we can take a look.  If you haven’t already there is a Texas-sized thread on what we went through here in Texas and what the palms looked like afterwards, you’ll see what a failed crown looks like.  San Antonio lost a good deal of robustas, but as Jonathan mentioned yourS aren’t super skinny so likely have some filifera genetics which would work greatly in your favor. We still have some nice tall robusta strong palms here but more than 50% perished. Nearly all obvious robusta/filifera hybrids here survived as did high percentage filifera.

 

Wishing you luck and a speedy warm up so your palms can get growing out of this if possible.

 

What are the short blue palms in the foreground? Resemble Brahea or Mazari.

[ChrisA]

You are correct, those are Mazari palms.

[LouisianaWashingtoniaRobus]

Thank you all for the helpful tips on waiting it out. And yes, I now realize my trees are more like 30/35 feet 😂

Here are some recents pics since it’s warmed up. Fronds are brown and falling off. Still hoping they’ll come through!! 

[Jimbean]

At this point it's a waiting game. 

[Sabal_Louisiana]

I am pulling for you. 

Anyone out there in Texas that saw any like these come through in 2021 with temps down to 4 or 5 degrees?

What did they look like a couple of weeks after that freeze?

 

 

[DreaminAboutPalms]

19 hours ago, Sabal_Louisiana said:

I am pulling for you. 

Anyone out there in Texas that saw any like these come through in 2021 with temps down to 4 or 5 degrees?

What did they look like a couple of weeks after that freeze?

 

 

In Austin, which is about as far north in Texas as any Washingtonia like that survived, some startrf pushing green in March and April, but others didn’t even start pushing green until 4th of July

[SailorBold]

6 hours ago, DreaminAboutPalms said:

In Austin, which is about as far north in Texas as any Washingtonia like that survived, some startrf pushing green in March and April, but others didn’t even start pushing green until 4th of July

The duration was quick enough..relatively speaking.. should be ok..

[SeanK]

How are they looking? Nice weather forecast for this week, so by Friday you should see green in the canopy 🌴 

[KsLouisiana]

I'm not sure how cold you were compared to Lake Charles but they started growing green here this week. You can just now start to see it. I think yours will regrow. They looked super healthy and it got very very cold here. 

[JLM]

Washies beginning to show green now after 12F a couple weeks ago. These highs in the upper 70s to low 80s is helping the recovery process start early. Yours should hopefully be showing something now or at least in the next week or so.

[KsLouisiana]

5 hours ago, JLM said:

Washies beginning to show green now after 12F a couple weeks ago. These highs in the upper 70s to low 80s is helping the recovery process start early. Yours should hopefully be showing something now or at least in the next week or so.

I can't believe they're coming back after that freeze. Think because it was such a short freeze and no freezing rain? 

[JLM]

41 minutes ago, KsLouisiana said:

I can't believe they're coming back after that freeze. Think because it was such a short freeze and no freezing rain? 

We spent more than 24 hours below freezing over here. By Florida standards thats long duration haha

I have also noticed the live oaks didnt really burn here, which is quite interesting to me considering they burnt from the 2022 Christmas freeze event. Only got to 19F for that event. Would argue this event was much longer duration than that one. We had 5 nights in a row with hard freeze conditions which i consider to be 25F or lower for this event. I think the overall event for 2022 was the same length but not nearly as cold. The snow in the crowns of the washies and the leaves of the live oaks may have prevented widespread burn.

[KsLouisiana]

21 hours ago, JLM said:

We spent more than 24 hours below freezing over here. By Florida standards thats long duration haha

I have also noticed the live oaks didnt really burn here, which is quite interesting to me considering they burnt from the 2022 Christmas freeze event. Only got to 19F for that event. Would argue this event was much longer duration than that one. We had 5 nights in a row with hard freeze conditions which i consider to be 25F or lower for this event. I think the overall event for 2022 was the same length but not nearly as cold. The snow in the crowns of the washies and the leaves of the live oaks may have prevented widespread burn.

Right, that makes sense. Over here in 2021 we had that freeze that Texas got and it did way more damage. Went down to 15 and we had freezing rain. It lasted a lot longer and killed maybe 10% of washies.  It killed quite a bit of sylvesters though. It's too soon to tell about the sylvesters this time. But these washies are way tougher than I expected. 

[JLM]

7 minutes ago, KsLouisiana said:

Right, that makes sense. Over here in 2021 we had that freeze that Texas got and it did way more damage. Went down to 15 and we had freezing rain. It lasted a lot longer and killed maybe 10% of washies.  It killed quite a bit of sylvesters though. It's too soon to tell about the sylvesters this time. But these washies are way tougher than I expected. 

People don’t plant sylvesters enough over here but the ones that I can see are pretty burnt. They have bounced back the past couple winters, all of which saw ultimate lows in the upper teens. If they come back from this 12F cold snap, I’ll be impressed. Canaries look pretty toasted but I suspect they’ll make a return like they normally do.

[KsLouisiana]

13 hours ago, JLM said:

People don’t plant sylvesters enough over here but the ones that I can see are pretty burnt. They have bounced back the past couple winters, all of which saw ultimate lows in the upper teens. If they come back from this 12F cold snap, I’ll be impressed. Canaries look pretty toasted but I suspect they’ll make a return like they normally do.

They plant a lot of sylvesters here but they have been looking like crap the last few years from these freezes. I have no doubt about the canaries though.

[LouisianaWashingtoniaRobus]

I see green in the center frond of each tree! 🤞🤞

Any tips on care steps I should take sooner than later? Fertilizer? And assume I shouldn’t have them trimmed until we can see way more green? We usually get them trimmed in March…

[kinzyjr]

Hope the best for recovery for these and everyone else affected by this year's winter.

[JLM]

18 hours ago, LouisianaWashingtoniaRobus said:

I see green in the center frond of each tree! 🤞🤞

Any tips on care steps I should take sooner than later? Fertilizer? And assume I shouldn’t have them trimmed until we can see way more green? We usually get them trimmed in March…

Probably won't hurt anything to get all the dead stuff trimmed off in March as planned. Until then leave it there just in case there's another deep freeze this month (looks unlikely at this point but you never know).

[Palmerr]

Yikes it got down to 6 in the main Lafayette area and 2F on the outskirts that green is a very good sign that it will come back it probably will start growing soon if you guys get a lot of these 80 degree days.

[Than]

Other than washingtonias, any other tropical-esques you grow there? How did they fare?

[SailorBold]

On 2/8/2025 at 3:18 PM, LouisianaWashingtoniaRobus said:

I see green in the center frond of each tree! 🤞🤞

Any tips on care steps I should take sooner than later? Fertilizer? And assume I shouldn’t have them trimmed until we can see way more green? We usually get them trimmed in March…

How are they looking now?

[LouisianaWashingtoniaRobus]

More green in the center. Will plan to get them trimmed soon. Looking for some good fertilizer too. 

[SailorBold]

Thanks for the update!

[KsLouisiana]

On 3/1/2025 at 10:30 AM, LouisianaWashingtoniaRobus said:

More green in the center. Will plan to get them trimmed soon. Looking for some good fertilizer too. 

How are they doing? I would love an update 

[SeanK]

Those two should each have a dozen leaves by now