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Actually it was worse in the past by nearly every metric. In terms of absolute minimum temperature, The freezes in the 1980s, 1962, and 1890s were dreadful. Most of the places getting 20s and 30s next week went into the teens during some or all of those events. In terms of hardiness zones, the forecast from Weather.com has my minimum during this event at 32F. The minimum for the entire winter thus far is 31F. That's in line with the 2023 USDA Hardiness Map putting my portion of Lakeland in USDA 10a. The 1990 zone map had Lakeland in 9a and Orlando in 9b. That means the locations in question averaged low-20s and mid-20s each year, respectively. The zone maps from 1990, 2012, and 2023 show the change over time, even if they aren't great planting guides by themselves. In terms of long stretches of below average temperatures, January 1940, January 1977, Jan/Feb 1996, January 2010, and December 2010 had long stretches of cold that were much worse than this. While I wouldn't call it normal or typical, it does happen with regularity.

This is a great hybrid, get yourself one if you can find it. I really like the thin trunk.

Rio Rancho, NM z7b

Cold hardy palm trees in Dallas zone 8a at 15F after sleet storm. 🌴🥶

I know there are older threads with similar themes, but hopefully we can get this forum moving again. Post your pics before the snow melts.

Photos today following the ice storm. Low this morning got down to 22F, and the high got to 32F. Washingtonian robustas: Washingtonia filifera: Sabal uresana

It was perfect tour weather for @PalmBossTampa and @Midnight Gardener over the weekend. The high at the airport today was 88F, breaking the old record by 3oF. Now we get about two weeks of garbage weather. Since the NWS and Weather.com forecasts are almost identical, we'll just stick with the graphic below +/-1. We'll see how this holds up and how the plants hold up to it:

Cold hardy palm trees in Dallas zone 8a at 15F after sleet storm. 🌴🥶

When I first started germinating seeds I was using a heating pad and I absolutely do not recommend those at all. Google and see how hot it actually gets. Granted my heating pad was half broken and only worked on high but it got just a wee bit too hot. I'm all for upcycling, but between closeouts and Black Friday and eBay deals, I'm pretty happy with my actual seedling heat mats now. Thermostats and knowing exactly what temp your soil/baggies are is nice, especially when you can check them from your wifi. I scored some 48x20 mats for $9 apiece and got the Inkbird wifi thermostat for $20 shipped all in. I'm having a lot more success now.

If the forecast holds up, Monday and Tuesday nights will likely be too much for those palms to handle.

Same here in Big D! Rough last couple days and it looks like almost 70 hours below freezing from what i calculate. Gawd knows how low it will go tonite if the skies clear as the whole region is compacted frozen sleet, snow. I guess the 2020s will go down as the icy epoch, will it continue into the 2030's? I covered and did the xmas lite addition thanks to all the peeps on here giving me the idea🤓 But, to my dismay, I was unable to find my old xmas lites in the attic or basement! Oh well, i think it will be more like the previous 5 winters- heavy leaf damage on Sabal bermudana and even Trachys but the minors and needle palms, minimal if any damage! Another cold wave next weekend but dry so far predicted, not that these forecasts have been worth a hill of beans😑

There a hundreds of places like this around my area!

I've got multiple apps telling me multiple things so I'm just gonna roll with Accuweather. It says our temp is 28 with a "feels like" of 11 and I absolutely believe it. My nipples could cut glass and my boy parts are halfway up my ribcage after walking the dog, and everything is just soaking wet. The whole yard is like the carpet in a flooded house. My toes are all wet. I'm not particularly enjoying this but I know a lot of people got it worse than this so I'm just gonna scratch my belly button and keep checking the plant room heater.

In fairness I didn't say I had experience at those temps. Just that I wouldn't do shit about it. lol

Welp, NWS is forecasting 29F for my house tonight. Just going by feel spending a little time out there, it certainly doesn't feel like it's going to get that cold out. Still breezy but not crazy, radiative effect won't be that bad and advective is behind us after the front moved through. This freeze, for Brownsville, is almost certainly not as bad as last year's around this time. Not particularly wet, not going to be prolonged, doesn't feel frosty. It's 40F out right now and you can't even see your breath in the street light. Only precautions I took were three: 1.) Covered my small 6ft Cocos nucifera with a wool blanket. 2.) Put my potted Tahina spectabilis under my roof on the patio. 3.) Brought my flowering citrus in so the flower buds don't get fried. Here's to good luck! Best of luck to all of you north of the Nueces River!

