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The cold is really digging in this winter across the northern hemisphere. All 3 continents - North America, Europe and Asia have seen record cold now. First Asia with the record breaking Siberian cold in Nov/Dec. This January it has been Canada and USA with record breaking cold. Scandinavia has had it as well in late December / early January. Now a new record cold wave is about to begin in Eastern Europe as well.

For smaller palms, etc I will use reflective bubble roll insulation., pots, and mulch I usually wrap it around the entire palm, in a cylindrical shape, somtimes 2-4 layers. Or I cut it to wrap it around the inside of a large pot, say 25 G pot. Then I also make sure that the bottom of the pot is coveted by this insulation. Then on the outside I use weather resistant duct tape to cover the pot drain holes I usually will bury the palm in mulch up to the bottom portion of the spear. Then I cover the plant with the pot, and pile more mulch around the base of the overturned pot. Stick some rocks on top to hold it down from strong winds. For me this seems to work well for temps down into the low teens. Never had any damage to leaves, etc. when I cover the entire plant. I'll take some pics tomorrow morning of a few palms that I currently have covered this way. - Matt

So they are predicting 24-25 Sat nite for Altamonte Springs. I have about 100 different palms in my yard. Most of my tender specimens are in the back under good Southern Live Oak canopy. I'm leaving most things uncovered but protecting a few things; Cyrtostachys elegans x renda Chrysalidocarpus lutescens 'Nana' Clinostigma savoryanum Heterospathe negrosensis Licuala kunsteri Sabinaria magnifica (this is its 2nd winter, last year took 33f unprotected with minimal damage) Also several rare Pandanus will get covered The only palms that have any burn so far is my Cocos nucifera 'Green Malayan' (some slight burn) and my Aiphanes horrida x minima (light burn on 2 lower leaves, its always been foliage tender but grows back quickly)

Isaac Dawley home in Santa Paula. House and Palms still standing or they where when my grandmother showed me where it was. She was born there but it has long since been someone else’s farm.

I took this pic of a friend Vai Nu'usa in western Samoa on the island of Upolo. I thought it was a different species, but Dr. Hodel said it was B. insularis. They were quite prolific there up by Stevenson's place on the mountain. in deep jungle

Some nice colour on this Butia odorata inflorescence.

Here’s B seemannii at Singapore Botanic Hardens, photo taken last year. Like many others in the Prychospermatinae family they have those wide praemorse leaflets that just give off the tropical vibe.

I was last at Epcot about 2 weeks ago and no damage on any tender foliage or palms. This past week we had a couple nights at 32-34 with frost one morning. I am in Altamonte Springs about 12 miles north of downtown Orlando and I hadn't had any damage until this week but only my bananas in open area and some light burn on a couple Travelers Tree leaves. My neighbors Tropical Almond dropped most of its leaves and my other neighbors mango trees has some foliage burn and the flowers are wilted. But my Ficus lyrata hasnt damaged yet nor Monstera in an open location. But thats gonna change.

Found this on that street in Santa Paula which probably is the wrong street number but those Phoenix canariensis would be about the same age as the ones in your black and white photo.

Anything that directly touches the box or bucket has a good chance of burn. But my testing with a plain cardboard box over a palm showed 5 or so degrees warmer in the box than outside. That was using an optical thermometer outside and inside. It might be even more useful with a windy night. It works, even if it's not perfect.

Thought I would check on one of my Fayetteville sourced Washingtonia today. All appears good. Post any you have and want to share.

Those Canaries are super tall now I’m sure! Do you have the street address so we can view on Google Street View?

I am planning for upper 20sF wind chill and mid-30sF cold here in Pembroke Pines, S. Central Broward. I am also planning to water thoroughly on the mid-sized palms and smaller stuff in the ground. I brought in everything. If it can be moved I moved it. My wheelbarrow got a workout. I have some containerized items, like Sabal minor variants and Encephalaros sp. that could prolly take the cold, but they are in pots and have never seen this cold and wind chill before. Taking no chances. For the orchids I have in trees I have been wrapping them with pillowcases and taping or pinning them together after wrapping. Larger ones get bed sheets. I have a few crotons but they are small. They are getting pvc-pipe frames and more bed sheets, small tarps. The sheets are taped on, the pvc-pipe is taped to trunks, walls, etc. As for which Croton cultivars should be protected before others, I do not know them well enough. Your tarp at a 45-degree angle idea is a good one and should be a lot of protection compared to nothing. The key is to make it strong enough for the 30-mph gusts we may get. Any blockage of the wind counts for a lot. Try to avoid having any plastic sheeting make contact with plant surfaces as they may cause damage. Everything on your list needs to be protected if possible, but for an order of most urgent to less... A. Licuala cordata - Hydriastele beguinii 'Obi Island' - Licuala grandis - Areca vestiaria B. Licuala lauterbachii and the var. bougainvillensis - Licuala ferruginea C. Ptychosperma elegans 'Lisa' - Caryota mitis variegated - Chamaedorea deckeriana - Chambeyronia macrocarpa - C. hookeri - Ptychosperma schefferi If the 12 ft. tall Hydriastele beguinii 'Obi Island' is in addition to the one on the list, it should be a priority. Start with tying the leaves up, then wrap the crown and the crownshaft with blankets and sheets. Wrap the trunk last. Tying those bifid leaves might be tricky. Start at the petioles while holding them together, squeeze upwards and wrap with twine, etc. Adding bundles of Xmas lights or other corded lights, individual incandescent bulbs could help under any covered structure. I may do this for some smaller things in-ground, but I haven't decided yet. Most of my sensitive stuff is too large to cover. Keep the bulbs away from anything that can burn. Ryan

