Trachycarpus 'Greensboro' vs Trachycarpus 'Bulgaria' | KY Zone 7a/b

[KYPalmExperiment]

I've got these two little Windmill Palms. I've been messing around with a 'Greensboro' strain of Trachycarpus Fortunei and a 'Bulgaria' one. Both of these guys went in the ground in late April and really shot up for their first year.

So far this winter, we've had two snows: a tiny bit in mid-November and about two inches in early December. The coldest it's been is around 22°F, and they haven't had any protection yet besides some leaves at their bottoms.

I check on these palms almost daily, and after the snow melted most of the way, I had to do a spear pull check. The 'Greensboro' was just fine, and 22° should be fine for a Windmill, but unfortunately, to my disappointment, the 'Bulgaria' had a spear pull. I treated it with some hydrogen peroxide and will continue to do so regularly to make sure it doesn't rot out and recovers. I'm guessing too much ice just got into the crown during the past snow event, and the 'Bulgaria' just wasn't prepared, but I'm glad the 'Greensboro' held through! I'm hoping to push these to their limit and get some monster mature specimens one day. I'm planning on enclosing these after we start to get into the mid to low teens, but I wanted to toughen these up a bit with a little exposure to make them stronger.

[Allen]

11 hours ago, KYPalmExperiment said:

I've got these two little Windmill Palms. I've been messing around with a 'Greensboro' strain of Trachycarpus Fortunei and a 'Bulgaria' one. Both of these guys went in the ground in late April and really shot up for their first year.

So far this winter, we've had two snows: a tiny bit in mid-November and about two inches in early December. The coldest it's been is around 22°F, and they haven't had any protection yet besides some leaves at their bottoms.

I check on these palms almost daily, and after the snow melted most of the way, I had to do a spear pull check. The 'Greensboro' was just fine, and 22° should be fine for a Windmill, but unfortunately, to my disappointment, the 'Bulgaria' had a spear pull. I treated it with some hydrogen peroxide and will continue to do so regularly to make sure it doesn't rot out and recovers. I'm guessing too much ice just got into the crown during the past snow event, and the 'Bulgaria' just wasn't prepared, but I'm glad the 'Greensboro' held through! I'm hoping to push these to their limit and get some monster mature specimens one day. I'm planning on enclosing these after we start to get into the mid to low teens, but I wanted to toughen these up a bit with a little exposure to make them stronger.

You need to protect those for sure.  The spear pulled one h2o and let it dry then protect.   Real early for that one to have to make it.  Look at my channel for some tips.  Bulgaria is just a fortunei.   Back 3 videos is one on temps to protect 

[Las Palmas Norte]

Yup, as above by @Allen. These Trachycarpus monikers are all T. fortunei and all require the same early stage care. Having grown thousands from seed, I've noticed T. fortunei respond differently even in the same seed lot. Good luck on the remainder of your winter endeavors, especially the damaged one with most of the winter ahead. Keep the weather off the damaged crown.

[Chester B]

14 hours ago, KYPalmExperiment said:

unfortunately, to my disappointment, the 'Bulgaria' had a spear pull

I'm not surprised, I've said it time and time again, the "Bulgaria" moniker is a sales tactic and these palms have been proven countless times over to be the same in hardiness as any old fortunei or even less.  The original Bulgarian palms died from cold, their reportedly exceptional cold tolerance is one bit of anecdotal misinformation that has passed down over the years.  There is no genetic difference.  Any old Trachycarpus fortunei is going to have great cold tolerance, the differences between individuals is negligible.

That being said, I would never subject such small Trachycarpus to 22F unprotected.  Small ones are not all that hardy and need protection to prevent setting them back with spear pulls, or worse, killing them.  The good news is they have a high chance of recovering compared to a lot of other palms.  Once they get a couple feet of trunk , they are usually pretty tough.  I'd be building a small box with some incadescent mini lights inside to protect them the first couple of years.  I think in Zone 7 you will likely need to protect these palms just about every year like @Allen does.  They may be the most cold hardy trunking palm but need to be in zone 8 to have long term success without any help in winter.

