Cold Hardy Sabals in Augusta, GA

[JLeVert]

My students and I have been landscaping our school for 40 years and we have a long-tested collection of Sabal palms.  I thought that people in zone 8* would be interested in what can be grown long term.

The coldest temps these palms have experienced is low teens. I will add more pics if people are interested.

The list:  S. causiarum, S. minor, S. tamaulipensis, S. rosei, S. x texensis, S. uresana (green and silver), S. pumos, S. bermudana, S. mexicana, S. etonia, S. palmetto Lisa. (4 years old).  Added last summer:  S. blackburniana, S. miamiensis.  In our area, S. palmetto reseeds like crazy.  S. minor is native and common in low lying areas.  Rhapidophyllum and Serenoa are native about 1 hour south of town.

Pictures in order top to bottom:  S. causiarum, S. uresana (silver), S. tamaulipensis, S. Lisa, S. Riverside, S. palmetto

 

 

[Las Palmas Norte]

Stunning examples. That's a fantastic endeavour with results to prove it's worthiness. During this 40 years, you've inspired many to pursue a life long passion. Well done!

[kinzyjr]

Thanks for posting, @JLeVert.  Stay warm up there and hope to get to a meeting or two up your way.

[TonyDFW]

The BEST collection in zone 8

[Allen]

All of those are looking really great!

[Cody Salem]

Absolutely interested! Have you been keeping your own weather records or just following the local weather service?  It takes a special commitment to keep it going that long.  Is it part of an agriculture program or was it just a fun way to teach some science or statistics?

[SeanK]

@JLeVert - What size do you usually plant in-ground?

[Zone7Bpalmguy]

@JLeVert Beautiful. How about a few snow palm pics too? How much snow did you get?

[Swolte]

Fantastic collection. Can you share more about your experience with S. pumos?

[PAPalmtrees]

@JLeVert They look amazing!!

[Ben G.]

@JLeVert

Thank you for sharing this with us. This is an excellent collection, and it is a testament to your dedication over the years. It is great that you have gotten to share this with so many students over the years.

[JLeVert]

On 2/1/2026 at 1:58 AM, Cody Salem said:

Absolutely interested! Have you been keeping your own weather records or just following the local weather service?  It takes a special commitment to keep it going that long.  Is it part of an agriculture program or was it just a fun way to teach some science or statistics?

I check the weather pretty often, but I generally stay a bit warmer than the airport.  I have excellent cold-air drainage at 400' and the land drops off 200' within a 1/4 mile.  The official temps are taken at Bush Field down on the Savannah River at 135'.  It is decidedly colder down there.

[JLeVert]

On 2/1/2026 at 6:59 AM, SeanK said:

@JLeVert - What size do you usually plant in-ground?

I usually plant things at 3gal size, but I have put in 15' S. palmetto and moved a few things (because of construction issues) at 4' size.  

[JLeVert]

On 2/1/2026 at 9:39 AM, Zone7Bpalmguy said:

@JLeVert Beautiful. How about a few snow palm pics too? How much snow did you get?

From Sunday, 1 February 2026. We had 3.5" of fluffy snow - no heavy ice or sleet.  The lowest low was around 17F briefly and we made it way above freezing every day during this winter insult.  The cycads will have to be defoliated which is not an issue.  They'll recover quickly and the defoliation will remove a lot of scale.  

[JLeVert]

On 2/1/2026 at 10:39 AM, Swolte said:

Fantastic collection. Can you share more about your experience with S. pumos?

In the 90"s I was buying a lot of palms to try out from Inge Hoffman in California and in Ft. Lauderdale and other places in Florida.  I wanted to try just about anything to see what would work.  I had great success, but wasn't as careful as I should have been about tags, since I assumed I was on some sort of horticultural fantasy tour.  Well, lots of things worked really well.  The biggest failure was S. maritima.  It never died, but lost its foliage every winter, so I took it out.

