Polar Vortex

[BigBilly]

37 minutes ago, BigBilly said:

My Sabal Minor is yet to spear pull

Also help would be appreciated this is my first year growing plans and I’m not exactly sure how to treat this or if I should just get rid of it 

[Robert Cade Ross]

3 minutes ago, Chester B said:

No apparent signs of damage in my neighborhood on any of the palms (Washingtonia, CIDP, Sabals) or sagos.  The only thing that looked sad were some TI plants.

The robustas have some burn in my area dates still look fine I think the foxtails are toast that my neighbors planted lol 

[Leelanau Palms]

44 minutes ago, BigBilly said:

Well I made a horrible discovery, my trashy  needle had a spear pulled after 10 F 

Oh no! So sorry! Ugh. 

[Xenon]

49 minutes ago, Chester B said:

No apparent signs of damage in my neighborhood on any of the palms (Washingtonia, CIDP, Sabals) or sagos.  The only thing that looked sad were some TI plants.

I'll give up growing palms the day Sabal palmetto or mexicana gets damaged in Houston. At least for a few years 😛

[Allen]

1 hour ago, BigBilly said:

Also help would be appreciated this is my first year growing plans and I’m not exactly sure how to treat this or if I should just get rid of it 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRcyYNrRNM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EwU4F-Gotw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU3amwiG5U8

[BigBilly]

21 minutes ago, Allen said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRcyYNrRNM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EwU4F-Gotw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU3amwiG5U8

Thank you 

[BigBilly]

40 minutes ago, Allen said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRcyYNrRNM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EwU4F-Gotw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU3amwiG5U8

oh jeez i already applied H202 , and it's supposed to get down to 32 F and 16 F tomorrow , Will that cause issues ..?

Edited January 19 by BigBilly

[Axel Amsterdam]

Despite not having snow, the South of the UK tonight. For comparison Amsterdam had snow, but in the green tonight

 

 

 

Edited January 19 by Axel Amsterdam

[Axel Amsterdam]

Another frosty night in the larger London area

[ChicagoPalma]

@DTS1 Come on man! I have -22 flipping degrees farenheit monday! I dont even think half of my mulched in-ground plants will even survive(mostly cannas). 10F would be wonderful to have here. I had to sit inside the whole day while its blowing like crazy with a windchill of above -40!

[Allen]

1 hour ago, BigBilly said:

oh jeez i already applied H202 , and it's supposed to get down to 32 F and 16 F tomorrow , Will that cause issues ..?

Well too late now.  it would be best to dry cover the palm till you have a new spear grow if possible and treat with peroxide and copper according to the video.    It is possible it grows out of it but on a small needle you may lose the trunk.   

Edited January 19 by Allen

[UK_Palms]

55 minutes ago, Axel Amsterdam said:

Despite not having snow, the South of the UK tonight. For comparison Amsterdam had snow, but in the green tonight

You have had cloud cover and lucked out big time during this event. Like you guys have definitely dodged a bullet in the Netherlands and Belgium area. We have been punished for having clear skies all night long on 3-4 back to back nights now. Zero cloud cover. The radiational cooling at night has been extreme in recent nights, to the point that we have had numerous date records set over the past 24 hours. Probably some more date records to come tonight in places too, especially around the south coast.

Didn't you have -12C / 10F in Amsterdam in January 2021? Stations on the outskirts of Amsterdam reported -15C / 5F I believe and over a week straight below freezing. London City Airport didn't go below -1C / 30F back then when you had that extreme freeze, so it seems the roles have reversed this time around. You could have had a repeat of Jan 2021 almost if the positioning of this vortex was slightly adjusted and you had no cloud cover or wind off the north sea. Again you have dodged a bit of a bullet with this. It could have been FAR worse for you guys over there.\

Anyway, I am reporting -4.7C / 23.5F at 02:30am here. Absolutely freezing. I wouldn't be surprised if my small CIDP defoliates again after all this, as it is not protected. Hopefully the red Cordyline seedlings aren't damaged too much either. We still have all of February to get through yet as well ffs. 🙄  

Edited January 19 by UK_Palms

[Swolte]

Went to visit my friend in the area. He has a more mature garden and does not protect much. We went down to 11-13F here, FYI. I only took a few pics. 