[SeanK]

From what I've seen in my area over 25 years is, that every T.fortunei (or Waggie) is cold-hardy at 10°F. At 5°F, 20% are untouched, 60% show varying amount of damage, and 20% have catastrophic damage or death.

We don't have enough palmetto up this way to measure. The few I've seen saw leaf tip burn at 5°F but nothing catastrophic.

[Zone7Bpalmguy]

19 hours ago, KYPalmExperiment said:

I've got these two little Windmill Palms. I've been messing around with a 'Greensboro' strain of Trachycarpus Fortunei and a 'Bulgaria' one. Both of these guys went in the ground in late April and really shot up for their first year.

So far this winter, we've had two snows: a tiny bit in mid-November and about two inches in early December. The coldest it's been is around 22°F, and they haven't had any protection yet besides some leaves at their bottoms.

I check on these palms almost daily, and after the snow melted most of the way, I had to do a spear pull check. The 'Greensboro' was just fine, and 22° should be fine for a Windmill, but unfortunately, to my disappointment, the 'Bulgaria' had a spear pull. I treated it with some hydrogen peroxide and will continue to do so regularly to make sure it doesn't rot out and recovers. I'm guessing too much ice just got into the crown during the past snow event, and the 'Bulgaria' just wasn't prepared, but I'm glad the 'Greensboro' held through! I'm hoping to push these to their limit and get some monster mature specimens one day. I'm planning on enclosing these after we start to get into the mid to low teens, but I wanted to toughen these up a bit with a little exposure to make them stronger.

I have about three that size and I don't care if they die or not. Mine have been tested and have remained unprotected for the last couple years at this small size. I'd rather weed out the weak ones. Mine came from a buddy of mine that has them coming up everywhere in the next county over.

Since it's very early in winter, you better at the least cover the one that spear pulled every time it rains/snow etc... assuming you want it to live.  I'd probably just replace it next spring, it's probably a weakling, if you have access to others at little cost. 

[KYPalmExperiment]

1 hour ago, Zone7Bpalmguy said:

I have about three that size and I don't care if they die or not. Mine have been tested and have remained unprotected for the last couple years at this small size. I'd rather weed out the weak ones. Mine came from a buddy of mine that has them coming up everywhere in the next county over.

Since it's very early in winter, you better at the least cover the one that spear pulled every time it rains/snow etc... assuming you want it to live.  I'd probably just replace it next spring, it's probably a weakling, if you have access to others at little cost. 

I'll totally cover it up, if it dies it dies and I have replacements in pots and can always just go buy more. The 'Bulgaria' was from Plant Delights and I never owned one before this year and I wanted to see what all the hype was over, some people swear by them and others dismiss it as a marketing tactic (which I believe a lot more). Keep in mind to that Sunny Beach in Bulgaria which is famous for Windmill Palms is in a outrageously comfortable 8b zone, there's also some fat trunking Washingtonia hybrids and CIDPs that seem to do well there. I don't know what to believe about whatever temperature was recorded in Plovdiv because no one can agree on what it actually was not only that alot of palms in Plovdiv are sourced from nurseries in coastal Bulgaria which is zones 8a through 9a I believe (9a being essentially throwing distance of Turkey). The 'Greensboro' however was seed sourced from a long living specimen outside of Greensboro, NC which experienced record cold winters and survived and only died due to being cut down for construction. I think you are gonna get a lot better cold hardy genetics when you are sourcing seed from a palm that has lived through extreme temperature and snow events. Not only that there's probably a generational gap between a Bulgaria in Plovdiv and one that was grown in the warmer areas of the southern US, and that you are getting a weaker plant.

[KPoff]

I had been thinking about what temperature to protect a fortunei/waggie hybrid I got from a palmtalker and planted back in March here in west Texas zone 8A. It grew really fast this year and has close to 1’ of trunk and looks healthy. I’m thinking this first year I’ll put a frost cloth on it when we get below 20. As long as we don’t get colder than our normal 8a lows or multiple days below freezing for highs I’ll limit it to that. Otherwise I’ll use a tarp on the frost cloth as well.

