Mobile (AL) damage report

[Manalto]

Here are a few photos of the palms and cycads that were affected by the cold wave January 21&22 in Mobile. I recorded 13°F and my next door neighbor recorded 11° so maybe we'll just split the difference and call it 12°. I'm on the northern fringe of the city, so I'm sure waterfront properties and Dauphin Island fared a bit better. All plants pictured were in the ground and unprotected.

Chamaedorea microspadix looks a bit put out but I  think it'll bounce back.

Livistona chinensis.  Taller specimens downtown are completely brown.

Mule palm (from Mule Palms of Mississippi), shot from upstairs window. It's been ugly for two years now because of last winter's high teens. Now I know why, aside from cost, there aren't more of them planted around here.

Chamaerops humilis, Rhapidophyllum hystrix, Sabal minor, and S. palmetto were all idly inpecting their nails through the crisis. They look fine.

All the Cycas revoluta around town look pretty much like this one, unless they were under better protection (this has no overhead canopy) and came through with less damage, or sometimes none. My C. debaoensis was already toast from a previous spell of mid-20s temperatures, so not shown.  (I'm going to dig it up and give it to someone who can enjoy it.)

Coontie has some recovering to do. I have some larger specimens in pots under overhead protection, which fared no better.

Finally, the hybrid cycad (bifid leaflets, forgot the parentage) I got from North Texas Cold Hardy is completely brown. It was just getting going last summer, so this is a disappointment, but it has recovered before, so I'm hoping it will again.

Looking on the bright side, I don't think I permanently lost any palms or cycads in the record cold we had. Recovery will be slow for the larger ones (Mule and Chinese fan) but my sabals are here to console me.

[SeanK]

The Livistona and Butiagrus look OK for 12°F.  A canopy would likely help in these events. Unfortunately, temps along the upper Gulf coast vary a bit more than the zone rating implies.

[Manalto]

10 hours ago, SeanK said:

Unfortunately, temps along the upper Gulf coast vary a bit more than the zone rating implies.

It's true. At 8B, we're the "icebox" of the Gulf Coast, vulnerable to continental air masses that funnel down from Canada (says the armchair meteorologist). It's not unheard of for temperatures to swing 60° within a day or two.  I'm just beginning to understand that how the cold arrives makes a difference in how it affects plants. I continue to be surprised and fascinated by which species are the survivors and which are the casualties. I'm pretty lazy about protection, so I marvel at those who build 20' tall terrariums for their beloved palms. My attitude is more along the lines of, "Oops, I thought that plant would thrive here. Oh well... compost pile."

[Manalto]

In my report, I missed my Chamaedorea radicalis hidden among the vegetation because it's  the non-trunking form.

[palmofmyhand]

On 2/3/2025 at 5:15 PM, Manalto said:

Here are a few photos of the palms and cycads that were affected by the cold wave January 21&22 in Mobile. I recorded 13°F and my next door neighbor recorded 11° so maybe we'll just split the difference and call it 12°. I'm on the northern fringe of the city, so I'm sure waterfront properties and Dauphin Island fared a bit better. All plants pictured were in the ground and unprotected.

Chamaedorea microspadix looks a bit put out but I  think it'll bounce back.

Livistona chinensis.  Taller specimens downtown are completely brown.

Mule palm (from Mule Palms of Mississippi), shot from upstairs window. It's been ugly for two years now because of last winter's high teens. Now I know why, aside from cost, there aren't more of them planted around here.

Chamaerops humilis, Rhapidophyllum hystrix, Sabal minor, and S. palmetto were all idly inpecting their nails through the crisis. They look fine.

All the Cycas revoluta around town look pretty much like this one, unless they were under better protection (this has no overhead canopy) and came through with less damage, or sometimes none. My C. debaoensis was already toast from a previous spell of mid-20s temperatures, so not shown.  (I'm going to dig it up and give it to someone who can enjoy it.)

Coontie has some recovering to do. I have some larger specimens in pots under overhead protection, which fared no better.

Finally, the hybrid cycad (bifid leaflets, forgot the parentage) I got from North Texas Cold Hardy is completely brown. It was just getting going last summer, so this is a disappointment, but it has recovered before, so I'm hoping it will again.