The Trachy F looks great. No sign of damage. 

 

This is the Urusana (Highland version). Impeccable. 

 

This is a mule. Survived '21 (5F) unprotected. Some damage is already showing. As you can see in the close up, this one may spear pull.  Will likely make it in the end. 

 

Chamaerops humilis cerifera looking great!

Not a palm but this almost blew me off my socks this morning. All cycads showed severe foliar damage (Panzies, Revoluta's, etc...), however, this is some some Dioon (edule ?!) that showed no sign of damage other than, perhaps, some minor spots?! My friend had another one in a different area that also looked like nothing happened. He couldn't remember the species (or whether it was a specific cultivar) so folks weighing in would be appreciated (Lets see if this summons that all-knowing cycad gorilla: @Tracy 🤗).
 

 

Edited January 19 by Swolte

[JLM]

Ended up hitting 18.1F, which was colder than what i had during the Christmas freeze. This freeze was significantly more complicated, as we had freezing rain the morning before the freeze and we stayed below freezing until well after 12 PM. We finally went above freezing and hit 36F but dropped very quickly once the sun started getting lower on the horizon. Some nearby stations recorded a low of 17F. My Queens will both defoliate. Most covered plants have had damage to some extent, the palms that were covered hopefully is just leaf damage. The bananas, well, hopefully i at least kept them warm enough to stop them from melting entirely. Heres the front yard Queen earlier today (cold protection still applied, supposed to drop back into the low 20's this weekend):


For comparison, this is what this palm looked like back on January 2nd (cold damage from Christmas freeze on lower fronds):


The back yard Queen has always been slow to show cold damage, but it will suffer the same fate as the front yard Queen. This pic was taken yesterday, looks perfectly normal but this look is definitely deceiving. 

[Axel Amsterdam]

52 minutes ago, UK_Palms said:

You have had cloud cover and lucked out big time during this event. Like you guys have definitely dodged a bullet in the Netherlands and Belgium area. We have been punished for having clear skies all night long on 3-4 back to back nights now. Zero cloud cover. The radiational cooling at night has been extreme in recent nights, to the point that we have had numerous date records set over the past 24 hours. Probably some more date records to come tonight in places too, especially around the south coast.

Didn't you have -12C / 10F in Amsterdam in January 2021? Stations on the outskirts of Amsterdam reported -15C / 5F I believe and over a week straight below freezing. London City Airport didn't go below -1C / 30F back then when you had that extreme freeze, so it seems the roles have reversed this time around. You could have had a repeat of Jan 2021 almost if the positioning of this vortex was slightly adjusted and you had no cloud cover or wind off the north sea. Again you have dodged a bit of a bullet with this. It could have been FAR worse for you guys over there.\

Anyway, I am reporting -4.7C / 23.5F at 02:30am here. Absolutely freezing. I wouldn't be surprised if my small CIDP defoliates again after all this, as it is not protected. Hopefully the red Cordyline seedlings aren't damaged too much either. We still have all of February to get through yet as well ffs. 🙄  

no you are mistaken, no -12c here in 2021, only -5C but with negative daytemps for days. 

We had clear skies here too on some nights lately with around -4C but we have the sea on the N/NW side where the cold comes from and the real cold is more concentrated to the south of us. You have a lot of landmass to the N/NW. It was very clear a day ago when parts of the middle of the UK went lower than Amsterdam has been for the last 10 years. 

This isnt an eastern cold wave as i am sure you know and the effect is showing in the mild south part of the UK as well. It has very little to do with luck but more where the cold comes from.

 

[Axel Amsterdam]

some mild part of Cornwall this morning

[Axel Amsterdam]

and greater London area this morning

[L.A.M.]

Yesterday morning, I felt very daring and protective, so I braved the teens in just a t-shirt and pajamas for a few minutes to check on my southern magnolia and needle palm. My southern magnolia's leaves are indeed already badly bronzed on the undersides. Only in a few places has it shown all the way through, but I'm convinced it'll show up soon. It just takes time to show itself sometimes. I saw no damage yet on my needle palm, but again, it may well just take time to show up. Although the majority of it is still snow-covered even after some melted yesterday, so it was probably very well-insulated; the meristem was still covered in snow too, vastly improving its chances of ultimately surviving.