[KYPalmExperiment]

19 minutes ago, KPoff said:

I had been thinking about what temperature to protect a fortunei/waggie hybrid I got from a palmtalker and planted back in March here in west Texas zone 8A. It grew really fast this year and has close to 1’ of trunk and looks healthy. I’m thinking this first year I’ll put a frost cloth on it when we get below 20. As long as we don’t get colder than our normal 8a lows or multiple days below freezing for highs I’ll limit it to that. Otherwise I’ll use a tarp on the frost cloth as well.

Palms definitely fair better in colder zones in dryer climates Albuquerque has lots of Windmills and even some Washingtonia hybrids and it's about zone 6b/7a/7b depending on where you are in the valley.

[KPoff]

20 minutes ago, KYPalmExperiment said:

Palms definitely fair better in colder zones in dryer climates Albuquerque has lots of Windmills and even some Washingtonia hybrids and it's about zone 6b/7a/7b depending on where you are in the valley.

@KYPalmExperiment we are generally pretty dry in the winter. Not always though. We get some freezing rain about every other year and usually some snow once per year even if it’s negligible some years. Usually don’t get a lot of rain though.

[Chester B]

12 hours ago, KPoff said:

I had been thinking about what temperature to protect a fortunei/waggie hybrid I got from a palmtalker and planted back in March here in west Texas zone 8A. It grew really fast this year and has close to 1’ of trunk and looks healthy. I’m thinking this first year I’ll put a frost cloth on it when we get below 20. As long as we don’t get colder than our normal 8a lows or multiple days below freezing for highs I’ll limit it to that. Otherwise I’ll use a tarp on the frost cloth as well.

I would protect at 25F and lower when small.  Your dry climate and solar radiation is going to help a lot but I rather be safe than sorry.

[KPoff]

1 hour ago, Chester B said:

I would protect at 25F and lower when small.  Your dry climate and solar radiation is going to help a lot but I rather be safe than sorry.

@Chester B ok good advice. Hopefully those days don’t come until January. The 10 days shows all nights above 32 and days in the 60s and 70s. It did see one night at 26 so far but got to about 50 the next day. 

[Allen]

Here are the temps from my chart on frond damage temp.  spear pulls occur at higher temps easily on palms that are newly planted, don’t have full size trunks and are not growing at a rate of >10 fronds/year especially in ice or wet below 21F although op is reporting 22F.  Adult palms fitting above are much less likely to spear pull easily until closer to chart temps although ice is never a great thing.  Cold conditions before the cold spell can decrease these numbers almost 2F less

 

[Chester B]

1 hour ago, KPoff said:

@Chester B ok good advice. Hopefully those days don’t come until January. The 10 days shows all nights above 32 and days in the 60s and 70s. It did see one night at 26 so far but got to about 50 the next day. 

I have seen small ones back in Oregon spear pull at 25F, most won't but it can happen.  19F one night here in Houston caused spear pull on all 4 small Trachycarpus that I planted last year.  We had about 5 nights below freezing last year, and only two were below 30F and that one night did them in even though we never had more than about 12 hours below freezing.  I dug them up and threw them out.  Planted ones with over a foot of trunk as replacements.

[Fusca]

1 hour ago, Chester B said:

I have seen small ones back in Oregon spear pull at 25F, most won't but it can happen.

I think multiple factors can cause spear-pull and not just with Trachycarpus.  Last winter I had spear-pull on 3 different juvenile palms at 27°F.  3-gal Livistona decora newly planted and well established 5-gal Bismarckia and 5-gal Brahea 'super silver'.  Normally these palms would suffer zero damage at that temperature but the problem was that it had been in the 80's just a couple of days before the freeze.  Not uncommon in Texas.  Needless to say all 3 palms quickly recovered.

[Chester B]

16 minutes ago, Fusca said:

I think multiple factors can cause spear-pull and not just with Trachycarpus.  Last winter I had spear-pull on 3 different juvenile palms at 27°F. 

Totally agree.

