Some Palms In the Yard (Virginia)

[PalmTreeDude]

Hello! I haven’t posted for a while but I’ve definitely still been growing palms! I just wanted to give an update on some of my palms. These are near Richmond, Virginia. 

^ My King Palm (Archontophoenix cunninghamiana). This gets a box in the winter and is the only palm I extensively protect. 
 

^ My Needle Palm (Rhapidophyllum hystrix), it does very well, the brown is just a sucker that got choked out, it has an absurd amount of suckers. 
 

^ My Sabal minor ‘Dallas’ ecotypes. They are slow but do really well here. 
 

^ My Mediterranean Fan Palm (Chamaerops humilis). I usually never do anything to protect it, but this past winter we had a very early cold snap (got down to 6.6°F according to my thermometer in December one night) so I just threw a bunch of pine needles over it, whether it did anything or not I don’t know but the trunks all survived. 
 

^ A Sabal minor clump I bought at Myrtle Beach late last summer, it had some shock when I first planted it last August but it is growing well now. 
 

^ Two small Saw Palmetto (Serenoa repens) seedlings that I grew from seed. One survived last winter with some pine needles and one I planted early this Spring but It randomly spear pulled and is regenerating now. These are just kind of an experiment, I know long term they’re 8a palms. 
 

^ I scattered some Sabal palmetto seeds in this planter years ago and some are still going even after the winters and getting stepped on over and over again, the spot is really shaded though so they’ll likely never get to any good size. 
 

^ This is an Areca palm (Dypsis lutescens) that I had for a while in a pot, I don’t have room for it so I planted it as an annual. 

[DAVEinMB]

9 minutes ago, PalmTreeDude said:

!!!

Hell yea man!  I now immediately want to try one 😂

[Cindy Adair]

Amazing what you are growing so well in Virginia!

[JLM]

That king is impressive! Gives me extra hope for my foxtail 😁

[PalmatierMeg]

Good work! That Archo is stunning in your yard. I bet it turns heads.

[ZPalms]

Would love to see your box set up for your king, It looks perfect!

[PalmTreeDude]

On 8/14/2023 at 4:32 PM, DAVEinMB said:

!!!

Hell yea man!  I now immediately want to try one 😂

Thanks! It is a fun experiment for sure! An extreme out of my zone push lol 

On 8/14/2023 at 5:17 PM, Cindy Adair said:

Amazing what you are growing so well in Virginia!

Thanks!

On 8/14/2023 at 11:41 PM, JLM said:

That king is impressive! Gives me extra hope for my foxtail 😁

Thank you! 
 

On 8/15/2023 at 8:01 AM, PalmatierMeg said:

Good work! That Archo is stunning in your yard. I bet it turns heads.

Thank you! Yeah a few neighbors came to see it and thought it was pretty neat! 
 

11 hours ago, ZPalms said:

Would love to see your box set up for your king, It looks perfect!

It looks like I didn’t step back and take any pictures of the box fully for some reason, so sorry for the crappy pics, I’ll get better ones this winter. My father and I work on protecting it, I’m not home most of the winter because I’m away at college so we both kind of monitor it once the box is up, my father started liking palms now thanks to me lol! We have a small greenhouse heater inside that kicks on when the temp drops below 50°F automatically, during the day it is typically in the 70s or even 80s inside from the sun. This next winter is the last time we’ll be able to protect before it is definitely too big, I’ll try to figure out what to do with it after. 

 

[PalmTreeDude]

Another king palm picture from today. 

 

[ZPalms]

I'm so excited to see your protection method, I think of your king palm often because of how cool this is

[ZPalms]

On 8/16/2023 at 3:45 PM, PalmTreeDude said:

Another king palm picture from today. 

 

I'm assuming it made it another winter? 🤠

[DAVEinMB]

@PalmTreeDude we need some updates 🙏🙏

[PalmTreeDude]

It is alive, but not looking too great, my father and I protect it, originally we thought it was too big (well, it kind of was) but after a few frosts it was still green and I was home for break (I’m a college student), so my father and I decided to just go for it and try to protect it one last time, I had to cut all the fronds off (I know that is bad with crownshaft palms but there was no other way) and we boxed it in. I’ll get updated pictures when I go back, but apparently it is green but the spear pulled, so either it will regenerate one or die, we’ll see. 

[ZPalms]

35 minutes ago, PalmTreeDude said:

It is alive, but not looking too great, my father and I protect it, originally we thought it was too big (well, it kind of was) but after a few frosts it was still green and I was home for break (I’m a college student), so my father and I decided to just go for it and try to protect it one last time, I had to cut all the fronds off (I know that is bad with crownshaft palms but there was no other way) and we boxed it in. I’ll get updated pictures when I go back, but apparently it is green but the spear pulled, so either it will regenerate one or die, we’ll see. 

Hope it makes it, can’t wait to see it!

[PalmTreeDude]

Here it is at the moment. As I said, not looking too good. It has held on to its green for now, we’ll see what happens. It was always expected to freeze at some point simply because of size or error on our part. 
 

 

[VA Jeff]

A couple mistakes you're making growing that king palm:

Move it closer to the house, especially near a dryer vent and away from heat pumps.  Heat pumps suck heat from the air in winter.  Dryer vents give heat.  

Try a crownshafted palm that is a little hardier, such as a trunked chamaedorea or euterpe edulis.  It will only gain you a few degrees, but that difference might be enough when covered with a box all winter.  Or just be happy with a butia, if you just want a pinnate palm.