I didn't check on my Carolina cherry laurels nor dwarf palmetto, though. They're in the jungle rather than the yard, and the latter is in the valley. That would've been extraordinarily reckless to do even with proper clothing, and the last time I was THAT daring was an ATV incident in April 2019 that led to me getting stuck and mom wrecking. My airway and extremities just can’t take the cold for a prolonged period anyways no matter how well I dress.

AccuWeather actually said it got to -7 °F in Buffalo Valley and -13 °F in Baxter, Chestnut Mound and Granville. It just recorded those as the lows of the morning it happened rather than the previous night, so I didn’t know the true extent of the cold that morning. It’ll be truly remarkable if my needle palm and dwarf palmetto actually emerge completely unscathed. They don’t need to, though; as long as the meristem survives, they’ll be OK. My Carolina cherry laurels are probably in even bigger trouble than I initially anticipated, though! It also explains just how rapidly the damage on my southern magnolia started to show up.

I won’t give up, though. At this point, I still expect my Carolina cherry laurels to die and have to be replaced at a lower in elevation and everything else rated to Zone 7a or 6b to survive but be heavily damaged. This is so cold that even escarpment live oaks and sand laurel oaks would be damaged if I had them, but they’d likely recover too, and this is truly the coldest we’ve been since the 1980s. There’s precedent right here in Tennessee and in other similar climates in the southeastern and south-central USA among both wild and cultivated individuals of these species, and the same deep snow that caused this cold in the first place is bound to be an insulator too. If anything, containing the warm ground so well must’ve helped it get so cold in the first place! Even if they don’t make it, I’ll go to see how the dwarf palmettos in Hendersonville that escaped into the wild in a park fared instead of automatically giving up. Still, in any case, my decision to grow Zone 7a-rated trunking palmettos (Birmingham, Brazoria and Louisiana) from seed in our climate rather than importing them from a likely at least somewhat warmer/milder climate will almost certainly pay off in the long run.

10 hours ago, BigBilly said:

Well I made a horrible discovery, my trashy  needle had a spear pulled after 10 F 

Don't give up. One of the two I initially planted had oddly-shaped roots and struggled to establish due to a record drought in September 2019, even though I planted it in April rather than May. (Tennessee usually stops freezing in April.) That one had spear pull at 13 degrees Fahrenheit in November 2019, but my other one has survived with zero damage every time until perhaps now.

Edited January 19 by L.A.M.

[SeanK]

Getting a second wave of cold tonight, into Sunday morning. Forecast to see 10°F / -12°C on Sunday morning. The coldest this year. This cold is reminiscent of 2014.

[L.A.M.]

1 hour ago, SeanK said:

Getting a second wave of cold tonight, into Sunday morning. Forecast to see 10°F / -12°C on Sunday morning. The coldest this year. This cold is reminiscent of 2014.

For Middle and most of West Tennessee, it's worse. The worst since the 1980s for most of us, probably.

[MarcusH]

47 minutes ago, L.A.M. said:

For Middle and most of West Tennessee, it's worse. The worst since the 1980s for most of us, probably.

We're about to get another cold front from Friday to Saturday morning lows between 23f and 25f . Last one so far . 

[Allen]

Update - I'm seeing some very minor foliar spotting on some needle palms and pretty significant spotting on the S. minors after the -6F

To update leaf hardiness where they first start spotting (Not death temps)

Needle Palm - 5F to -10F

S. minor -5F to 0F

brazoriensis 0F

Birmingham 5F

Louisiana 5F

Trachycarpus 12F

Mule palm 20F to 25F

Edited January 19 by Allen

[ChicagoPalma]

1 hour ago, Allen said:

Update - I'm seeing some very minor foliar spotting on some needle palms and pretty significant spotting on the S. minors after the -6F

To update leaf hardiness where they first start spotting (Not death temps)

Needle Palm - 5F to -10F

S. minor -5F to 0F

brazoriensis 0F

Birmingham 5F

Louisiana 5F

Trachycarpus 12F

Mule palm 20F to 25F

Hopefully all your palms survive! Anything about the butia?