[Las Palmas Norte]

1 hour ago, Chester B said:

I have seen small ones back in Oregon spear pull at 25F, most won't but it can happen. 

Conversely, I recall negligently leaving a couple of flats of seedlings out over winter. All where fine, some of that success may in part be due to snow cover, albeit larger 1 & 2 gallon planted ones have had spear pull.

[Palmerr]

On 12/6/2025 at 11:12 PM, KYPalmExperiment said:

I've got these two little Windmill Palms. I've been messing around with a 'Greensboro' strain of Trachycarpus Fortunei and a 'Bulgaria' one. Both of these guys went in the ground in late April and really shot up for their first year.

So far this winter, we've had two snows: a tiny bit in mid-November and about two inches in early December. The coldest it's been is around 22°F, and they haven't had any protection yet besides some leaves at their bottoms.

I check on these palms almost daily, and after the snow melted most of the way, I had to do a spear pull check. The 'Greensboro' was just fine, and 22° should be fine for a Windmill, but unfortunately, to my disappointment, the 'Bulgaria' had a spear pull. I treated it with some hydrogen peroxide and will continue to do so regularly to make sure it doesn't rot out and recovers. I'm guessing too much ice just got into the crown during the past snow event, and the 'Bulgaria' just wasn't prepared, but I'm glad the 'Greensboro' held through! I'm hoping to push these to their limit and get some monster mature specimens one day. I'm planning on enclosing these after we start to get into the mid to low teens, but I wanted to toughen these up a bit with a little exposure to make them stronger.

Hello follow Kentuckian I’m in Lexington! Also, I don’t know if you want one or not but Brian’s botanicals has some palms too. I don’t remember what but inside I think I saw some windmills in the photos I took. But he had some mid size pindo palms, sagos, Queens, Foxtails, and some European fans. Don’t know what he has rn though.

[Palmerr]

On 12/6/2025 at 11:12 PM, KYPalmExperiment said:

I've got these two little Windmill Palms. I've been messing around with a 'Greensboro' strain of Trachycarpus Fortunei and a 'Bulgaria' one. Both of these guys went in the ground in late April and really shot up for their first year.

So far this winter, we've had two snows: a tiny bit in mid-November and about two inches in early December. The coldest it's been is around 22°F, and they haven't had any protection yet besides some leaves at their bottoms.

I check on these palms almost daily, and after the snow melted most of the way, I had to do a spear pull check. The 'Greensboro' was just fine, and 22° should be fine for a Windmill, but unfortunately, to my disappointment, the 'Bulgaria' had a spear pull. I treated it with some hydrogen peroxide and will continue to do so regularly to make sure it doesn't rot out and recovers. I'm guessing too much ice just got into the crown during the past snow event, and the 'Bulgaria' just wasn't prepared, but I'm glad the 'Greensboro' held through! I'm hoping to push these to their limit and get some monster mature specimens one day. I'm planning on enclosing these after we start to get into the mid to low teens, but I wanted to toughen these up a bit with a little exposure to make them stronger.

My pindo has went through 19.8F (Local weather station) already. It is supposed to get to mid teens and lower teens, (the temps are uptrending on models). So I needa get my protection set up The white page is my Tempest weather station, and the Blue forecast screen is my Weather app (That uses purely National weather service data, the most accurate and trustworhy)

[Toddmin]

I agree about the Bulgarias.  I have two and lost one last winter.  It was the only palm I lost too.  They were planted within a few feet from each other.  They were several years old, but I had just planted them that spring.  I also don't think Waggies are any hardier than regular Trachycarpus, just that the fronds don't get beat up as badly in storms.  My oldest/tallest Waggie had spear pull 2 years in a row, but looks great now.

[KPoff]

On 12/8/2025 at 12:15 PM, Chester B said:

I have seen small ones back in Oregon spear pull at 25F, most won't but it can happen.  19F one night here in Houston caused spear pull on all 4 small Trachycarpus that I planted last year.  We had about 5 nights below freezing last year, and only two were below 30F and that one night did them in even though we never had more than about 12 hours below freezing.  I dug them up and threw them out.  Planted ones with over a foot of trunk as replacements.

