Palm recovery from 27°F ultimate low

[Fusca]

I had 4 juvenile palms all roughly 5-gal size that spear-pulled following a freeze in late January 2025 and all are pushing new growth.  Some recovered after a couple of weeks while others delayed recovery.  Vote for which one of the 4 you think made the quickest recovery.

[jwitt]

I am amazed of spear pull on the brahea armata at 27°f!  

Must speak to how mild your climate truly is 

[Fusca]

57 minutes ago, jwitt said:

I am amazed of spear pull on the brahea armata at 27°f!  

Must speak to how mild your climate truly is 

It's not armata but super silver (thornless petioles).  Below is a photo of the super silver - they start out green for several years then change to silver.  Never had any freeze damage before and never spear-pulled but it was 90°F two days before the freeze so that caused problems!

[Harry’s Palms]

I’m going to guess the Livistona . Although slow growing in overall size , they push new growth quickly . I will admit though , I don’t know the Decora . I don’t have that one. Harry

[MarcusH]

On 4/4/2025 at 2:58 PM, Fusca said:

I had 4 juvenile palms all roughly 5-gal size that spear-pulled following a freeze in late January 2025 and all are pushing new growth.  Some recovered after a couple of weeks while others delayed recovery.  Vote for which one of the 4 you think made the quickest recovery.

I'm very surprised that your Mule palm spear pulled at 27f.  That sounds not right . I believe you but no Queen or Butia would spear pull at 27f . Something else is going on. 

[Fusca]

43 minutes ago, MarcusH said:

I'm very surprised that your Mule palm spear pulled at 27f.  That sounds not right . I believe you but no Queen or Butia would spear pull at 27f . Something else is going on. 

You're right, in reality none of these palms should spear-pull at that temperature.  The "something else" was a 90°F afternoon high followed by 27°F some 36 hours later.  We hadn't seen any low temperature below 45°F prior to the freeze.  Another odd thing was my mature Phoenix roebelenii did not spear-pull this time but did the previous 2 winters at the same temperature.  The super silver hadn't shown any cold damage the previous 3 winters.  Thankfully all 4 palms recovered pretty quickly and won't be set back at all.  One pushed new growth in 10 days, another in 2 weeks, one in 3 weeks and the other took 6 weeks. 

[MarcusH]

30 minutes ago, Fusca said:

You're right, in reality none of these palms should spear-pull at that temperature.  The "something else" was a 90°F afternoon high followed by 27°F some 36 hours later.  We hadn't seen any low temperature below 45°F prior to the freeze.  Another odd thing was my mature Phoenix roebelenii did not spear-pull this time but did the previous 2 winters at the same temperature.  The super silver hadn't shown any cold damage the previous 3 winters.  Thankfully all 4 palms recovered pretty quickly and won't be set back at all.  One pushed new growth in 10 days, another in 2 weeks, one in 3 weeks and the other took 6 weeks. 

So how fast does the Mule recover from a scale of 1 to 10 ? How many fronds grew back since the last freeze? 

[Xerarch]

Yeah I'm surprised too that any of those would spear pull at 27, that's wild.  But they are smaller sizes, that makes a big difference.  I had two small Brahea armataXbrandegeei that spear pulled a few years ago at 23 degrees but with zero % frond burn.

As for the survey I thought Mule was the obvious choice for fastest recovery, being that they are generally hardy and that the queen side of it should offer some fast growth.  But in the end I'm sticking my neck out and voted for the Bismarckia, it has a year longer in the ground and pretty robust growth.  I guess we'll see when the answer is revealed.

[Fusca]

42 minutes ago, Xerarch said:

Yeah I'm surprised too that any of those would spear pull at 27, that's wild.  But they are smaller sizes, that makes a big difference.  I had two small Brahea armataXbrandegeei that spear pulled a few years ago at 23 degrees but with zero % frond burn.

As for the survey I thought Mule was the obvious choice for fastest recovery, being that they are generally hardy and that the queen side of it should offer some fast growth.  But in the end I'm sticking my neck out and voted for the Bismarckia, it has a year longer in the ground and pretty robust growth.  I guess we'll see when the answer is revealed.

Exactly, combination of small size and abrupt temperature change.  Active growth got zapped.  I'll give the others a few more days to make their guesses before closing the poll.  Then I'll reply to @MarcusH's question. 

[njpalmguy]

On 4/4/2025 at 4:10 PM, jwitt said:

I am amazed of spear pull on the brahea armata at 27°f!  

Must speak to how mild your climate truly is 

yeah 27f as the ultimate low is crazy work. fusca’s got it really good.

man it just snowed where i live. its mid April this shouldn’t have happened 😭

On 4/4/2025 at 3:58 PM, Fusca said:

I had 4 juvenile palms all roughly 5-gal size that spear-pulled following a freeze in late January 2025 and all are pushing new growth.  Some recovered after a couple of weeks while others delayed recovery.  Vote for which one of the 4 you think made the quickest recovery.

[JeskiM]

I voted Bismark.  My reasoning is that they are fast growing and that one has been in the ground longest, per your list.  It should be decent sized compared to the others and hopefully didn't freeze as far back into it's core.

- Matt