[Leelanau Palms]

1 hour ago, Allen said:

Update - I'm seeing some very minor foliar spotting on some needle palms and pretty significant spotting on the S. minors after the -6F

To update leaf hardiness where they first start spotting (Not death temps)

Needle Palm - 5F to -10F

S. minor -5F to 0F

brazoriensis 0F

Birmingham 5F

Louisiana 5F

Trachycarpus 12F

Mule palm 20F to 25F

Very interesting and useful information.  Did you water your palms prior to the cold snap? How do you manage water/hydration around extreme cold events?

[SeanK]

13 hours ago, ChicagoPalma said:

@DTS1 Come on man! I have -22 flipping degrees farenheit monday! I dont even think half of my mulched in-ground plants will even survive(mostly cannas). 10F would be wonderful to have here. I had to sit inside the whole day while its blowing like crazy with a windchill of above -40!

I used to walk to school uphill both ways in weather like that. 

[Allen]

41 minutes ago, ChicagoPalma said:

Hopefully all your palms survive! Anything about the butia?

I am going to check some palms Monday and might do a Youtube if I feel like it.  I am sure it survived but my protections were not prepared for -6F.  it really needs a foamboard box for that.

22 minutes ago, Leelanau Palms said:

Very interesting and useful information.  Did you water your palms prior to the cold snap? How do you manage water/hydration around extreme cold events?

No watering ever except my potted bamboo,  the ground temp here right now is 31F which is why the Sabals will all live.   On a side note the potted bamboo look good on the lower 2/3 portions.  The top looks burned. 

[AcerPALMatum]

12 hours ago, JLM said:

Ended up hitting 18.1F, which was colder than what i had during the Christmas freeze. This freeze was significantly more complicated, as we had freezing rain the morning before the freeze and we stayed below freezing until well after 12 PM. We finally went above freezing and hit 36F but dropped very quickly once the sun started getting lower on the horizon. Some nearby stations recorded a low of 17F. My Queens will both defoliate. Most covered plants have had damage to some extent, the palms that were covered hopefully is just leaf damage. The bananas, well, hopefully i at least kept them warm enough to stop them from melting entirely. Heres the front yard Queen earlier today (cold protection still applied, supposed to drop back into the low 20's this weekend):
For comparison, this is what this palm looked like back on January 2nd (cold damage from Christmas freeze on lower fronds):
The back yard Queen has always been slow to show cold damage, but it will suffer the same fate as the front yard Queen. This pic was taken yesterday, looks perfectly normal but this look is definitely deceiving. 

How old is the backyard queen?

[Sabal King]

The good news for us, is the cold weather is here until Sunday, just 20's overnight, but sunny and above freezing during the day.. but Sunday for a week we get some rain almost daily.  Will give things hydration and fuel recovery with above average temperatures for the next few weeks.  Time to start growing again and pushing through any damage.  let's hope it's the last of the year!

[JLM]

1 hour ago, AcerPALMatum said:

How old is the backyard queen?

Honestly, cant give an actual year. I do know that it was planted as a little 2.25 gallon palm that still had strap leaves in the summer of 2019.

[Ryland]

12 hours ago, Axel Amsterdam said:

and greater London area this morning

Those are really shocking temperatures for the London suburbs.  It was bad here too, at -7.2ºC/19ºF, which even Kew somehow managed to surpass.  Seeing some of these other posts though, like -6ºF in Tennessee, I should feel pretty lucky.  I've become overly cautious since I had such bad outcomes from -6ºC/20ºF last winter and have been a bit more active with plant protection.  I think there must be something about it here - perhaps the high humidity, the long duration of time below freezing, or the minimal sunlight and extremely long nights - that causes these relatively moderate temperatures to be more dangerous here.  Incidentally this was the first zone 8 temperature here since 2010.