I'll let you know how this beccariophoenix does in Orlando. Current forecast is 25F. Way too big to protect so I'll just water the soil well

Oh my! What a display. Harry

I wrapped my coconut trunk with 5w heating cables and christmas lights. Wrapped it with burlap amd frost cloth and did end up building a frame. I run a 30,000 BTU heat thrower into the frame with hope that the heat rises through the crown. With anticipated winds, I'm gonna need lots of blocking of the winds from neighbor's homes. Still worth a try!

Needing to make some space, and this butia hybrid turned out to be mostly, if not entirely, butia. A beautiful palm, but I need the space for something else. I am game to help you dig, would be a simple task as long as you steer clear of the neighboring agaves (lots of spines!). Soil is very loose, sandy loam. You can cut right through it like cutting through butter. Pick up in Fresno.

Licuala orbicularis in the Coffs Harbour botanical gardens.

Some models have a band of anow forming right over me tommorow night and giving me 1 to 2 inches of snow lmao. Tampa area

I’m impressed. What did you do to protect them? We’ve had a few cold weeks, I thought it would take a toll on anything crownshafted.

I think Florida may return to the 1990 zone map after this winter.

I took some pics before the storm today. I think the worst cold is mostly over here. Hope so anyways. Sabal ‘Alabama” has been sitting in frozen pine straw for a week.

So as pretty much everyone knows already, this weekend is going to be rough for palm (And other tropical/subtropical plant) growers and collectors in the Florida Peninsula. This upcoming freeze could break the temperture records of their most recent bad freeze in 2010 and reset the growing zones to lower numbers (Like Orlando Zone 10 ➤ Zone 9). I created this thread so that floridian forumers could post before/after photos of their collection and other palms growing in this region. When the 2021 freeze happened, the Palmageddon Aftermath Photo Thread was created by @ahosey01 and I personally learned a lot from it, and from my own experience with that freeze killing my coconut, royal and adonidia palms. I think it'll be very interesting to see what gets hit and what doesn't, what recovers and what doesn't recover. Will definitely help guide people in similar zones and climates to know what species to plant. Fortunately for floridians, everything indicates that this will be a mostly dry freeze, there are no signs of freezing rain coming with it. This might change as the hours pass but it's most likely that there won't be rain with this. Best of luck everyone, remember to protect your palms before it's too late and feel free to share your photos.

@Than It just needs to survive till march, according to some sources it will be much warmer than its supposed to be reaching 15-20C

There’s a ton of stuff at Disney and Universal that will be seriously damaged if this event pans out the way it’s forecast. I know Eric in Orlando is more up to speed on what’s there at Disney especially but this is what I can think of off the top of my head. -Coconut palms and a lot of warm zone 10 tropical vegetation at Volcano bay at Universal. I had heard from employees who worked there in Jan 2018 that they had heaters on the Cocos. Not sure how that will work with 35 mph winds and these temps -I recall at the new hotel they built at Disneys Polynesian Resort some good sized Satakentia planted on the backside facing the lake. And of course there’s just so many tender tropicals at the Polynesian already. -Numerous Pandanus around the Disney Parks: one notable one in Tomorrowland at Magic Kingdom and a few in Avatar land at Animal Kingdom. -Plants like Shefflera arboricola, Copperleaf/Acalypha, Duranta erecta are used as a standard shrub hedges all around the parks and Orlando in general. They will for sure come back from larger branches or the base of the plant if dieback occurs but wow that would be a lot of brown foliage to look at for a little while. -The common stuff like Bottle/Spindle Palms, Croton, Adonidia, Ficus, Wodyetia, Philodendron, and Monstera will probably be quite a sore sight. -Heliconia and Gingers, and Strelitzia are practically used as foundation plants in the Orlando area nowadays. Many will probably have to start from the ground up after this. -I’m curious how Royal Poincianas will do. I don’t recall reports of high damage in these from Jan 2018 but maybe I forget. I know I’ve seen some good sized ones in the Orlando area that didn’t seem to show evidence of significant past damage. -One of the saving graces though is that it’s been so long since freezes like this in the Orlando and other areas that some of these plants are so large their size is in their favor to better withstand this freeze event.

You're not kidding. Ive had them eating the apple chunks fully submerged. In my area they took out a CIDP and now there is a queen and a washy that have collapsed crowns that are no more than 5o yards from the CIDP stump. It may be a coincidence but it's awfully fishy and concerning if true.

