I hate lightning

[Chester B]

Another beautiful palm I get to enjoy everyday looks like it got hit by lightning. We had a pretty severe storm come through.  That’s about 5 palms gone now in the 1.5 years that I have lived here. Only the CIDPs and Sabals remain in my neighbors yards for me to enjoy. 

[MarcusH]

Mother nature takes things in its own hands.  There are plenty of Robustas in the lightning capital Orlando . Not sure how they deal with it.  I guess plant more Robustas to cover the area ? 

[Chester B]

1 minute ago, MarcusH said:

Mother nature takes things in its own hands.  There are plenty of Robustas in the lightning capital Orlando . Not sure how they deal with it.  I guess plant more Robustas to cover the area ? 

It makes me worried to plant anything that sticks out like this tree did.  The last storm took out a huge dead pine tree.  The tree is less than a hundred feet from my gazebo and I was out there when it hit the tree causing it to fall.  I saw and felt the lightning and explosion when it hit.  I don’t think I’ve ever moved so fast to get inside. 

[SeanK]

1 hour ago, MarcusH said:

Mother nature takes things in its own hands.  There are plenty of Robustas in the lightning capital Orlando . Not sure how they deal with it.  I guess plant more Robustas to cover the area ? 

Plant a robusta to spare the Royals 

[MarcusH]

You Sir , live in the South .  Different weather patterns compared to the places you lived before.  I can completely understand your worries but what can we do ? Dig out all Robustas ? I live here in Texas since late 2021 , besides the damaging artic freezes we get ,our neighborhood hasn't seen the worse what's actually happening every year around us. Heavy thunderstorms are the norm in spring to early summer and come back once the strong cold fronts move in fall.  Man, the entire Gulf coast gets it all from deadly floods , tornadoes , severe thunderstorms with golf size hail and hurricanes.  If it's not the cold that ruins your garden plans it's something else that I just mentioned.  How many skydusters like you see in Los Angeles have you seen in Florida ? I have seen "some" tall ones but no 80' to 100' ones. Might be a very small number of tall ones growing , if at all.  Welcome to the South.  It's not all perfect down here . You're going to be fine my friend.  

[MarcusH]

1 hour ago, SeanK said:

Plant a robusta to spare the Royals 

Right ? There's another PT member that experienced the same thing with his Washingtonia Filifera. A lightning strike killed the palm and years of growths turned into ash. 

[JohnAndSancho]

Palms come and go, but El Rey Taqueria is still there. 

[Xenon]

Love lightning and the afternoon downpours. The lightning fixes atmospheric nitrogen into nitrate to help the grass grow even faster too 😆

[Las Palmas Norte]

Lightening and thunder are pretty rare around these parts. 

[Chester B]

3 hours ago, Xenon said:

Love lightning and the afternoon downpours. The lightning fixes atmospheric nitrogen into nitrate to help the grass grow even faster too 😆

Don’t even talk about grass. Truly the bane of my existence.  I don’t water or fertilize my lawn here and it never stops growing.  If I wanted it to look well manicured I’d be cutting every 2-3 days.  The hotter it gets the faster it grows. Even with no rain for 2+ months last year it was still green and growing. 

[amh]

23 hours ago, Chester B said:

It makes me worried to plant anything that sticks out like this tree did.  The last storm took out a huge dead pine tree.  The tree is less than a hundred feet from my gazebo and I was out there when it hit the tree causing it to fall.  I saw and felt the lightning and explosion when it hit.  I don’t think I’ve ever moved so fast to get inside. 

I had lightning strike a peach tree once, it was one of the shortest trees in my yard, sometimes you just lose plants.

[ZPalms]

Get a really tall pole and put a lightning rod on it 😂

[JohnAndSancho]

I had lightning strike a hotel I was working at. You know the area, it was in Shenandoah. Cooked all of the wifi components. I took so much abuse from the guests over it, they had to go to the Starbucks to use the Wi-Fi. We just happened to have a Comcast tech staying with us and he got us up and running in about 3 days. The burn marks on the sidewalk were insane.