[Robert Cade Ross]

3 hours ago, Sabal King said:

The good news for us, is the cold weather is here until Sunday, just 20's overnight, but sunny and above freezing during the day.. but Sunday for a week we get some rain almost daily.  Will give things hydration and fuel recovery with above average temperatures for the next few weeks.  Time to start growing again and pushing through any damage.  let's hope it's the last of the year!

lol I’m sure February will throw us another lovely (annoying) cold front .

[Tracy]

18 hours ago, Swolte said:

however, this is some some Dioon (edule ?!) that showed no sign of damage other than, perhaps, some minor spots?! My friend had another one in a different area that also looked like nothing happened. He couldn't remember the species (or whether it was a specific cultivar) so folks weighing in would be appreciated (Lets see if this summons that all-knowing cycad gorilla: @Tracy 🤗).
 

I assume that your id is correct as some form of Dioon edule.  As to my knowledge, I'll be the first to admit, I am not all knowing or omniscient.  I am just another collector muddling along trying to learn and share what I have learned.  The essence of the scientific process is to have a hypothesis, look at the data and see if it confirms the hypothesis, denies it or is inconclusive.  Since we never know if we are working with limited data, we always have to be open to new data which may implode our previous conclusions.  So, I'm open to additional data that may come to a different conclusion than Dioon edule.  I hope that you all fare well along with your gardens during this polar vortex engulfing your region.  

[UK_Palms]

Eughhh I had -7.3C / 18.9F here last night. I will be surprised if my smaller CIDP does not defoliate from that and the previous 2-3 nights combined.

These were the 9am temps after it had just already started warming up slightly. Still -6C at that time here…

 

The mildest parts at street level in London would have saw about -1C / 30F still last night…

 

Some of the coastal areas looked quite a bit warmer though, such as Eastbourne for example…

 

The absolute minimum last night at the Met Office station in St Catherine’s, Isle of Wight was +0.6C / 33F. The Isle of Portland in Dorset had a minimum of just +2.4C / 37F.

 

Parts of Wales and Blackpool even looking fairly mild this morning in comparison to southern England..

Daytime recovery up to +6.5C / 43.7F for me here. A bit warmer in other places though like London and Cornwall reaching 8C / 46F. Yet again a 13C / 25F diurnal swing between day and night in my location, which shows the sun is already gaining a fair bit of strength at this latitude compared to say 3-4 weeks ago.

 

Much milder in Cornwall by day again…

 

Quite a large chunk of Northern Europe has been effected by the cold temperatures. A few places have dodged it due to cloud cover and winds i.e. the Netherlands.

Where there was lying snow in northern France, they have experienced some record low minimums even, just across the channel from us. A record low of -14.7C / 5F in Calais for instance. That is colder than anything registered in the entirety of the UK this winter.

 

Edited January 19 by UK_Palms

[Robert Cade Ross]

Wish these would have been our temps last week lol - 

[Robert Cade Ross]

Queens in uptown starting to show damage 20° ish degrees here 

[CTX Palm King]

So here in New Braunfels South Central Texas we got down to a low around 13/14 Degrees F. Out an abundance of caution and several years of experience I took @Allen’s advice and protected my Trachy’s, CIDP, Butia, & Mediterranean’s “Green Variant.”
The frost cloth, chicken wire, incandescent mini lights really made the difference. I am blown away at how 3 nights with lows in the teens and 36 hours below freezing the palms I protected faired. Last winter I did not protect the Trachy’s and they all spear pulled. This year I decided it was best to make sure to take this step to prevent a setback to their growth.

Overall hugely impressed with this method. The only part I regret is not picking up the temperature sensors to see what the literal temp inside the closure was. Obviously it was warm enough not to damage or hurt the palms in any serious way. The only damage I could see was on the end of 2 or 3 fronds of the CIDP that were against the cloth furthers from the lights. I provided a up close shot of that.

I’ve provided some photos of my two Washy’s and Texas Sabal. I am currently surprised at how well the Washy’s have faired. Time will tell next week as we get into warmer weather the degree of damage that will eventually present its self. A quick drive around town you can see where some Washy’s are going to be fried where others not too bad considering the extreme cold. The smaller sabal got freeze dried from the wind. That happened last winter and is not unusual… as it matures to the size of the other one it will grow out of it. It needs to continue to develop more roots.