Looking on the bright side, I don't think I permanently lost any palms or cycads in the record cold we had. Recovery will be slow for the larger ones (Mule and Chinese fan) but my sabals are here to console me.

In regards to the hybrid cycad, how long did it take to push new growth after freezing last time? Just wondering because I have 4 completely brown sylvestris palms and if yours has came back from completely brown then that gives me hope.

[Manalto]

3 hours ago, palmofmyhand said:

In regards to the hybrid cycad, how long did it take to push new growth after freezing last time?

It produced a first flush as soon as temperatures warmed up in the spring, about 8 weeks after the freeze date. It was kept watered and produced a second flush in midsummer.

[happypalms]

You can have those temperatures on your own. I would pack up and move town heading for the subtropical climate. Too cold for my style of gardening.

[palmofmyhand]

8 hours ago, Manalto said:

It produced a first flush as soon as temperatures warmed up in the spring, about 8 weeks after the freeze date. It was kept watered and produced a second flush in midsummer.

nice, do you use Hydrogen peroxide and or copper fungicide treatment on them after freeze damage?

[Manalto]

I have not, but I have no objections to the practice. It's just that I'm unwilling to devote anything beyond minimal effort to the cold survival of my landscape plants; occasionally throwing a blanket over a small plant is .the best my marginally-hardy species can expect. (And, even then, any evergreen plant that's routinely killed back in the winter gets 86ed - Rhapis excelsa is an example. As much as I love this palm, I don't want to see it repeatedly brutalized.) Container plants are a different story. I zone-push with a few that are portable enough to drag inside for the coldest part of the winter.  I admire those who have success with zone pushing; I just can't spread myself that thin.

[Manalto]

On Friday, I went to a nursery in Theodore, AL, south of Mobile, designated USDA hardiness zone 9A, and was surprised to see that their mules were hit as hard, if not worse, than mine, 15 miles further inland.

i hasten to add that these are not only from a source other than MPoM, but seedling variability, even among a crop of seedlings with the same parent plants, could be a factor. Even so, Bismarckia is reliably hardy here, but not at my house. In fact, I dug up my Rhapis excelsa and gave it back to the owner to pot up for resale, since it kept getting knocked back to the ground every year in a spot where I was looking for a 6-8' palm. It will be happier in zone 9, I think.

[ahosey01]

On 2/25/2025 at 8:17 PM, happypalms said:

You can have those temperatures on your own. I would pack up and move town heading for the subtropical climate. Too cold for my style of gardening.

Welcome to the Southern US (and Northeast Mexico), where we have an unimpeded wind tunnel from the Yukon Territory to here.  Here in Brownsville, we are right on the coast and closer to the equator than Brisbane, and yet we hit -8C in 1989.  lol

[happypalms]

1 hour ago, ahosey01 said:

Welcome to the Southern US (and Northeast Mexico), where we have an unimpeded wind tunnel from the Yukon Territory to here.  Here in Brownsville, we are right on the coast and closer to the equator than Brisbane, and yet we hit -8C in 1989.  lol

I’ve been to Canada in minus 30. And that’s the coldest I ever wanted to get and I didn’t see any palms growing outside that’s for sure. Iam about 3 hours south of Brisbane and will stick with my subtropical climate growing my Joey palms. 

[MarcusH]

Any more updates on palms recovery/damage around the Mobile area? How cold did it get exactly in Mobile incl. suburbs far north ? 

[Manalto]

The big surprise was the Chamaedorea microspadix. The one in the ground continued to show cold-damage decline until it was a tiny sprout at ground level. No new growth yet. Odd, because the potted specimens were undamaged. It's still too early to see recovery on palms, both in my yard and around town, apparently. The real eyesore here is the mule, whose fronds are completely brown, except at the growing point. It's getting to be time for its fertilization, to encourage recovery.

Sorry, I don't have weather statistics for the region. Unofficially, the temperature In my northern Mobile suburb was 12F but with a few inches of rare snow cover.

On a related topic, just about every third house In Mobile has some version of this:

C. revoluta is ubiquitous here, probably because it's a passalong plant. Right now, most of them haven't been trimmed but all of them are flushing.