I agree. Germination is typically around 86°F or 30° C. It would be very hard to regulate the temperature on a standard heating pad.

Cold hardy palm trees in Dallas zone 8a at 15F after sleet storm. 🌴🥶

Was recommended to get something similar to get something similar to Agri Fos so I got this.

No I don’t, luck of the draw as it goes. Spend close to $3000 grand on sabinara seeds and one is not going to play coroner on those rare beauties. If they are quality seeds you can tell pretty well much straight away. Sometimes you get beautiful looking seeds and nothing germinates. One example 300 triphylla seeds one lot in a styrofoam box and the other lot in a community pot, nothing germinating in the styrofoam box but the community pot all germinated. So you could say technique or even grower mistake with to wet a mix or something just right in the community pot. You just can’t tell until they pop up, and knowing my luck a pack of ten seeds and I go and cut up the only living seed in that pack 🌱

It may be too early to ask, but does anyone know the cold-hardiness of Sabal lougheediana? I know people have only been growing these for a few years, so it may not be known yet. Point is, I have some seedlings (when they get a bit larger), I’d be interested in donating to botanical gardens or other public gardens that want to add to their collections. BTW, these were sourced by a friend here in Satellite Beach, who has a house on Bonaire. He scoured island on scooter, and found a private property (Apt Complex) and was given permission to collect.

If we are lucky enough when far North Queensland (cairns) has cyclones if it tracks south we can get a full wet week, the east coast low when that sets in my area becomes that true subtropical climate. The whole mid north coast area once was what they called the big scrub before settlement one huge rainforest. Close to 400 square kilometres of pristine environment a small Amazon jungle. Now settlement and land clearing has broken that up into large reserves national parks and state forest. A place where the rainforest from the tablelands met the ocean!

Salam alaikum, sylvestris is always solitary, dactylifera is almost always suckering. Besides ratio of petiole's to entire leaf's length in sylvestris is 1/10 while in dactylifera is about 1/5. In other words petiole in sylvestris multiplied 10 times makes out entire leaf, while in dactylifera this is achieved through a multiplication by 5.

Nice to see you posting again! I don't think that they start suckering until they get some height to them - I have one single that is probably 50 cm and hasn't started suckering yet. And yes, to get the multiple effect in the first photo they have planted multiple seeds in the pot. In the second photo there's probably 4 palms that have already suckered to account for the varying heights. I believe that the multiple seedlings would eventually thin out due to competition for nutrients and water. "Areca Palm" is a confusing common name since there's an entire genus of 36 Areca species.

Beautiful (when it's short lived)! I covered my Washingtonias last week since they just got put in the ground last spring. So no pictures. They will be uncovered again this week as temperatures get back up. The Sandia and Manzano mountains did there thing in protecting us from the brunt of the arctic blast once again!

😂

Just be sure to avoid moisture and should be fine if the temperature is right. I used a pet bed heater for several years and have heard of recycled water bed heaters being used for the same purpose. There's enough stuff in the world so why not repurpose?

I can get these if there’s enough interest. Smallest/Stoutest Hurricane Palm from Round Island in Indian Ocean. .25 each.

I think this week is going to stress me if it hasn’t already. Yesterday I wrapped up the bismarkias with their blankets, tarps, and lights well ahead of the cold since I didn’t want them rained on. Woke up to 69 degrees this morning but dropped 20 degrees in the last hour or so and is down to 49 already. Got about 1.5” of rain last 24 hours so everything’s going to be soaked for this freeze. Weather report says low 24 degrees tonight and 22 tomorrow night. tropicals are still on the porch drying off a bit before they come in. They’d be dry if it wasn’t raining sideways. Plus one butia that’s still in a pot waiting to be planted. Then to add to the dramas my neighbor bulldozed one of my Washingtonias and I now have it staked because it won’t stay up on its own. I hope it makes it through all this because it has been my fastest grower and is bigger than some of my others that are a year or two older. To top things off Ive got a short notice need to leave town later in the week and there’s some weather reports for next weekend looking bad so the potted palms will stay inside but not sure what I’ll do with the bismarkias. I may have to just let them out and hope for the best. Weather channel says everything will be fine with lows in the 30s next weekend. My phone is calling for some apocalyptic freeze to 19 degrees at the same time. Anyways good luck to all this week.