@Chester B here we will have 30 days on average below freezing but definitely most get above freezing the next day and the lows are usually in the 20s. Of course a handful will be in the teens. This sucker will have to get tough or die trying hahahaha. I’ll protect it though but likely not with heat just frost cloth and wet protection. I had small, newly planted needle palm spear pull here after last winter.

[Las Palmas Norte]

14 minutes ago, KPoff said:

... This sucker will have to get tough or die trying hahahaha. ...

Reminded me of Johnny Cash's song, "Boy Named Sue".

Only trouble is, palms aren't people that develop vitality and stamina.

[KPoff]

So far this winter here we are starting off mild. My red oak’s leaves are just starting to change color slightly. Lots of days in high 60s and low 70s with nights in 30s and 40s that isn’t helping my palms prepare for winter inevitably coming in January and February.

[Chester B]

22 hours ago, Toddmin said:

I also don't think Waggies are any hardier than regular Trachycarpus, just that the fronds don't get beat up as badly in storms. 

Most sources will say Waggies are 5F less hardy than fortunei, but I never saw a difference.  Considering waggies are a cultivar of fortunei I would expect them to be just as hardy.

[Allen]

20 minutes ago, Chester B said:

Most sources will say Waggies are 5F less hardy than fortunei, but I never saw a difference.  Considering waggies are a cultivar of fortunei I would expect them to be just as hardy.

In Vancouver they fared worse and they grow slower making the bud more susceptible to rot imo.  So I think they are a little less hardy in that regard but frond damage temps should be about the same 

[Las Palmas Norte]

37 minutes ago, Allen said:

In Vancouver they fared worse and they grow slower making the bud more susceptible to rot imo.  So I think they are a little less hardy in that regard but frond damage temps should be about the same 

In the early going as juveniles that's often the case. These 'wagnerianus' fair better once they bulk up in size, and do grow with more vigor, but not at the same rate as fortunei, and are less likely to fail. Keeping the crown dry and lightly protected with burlap can go a long way during a cold snap.

[Allen]

Here are Vancouver ones https://youtu.be/Y5MClw2BCCo?si=4fNZvXZUQOM64yok 

 

[KPoff]

46 minutes ago, Allen said:

Here are Vancouver ones https://youtu.be/Y5MClw2BCCo?si=4fNZvXZUQOM64yok 

 

What’s the consensus on Trachycarpus nanital? Same or irrelevant hardiness to fortunei?

[Las Palmas Norte]

47 minutes ago, Allen said:

Here are Vancouver ones https://youtu.be/Y5MClw2BCCo?si=4fNZvXZUQOM64yok 

 

-15°C !!! That's 5°F zone 7 which would far exceed the zone 8b that the narrator claims for the area. In all fairness, it typically would be categorized as 8B.

In the winter of '08/09 we had one night at -14°C (7°F) here. It is extreme to experience cold of that nature.

[Las Palmas Norte]

7 minutes ago, KPoff said:

What’s the consensus on Trachycarpus nanital? Same or irrelevant hardiness to fortunei?

Many fortunei have been marketed as 'Nanital'. I for one had that experience and I believe there are people that are still under the assumption that their palm is Nanital, when in fact it's a fortunei. I consider Nanital a fortunei anyway, originating from that town/region of India, similar to the Bulgaria fortunei or the countless other named varieties. It's a widely held belief that Nanital form is more robust and therefore more winter hardy. Can anyone really make that claim even growing a fortueni and a Nanital together? In the above video of side by side comparisons of 'Wagnerianus', one died and the other cruised right on thru. I think if any of these are approaching their limits, there will be mixed conclusions.

[Chester B]

Nainital isn't any harder than fortunei.  I have seen no evidence of any Trachycarpus species being hardier than good old fortunei.

[Las Palmas Norte]

2 hours ago, Chester B said:

Nainital isn't any harder than fortunei.  I have seen no evidence of any Trachycarpus species being hardier than good old fortunei.

In some cases, peoples spirited ideology eclipses fact. A marketing tactic that some sellers have capitalized on.