I bought two palms from Fr. Lauderdale (mail order).  I've lost the receipt, so I don't know who the vendor was.  I assumed they wouldn't make it for too many winters.  Wrong!  They did great.  One is definitely S. Bermudan, but the other was shy to bear seed until last year.  It's a big tree, 16' overall.  It had a bumper crop of seeds last year and the President of the Southeastern Palm Society was visiting and said that he thought it was S. pumos because of the size of the seeds.  With the fruit on them, they are truly huge.  How did I get the. thing?

Speculation time:  True - Dr. Scott Zona was working on his survey of Sabal and had collected pumos seed in Western Mexico.  Here's the speculation:  seeds might have been shared/distributed with South Florida palm people and I lucked up (by accident) with a baby.  It has grown beautifully along with S. rosei, also from W. Mexico.  Rosei bears smallish seed precociously and I'm on my second generation of mature adults.  The pumos took forever to bear seed.  

The pictures show relative seed size of the Sabals that I have.  Tom McClendon lined them up.  We're going to do the same thing again on graph paper, so there is a real measurement shown.

 

 

 

 

[Zone7Bpalmguy]

2 hours ago, JLeVert said:

In the 90"s I was buying a lot of palms to try out from Inge Hoffman in California and in Ft. Lauderdale and other places in Florida.  I wanted to try just about anything to see what would work.  I had great success, but wasn't as careful as I should have been about tags, since I assumed I was on some sort of horticultural fantasy tour.  Well, lots of things worked really well.  The biggest failure was S. maritima.  It never died, but lost its foliage every winter, so I took it out.

I bought two palms from Fr. Lauderdale (mail order).  I've lost the receipt, so I don't know who the vendor was.  I assumed they wouldn't make it for too many winters.  Wrong!  They did great.  One is definitely S. Bermudan, but the other was shy to bear seed until last year.  It's a big tree, 16' overall.  It had a bumper crop of seeds last year and the President of the Southeastern Palm Society was visiting and said that he thought it was S. pumos because of the size of the seeds.  With the fruit on them, they are truly huge.  How did I get the. thing?

Speculation time:  True - Dr. Scott Zona was working on his survey of Sabal and had collected pumos seed in Western Mexico.  Here's the speculation:  seeds might have been shared/distributed with South Florida palm people and I lucked up (by accident) with a baby.  It has grown beautifully along with S. rosei, also from W. Mexico.  Rosei bears smallish seed precociously and I'm on my second generation of mature adults.  The pumos took forever to bear seed.  

The pictures show relative seed size of the Sabals that I have.  Tom McClendon lined them up.  We're going to do the same thing again on graph paper, so there is a real measurement shown.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the pics. Everything looks great even with snow. What's the difference between Brazoria and xtexensis? Where is xtexensis geographically native? I believe Brazoria is brazos county Texas, right? Thanks.

[JLeVert]

4 hours ago, Zone7Bpalmguy said:

Thanks for the pics. Everything looks great even with snow. What's the difference between Brazoria and xtexensis? Where is xtexensis geographically native? I believe Brazoria is brazos county Texas, right? Thanks.

The seed was originally collected in Brazoria County by Lynn Lowery and Bob McCartney (Woodlanders Nursery, Aiken, SC).  Somehow NC State University got some of the seed and shared plants with me.  The two that I have are really different from each other and from other Sabals in the collection.  One of them has huge seeds and initiates blooms in late March, while the other has palmetto sized seed, but has a fat trunk with compressed boots.  It is a slow grower.  I think that brazoria and xtexensis are the same thing.  The one with the huge seeds is listed as xtexensis.

The upper picture is the fat trunk, small seed guy and the lower picture (left palm) is the big seed, early bloomer.  The Butia on the right is a spectacular silver one purchased as Butia bonnettii, which, I guess,  is not a valid species anymore.  All the palms are growing in the Sand Hills area of Augusta at the Fall Line in deep sand.