I offer a 15 gallon, well grown palm, it is about four inches diameter at the base and needs ground planting. This is considered to be the easiest New Caledonia palm for coastal California. There is even a lonely one living almost feral at the Lakeside Palmetum in Oakland. $165 at my garden, or $200 delivered, ( immediate Bay Area, like Novato to Concord to San Jose) Cash or PayPal, thanks https://www.palmpedia.net/palmsforcal/Burretiokentia_hapala

Unfortunately they are on the way. one of my shops is in Mission Viejo and I have seen the evil weevil damage as far up as san Clemente and that's without actively looking around. You can see some damaged CIDP in the Cristianitos creek by trestles. in hindsight the freezer is. a bit of a stupid test as those temps would kill a palm outright anyway. The 26-28f falls inline with what my yard has seen as its record low so im a bit upset that there wasn't death. Im sure the weevils nuzzle into a warmer area too.

Johnathan, these are nifty little palms and I was going to mention the small paperback reference in Richard’s post above. It’s one of my favorite palm books on the shelf. Than, I have to agree with you about palms with thin stemmed trunks with spreading crowns and the look they create. Richard, thanks for the book shout out. Tim

i love experiments steve. the analyst in me is perplexed why your salt below 32F did not kill the beetle. i guess there are many variables including sustaining the temps at 26-28F and not all beetles are created equal comes to mind or possibly your freezer is set to way below 0F (ie ... <26F). regardless, cool experiment and sad that you have that many in your yard to participate in your experiment. i live north of LA and just anticipating the gradual migration northwards.

That early cold wave in the middle of the second week of November may have been an omen. It left me with symptoms of cold denial. Now we are at the end of January getting beach bullied by the arctic with little end in sight.

When this whole episode is done, I'll be curious about how the list of palms below perform in central Florida. For years, I've heard how much cold they could tolerate. I've planted them all based on this but still doubt they can tolerate the worst a 9b winter can throw at you. This isn't the worst but bad enough to be a good test. These weren't as widely planted back in 2010 so this is the first real, widespread test in a multitude of locations and conditions. Beccariophoenix alfredii Chambeyronia macrocarpa Chambeyronia (Kentiopsis) oliviformis Chrysalidocarpus (Dypsis) pembana

Alexandre no damage thankfully 😄. all my citrus are okay looking. Hopefully this upcoming freeze will be the last till next winter 🤞

Wow local media and NWS way off this morning again, they had a light freeze 30-31F forecast for "Houston". And yet nowhere inside the Beltway is remotely near that 😂, a good chunk of 610 is above 40F 😂. Even Katy is in the mid 30s and not upper 20s

Cocothrinax eckmanii one tough palm!

Schippia concolor anyone!

Bismarkia

Licuala ‘mapu’ inflorescence. Tim

Astrocaryum murumuru. This spiny baby is well out of poking range but, a nice looking palm. Tim

My Carpentaria

A bit of colour on the new sallaca leaf, and a nice pic of the garden git my attention!

Adventitious roots on C. costaricana and T. fortunei lending a bit of tropical flair to our cool-weather garden

I can dream @realarch I can dream, one day! Lucky Hawaii growers!

Archontophoenix purperea not as bright as some I have seen, but purperea nonetheless!

K elegans fan dance caught my eye so I shared my orange with it.

Veitchia vitiensis, one stunning smaller palm. A grove would be nice, but at least I have the one to oogle. Tim

I to need to give a big shout out to Darold for being so incredibly generous with some Chamaedorea seeds a few of which are very rarely offered anywhere. Communication was prompt and delivery was quick. Seeds are incredibly freshly harvested and labeled. Again thank you ever so much Craig

Received the rhopalostylis baueri v. Cheesemanii fast. Great communicator and seller!

A couple more things about this species: never ever let it dry out. If it does, it's toast. I kept mine sitting in trays of water I monitored almost daily, esp. in dry weather. When/if we went out of town for more than a few days I asked our niece to check on them, which, I'm sure, was a pain to a woman with two businesses and a family. If we traveled in winter I sweated every cold front until we got home. No way could our 5' tall niece roll massive pots weighing 100s of lbs into/out of the house for us. But that's what you have to do because with this palm there are no do-overs. And I wasn't going to risk keeping them indoors in a dry house for a week or two. I don't keep houseplants and these make poor ones. One last tip: we kept these palms on our back lanai under heavy shade cloth. I've read they can take sun and maybe so but grown in shade they are the most gorgeous dark green. Finally, a palm grower in Homestead told me lipsticks are highly prone to a lethal cold weather fungus. He said I should drench them in a solution of water and Dithane 45 (from Southern Ag) before cool weather arrived, then follow up every 2-3 months until spring. A few people on PT said that wouldn't help but I followed this guy's advice every Nov. and Feb. for all the years I had them. Never had problems with fungus. I also credit my diligence in caring for these uber tropicals.