The "poor little thing" is my only palm right now. But tomorrow we're headed down to Destin for the weekend so that 'could' change. I've had an assortment over time starting with one of those little souvenir palms in a box such as you would find in stops along the Florida highways. Before the Trachy I had a beautiful Pigmy Date Palm which I wintered in the sunroom for two years. I set it on the patio last spring and for some reason it just started going downhill until it finally died last month. That's why I became so concerned after my Trachy took on much the same appearance. My most memorable examples were the two I had at our previous home. Both were planted outside and the needle palm, which I dug up on the side of road in Florida, survived being buried under 3 feet of snow and a week-long hard freeze during the blizzard of '93. (Yes, we really had one!) The other wasn't so fortunate. It was a fan-type palm similar to a smaller Trachy. Back then I knew zilch about palms so I can't say exactly what it was. As comparably mild as our temperatures are, friends and neighbors laughed and joked at me last spring for planting a palm tree outside in Gadsden. You don't start to see any 'real' palm trees until you get a couple hundred miles south, and the average local would say they won't grow here. I had never heard of 'cold palms' until this year.

Randy

Wait until late spring to plant cold hardy palms. It gives them time to establish.

My suggestion would be Sabal Minor. Its tolerant of drought, floods, loves heat and can take extreme cold once established.

Here are Trachycarpus growing in Delaware (few miles from my house):

Those are nice Trachys. It's also encouragement for us greenies down here who used to think that anything lower than 32F would kill any palm. Hopefully, transplanting mine last April gave it 7 warm months to establish enough to help it through this stress period. It also taught me that these trees need a LOT of water... especially in full sun during a drought and heat wave. I was also encouraged yesterday when after a steady, all-day rain there was water standing in my yard about 30 feet downgrade from where the palm is planted. That means I should have sufficient drainage.

Randy