[Enar]

I would be very interested to see your fertilizer schedule and type, soil improvement tricks and especially seed germination methods! From zone 8a/b Alabama. Red clay soil. 

[JLeVert]

I fertilize all the palms with Lutz Tree Spikes once a year and then throw a little 14-14-14 around mid-summer.  The hard part is keeping enough moisture available to the palms since the sand drains like a colander.  Nutritional problems occur more from dry soil than from lack of available K/Mg issues.  Two of my students are expanding out drip irrigation to offer more moisture to the palms.  We add pine straw as mulch on a regular basis.  

Seed germination is a cinch:  Any Sabal seed for me is easy if the seed drops on the ground.  Minor, palmetto, causiarum, mexicana are actually weedy.  The other Sabal seed seem to be less vigorous, but that may be because they are in drier places.  

[Toddmin]

On 2/2/2026 at 4:25 PM, Zone7Bpalmguy said:

Thanks for the pics. Everything looks great even with snow. What's the difference between Brazoria and xtexensis? Where is xtexensis geographically native? I believe Brazoria is brazos county Texas, right? Thanks.

 I've read the Sabal Bermudana were very slow growing.  What as your experience been?

[Toddmin]

On 2/2/2026 at 2:14 PM, JLeVert said:

In the 90"s I was buying a lot of palms to try out from Inge Hoffman in California and in Ft. Lauderdale and other places in Florida.  I wanted to try just about anything to see what would work.  I had great success, but wasn't as careful as I should have been about tags, since I assumed I was on some sort of horticultural fantasy tour.  Well, lots of things worked really well.  The biggest failure was S. maritima.  It never died, but lost its foliage every winter, so I took it out.

I bought two palms from Fr. Lauderdale (mail order).  I've lost the receipt, so I don't know who the vendor was.  I assumed they wouldn't make it for too many winters.  Wrong!  They did great.  One is definitely S. Bermudan, but the other was shy to bear seed until last year.  It's a big tree, 16' overall.  It had a bumper crop of seeds last year and the President of the Southeastern Palm Society was visiting and said that he thought it was S. pumos because of the size of the seeds.  With the fruit on them, they are truly huge.  How did I get the. thing?

Speculation time:  True - Dr. Scott Zona was working on his survey of Sabal and had collected pumos seed in Western Mexico.  Here's the speculation:  seeds might have been shared/distributed with South Florida palm people and I lucked up (by accident) with a baby.  It has grown beautifully along with S. rosei, also from W. Mexico.  Rosei bears smallish seed precociously and I'm on my second generation of mature adults.  The pumos took forever to bear seed.  

The pictures show relative seed size of the Sabals that I have.  Tom McClendon lined them up.  We're going to do the same thing again on graph paper, so there is a real measurement shown.

 

 

 

 

 I've read the Sabal Bermudana were very slow growing.  What as your experience been?

[JohnAndSancho]

Oh man, these look great. I would love to get my hands on a handful of some of these seeds....

 

J

5 hours ago, Toddmin said:

 I've read the Sabal Bermudana were very slow growing.  What as your experience been?

This is purely anecdotal, but I grew a couple dozen from seed and in that stage they took off really fast. I just put one in the ground last spring after it was insanely rootbound in a solo cup. I sold a few and people were bumping them straight from the solo cups to 3 or 5 gallons. I'll be able to give you a better answer in another year or so. But in my personal experience, from seed, they seemed fast - for a Sabal. 

[JLeVert]

7 hours ago, Toddmin said:

 I've read the Sabal Bermudana were very slow growing.  What as your experience been?

I can't really say.  I planted two, but neither was in the best spot - one near a giant pine and the other shaded by a Bald Cypress.  The pine is now gone and the Cypress has been limbed up.  Both palms responded pretty quickly to the increased sunlight.  If I planted another, it would be in full sun with no competition.