I also provided some up close shots of my Needles and Minors. Which currently seem unphased. Last year when it got this cold the needles all spear pulled and completely recovered. I will watch them to see if the spear starts to seem off in the coming weeks. Usually the spear looks green and fine but pulls out and the damage is on the inside. I’ll keep a close eye on them and if I need to use peroxide.. well I will.

Enjoy…. And welcome to Texas @Chester B. BTW, Portland looks like it got jacked up. So yes I agree your palms at your previous house may really end up taking a hit.

Edited January 20 by CTX Palm King

[L.A.M.]

17 hours ago, Allen said:

Update - I'm seeing some very minor foliar spotting on some needle palms and pretty significant spotting on the S. minors after the -6F

To update leaf hardiness where they first start spotting (Not death temps)

Needle Palm - 5F to -10F

S. minor -5F to 0F

brazoriensis 0F

Birmingham 5F

Louisiana 5F

Trachycarpus 12F

Mule palm 20F to 25F

Thanks for the update! I'll keep that in mind and prioritize brazoriensis over Louisiana and Birmingham, which I was kind of tempted to do anyways all else being equal given that they're a wild species (not simply a wild subspecies or cultivated species).

BTW, the soil temperature of 31 degrees Fahrenheit you mentioned is good news but no surprise; thank goodness for our mild winter averages and heavy precipitation! The issue in places like Boston is more that the soil may stay frozen than the cold waves. Although in most places it at least won't get below 23 degrees Fahrenheit because snow is an insulator; even white spruce roots can be killed by lower soil temps. As a rule of thumb, I bury the pots in the ground for the winter once the air could get below 28 degrees Fahrenheit for potted subtropical plants including native palms, and if it gets significantly below 15 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit - the exact temperature depending on the individual plant species - and snow isn't expected, I bring in many temperate/subpolar plants to the garage until we return to our usual nightly light freezes, including white spruce. Another tactic I use to buy a few extra degrees of soil temps for potted plants during winter and cool them off during summer is paint my terracotta pots white or silver on one side and black on the other, pointing the black side south in winter to absorb heat and the white/silver side south in summer to reflect heat.

Edited January 20 by L.A.M.

[_nevi]

On 1/16/2024 at 10:26 AM, Xenon said:

I miss the 13 winter streak of 9b/10a in Houston, when is it coming again 😭??? Those were the days! Please no more zone 8 nonsense 

In particular, if you look at 2001-2010 across various Houston area sites (Hobby, IAH, Sugar Land, etc), you'll see that, in addition to the milder winter lows, the summer rainfall was also higher and more consistent — dry spells weren't near as frequent and potent compared to 2011-2020 and this current 2021-onward decade (so far).

 

Edited January 20 by _nevi

[Swolte]

I began uncovering today and so far there are no big surprises. All in all, plants will be OK. Unless otherwise mentioned, palms had a fleece + frost blanket 

A few notes on the palms that did show some damage:

Both my J x S and B Supersilver were wrapped up for several weeks already given that we had several freezes. This was mostly done for cosmetic reasons although the Supersilver was new in the ground. Both plants look a bit beaten up with the Supersilver probably going to spear pull. It may die. The JxS will probably be fine and only seems to have some damage at the ends of the fronds.

W Robusta - heavy foliar damage. Probably no spear pull. 

T Nova - Foliage looks battered but mostly ok. Spear looks damaged. May spearpull. Will probably live as its been doing this every year.  

T Taylor - Spear pulled. Foliage looks OK.

L Nitida - Some damage on fronds. Probably no spear pull but could be wrong

Tr Acanthocoma - Looks like it will spear pull but foliage is completely fine. Recently in the ground, though.

Supermule - Some foliar damage

 

 

 

[Xenon]

My tropical beds look more or less fine. There were some cold spots way up top (the palms are getting tall), some blemishes to the top leaf of Cyphophoenix elegans and top spear of an Euterpe edulis. 

Archontophoenix cunninghamia got 5 mini lights, a shirt, and a bucket. The outer leaves fried but lower petioles, bud/crownshaft, and emerging spear look good to go. 

Undamaged mango with "body bag" protection