Sago palm: partially yellow fronds ("needles"), is it ok?

[PashkaTLT]

Hello,

Here's my Sago after removing the winter box:

I feel like it's doing very well, it's growing fast, but after the winter it has a lot of "yellow" in its fronds.

Is this normal? Should I worry and do something?

 

Kind regards,

Pavel

[Tracy]

35 minutes ago, PashkaTLT said:

Hello,

Here's my Sago after removing the winter box:

I feel like it's doing very well, it's growing fast, but after the winter it has a lot of "yellow" in its fronds.

Is this normal? Should I worry and do something?

 

Kind regards,

Pavel

Seeing your climate zone and seeing your reference to it just now coming out of it's winter box, I would expect it to look a little worse for the wear.  What have you done in past years as it comes out of its box?  

I am a bit curious now about the box.  Is it completely enclosed in the box throughout winter?  What sort of box do you use for this purpose?

[PashkaTLT]

Thanks, @Tracy.

We had a record-cold, terrible winter this time, temperatures dropping to -22C (-8F), and we had freezing nights until the middle of April. Terrible.

In the past I did nothing and it looked better, but the previous winters were warmer (although not much warmer).

The boxes are completely enclosed. Here's a Pindo palm before closing it:

I use rigid foam insulation panels + heat cables + a lot of mulch to help keep the roots warm.

This year, however, I had a fire due to a short circuit or overheating (perhaps a cable burned itself where the different parts of the cable touched each other; or perhaps the heating cable overheated mulch started a fire). So I lost my European palm and damaged the Windmill palm  I don't know the cause of the fire and I'll create a post later to discuss the possible causes of this and how to prevent this in the future.

The boxes get fully closed with occasional opening of a "small window" at the back of the box for changing air.

Inside the boxes are temperature monitors and I can see the temperature on the display inside the house.

Besides the fire :), I'm very happy with the results, that all palm trees survived every winter and some are even looking great. I did not know if they'd survive -22C (-8F) outside, but they did!

[Tracy]

That is quite a process to box all these up and heat them.  I applaud your efforts and passion to pursue growing these specimens in such a harsh environment for them.

[PashkaTLT]

@Tracy

Thank you! That is indeed quite a process! 

I always wanted to live in a hot climate, somewhere in the south, with palm trees, but never managed to move there. So I decided if I don't go to palm trees, palm trees should come to me

To be completely honest, packing and unpacking 12 palm trees for winter is too much for me, and if I could rewind back, I would have planted fewer palm trees, like 8 or 6...