How things are looking here. My large Grevillea (right) has the vegas lights. Large cat palms, some dwarf Heliconia, and everflowering bottlebrush are on the left - they needed a serious haircut to get them to fit this year. Kangaroo paws and small Grevillea behind the car also have lights. Mountain bottlebrush and narrow leaf bottlebrush aren't getting covered this year, just a little mulch. Everything else gets mulch (or nothing). Arenga sp. usually get buckets over them, but they have now outgrown that. Cham. mircospadix. These seed grown ones are much more vigorous than a large one I bought. They just get mulch poured on them. Cham. cataractum and Cham. radicalis seed. Figured I should actually save some. Only a fraction of what they set this year. The large Heliconia just get mulch piled up around the base. There are three new flowers coming on x 'Coral Surprise' that I'm sad to lose. I'm not wrapping any citrus this year either, only mulch.

Sandias did the protection And a microclimate definitely helps 40f in ABQ 41f double eagle 20f Moriarty 6f in Amarillo 50f+ something in my backyard/porch with partial sunshine! Might be a different story if the low pressure was to our west.

It looks like the southern Rockies protected us from the arctic blast. Check out the difference in temps just to the east.

I'm always saying that San Antonio isn't zone 9a it belongs in zone 8b with some winters going even lower to 8a7b. Overall what I'm saying is that we aren't anywhere near the winters Texas has seen before 2021 and I don't have a crystal ball to predict future winters. The truth is that we see more weather extremes in both ways due to climate change. Climate is changing in Texas as well and not for the better. There were Queen palms growing in San Antonio for almost 20 years with some already died in the 2010s. Since 2021 it's impossible to keep them alive without proper protection. I'm not going to bet my money on warm winters. Not in this city at least.

Does anyone protect their palm trees from the freezing rain? Also, I wish everyone good luck in southern parts of USA🙏🙏🙏

@TonyDFW Incredible photos as always. The house leopards are a nice touch, too.

Pretty incredible to keep a Jubaea growing for so long in Dallas. Did it have to be trunk cut at some point?

26 year old, seedling grown Jubea chilensis in Dallas. Zone 8a 🌴

There is a an undocumented population of Braheas located just 40 miles south of Douglas, Arizona near the town of Esqueda, Sonora. These palms seem to be a variation of the Brahea Calcarea but with a taller trunk and fuller crown. I would also like to mention that these specimens of Brahea are very likely to be more hardy than Brahea Armata considering they are growing in elevations of 4000 or more where winters are extremely more cold than that of the Brahea Armata range. They palms are located in a ranch named Rancho Los Baños - Tierra Chamahua EcoAdventures which appears to have recently closed and has virtually no public access. There are dozens of pictures of the palms in the TripAdvisor page of the ranch online. I thought yall would enjoy knowing of these groves as they might have the potential of being the MOST hardy Brahea of all the genus. Getting seeds from these plants would be amazing but the location is very remote and a known area of high cartel activity.

Beautiful Braheas. I've already germinated several Braheas and Super Silver. Spanish music. They say the first flamenco score found was Sephardic Jewish music. It's very interesting that Spain inherited that music from the Jews. A Spanish musician revealed this. He thought flamenco was Arabic or from the Gypsies, but upon discovering the score, he realized it was Jewish. That's where those oriental melodies that Spain and the Spanish Gypsy people inherited originated.

Here's a video I found that shows one of the palms on the ranch. It's at about the 5:39 mark I also found this photo, which shows both glaucous and non glaucous palms in the background. To my eyes they all look like calcarea

flypower191, Welcome to Palmtalk ! Great pictures and info, thanks for posting.

At an attempt to carry on what Mr sparkman used to offer. I do have pollen for the following species: E. arenarius E. Arenarius blue E. Caffer E. Ferox E. Horridus E. Eugene marasii E. Lehmanii E. Princeps E. Longifolius E. Trispinosus I do have several different forms of some species so feel free to message me with any questions.

Syagrus schizophylla x romanzoffiana (the palm in the photo). Likely self-pollinated, although there are regular romanzoffiana in the area.

Mine never had any armament

That's an amazing looking palm!