Very young Sabal minor blooming?

[westfork]

Our Sabal minors all survived our zone 4b/5a winter with no heat but lots of mulch.  Surprisingly, one is shooting up what is probably the inflorescence.  Is it usual for very young plants to bloom?  Maybe it thought last winter was a near death experience and is reacting accordingly.  These were just planted last year from mail order sources.

[Las Palmas Norte]

Not especially uncommon to see these flower young, at least in my experience. Maybe others have differing assessments. Looks great.

[teddytn]

There’s different size minors from different areas of the country too. Sabal minors from North Carolina and Texas seem to be the biggest and Sabal Minors from Florida seem to generally be of a smaller size. I’m fairly certain all of the super dwarf Sabal minors come from Florida if I’m not mistaken. My point being, depending on what ecotype you have, it most likely is just big/ mature enough to flower. I have 7 Sabal minors from Wakulla, Florida that have all flowered at a similar size to yours. But others from NC that are bigger and have not yet. 

[scarecrow]

Stress can bring out the flowers in plants. 

[Las Palmas Norte]

Favorable conditions can induce flowering as well. Plants are amazing.

[NC_Palms]

Environmental stress will cause Sabal minor to flower. I’ve seen plants on the verge of death flower and then die, it’s kinda like the last solution to preserve the plant before it inevitably dies. 

But fortunately for you, your little palm looks incredibly healthy, and thus I would not worry much about this at all. 

[Las Palmas Norte]

13 hours ago, NC_Palms said:

Environmental stress will cause Sabal minor to flower. I’ve seen plants on the verge of death flower and then die, it’s kinda like the last solution to preserve the plant before it inevitably dies. 

But fortunately for you, your little palm looks incredibly healthy, and thus I would not worry much about this at all. 

So, I wonder what factors are initiating this one to flower? Overall health I'd recon, maybe something else?

[PalmsInBaltimore]

really, mulch alone got it through winter in South Dakota/Iowa?! That's just incredible! Are you chalking that up to El Nino or hardiness? So cool that it's flowering! Although also a lot later in the season that I thought would be normal.  

[westfork]

On 7/8/2024 at 3:17 PM, PalmsInBaltimore said:

really, mulch alone got it through winter in South Dakota/Iowa?! That's just incredible! Are you chalking that up to El Nino or hardiness? So cool that it's flowering! Although also a lot later in the season that I thought would be normal.  

It was a mild winter.  Low was only down to -22f and lowest daily high was -10f.  We had good snow in mid winter that I shoveled over the plants for the coldest period.
Odd thing - I figured our intense winter sun would be a good thing for survival.   But what I failed to take into account was that the low winter sun was blocked from hitting part of the bed, and that was where the best survivors were.  But our winter sun, no humidity, and frozen soil is a tough combination. 

Our soil is incredibly deep so the longer they survive the stronger they should become with those subterranean trunks.

[westfork]

On 7/5/2024 at 9:24 AM, teddytn said:

There’s different size minors from different areas of the country too. Sabal minors from North Carolina and Texas seem to be the biggest and Sabal Minors from Florida seem to generally be of a smaller size. I’m fairly certain all of the super dwarf Sabal minors come from Florida if I’m not mistaken. My point being, depending on what ecotype you have, it most likely is just big/ mature enough to flower. I have 7 Sabal minors from Wakulla, Florida that have all flowered at a similar size to yours. But others from NC that are bigger and have not yet. 

This was the Baker form of Sabal minor so your precocious Floridian theory makes sense.

[westfork]

It is now the first of August and this Sabal minor in zone 4B/5A is working on that inflorescence. 
 

[SeanK]

🎉 Congratulations. That's great news!

[Sabal King]

minors always flower early... nothing unusual with that, but it's great news as you can rest assured whatever you have done thus far has made it happy.. just keep it up!

[westfork]

Just came across this picture of this palm on January 14 when the low was -20F (-29C) and high for the day was -10F (-23C).  Stayed very cold like that for a couple weeks.

Early winter we had set bags of rock mulch around them to keep the ground from freezing too deep,  and earlier in January we covered with old styrofoam chests ahead of the extreme cold.