Have a great time in Belize Erik! Sounds like you'll have a great job if you get to go to Belize and study jaguars. 😀

So what happened to your exposed trachy leaves being exposed to 9f?

Bill

You've done a heck of a lot of work, Erik.
Most of us would agree you've lost your Novice title 😆

Soil -- from 75 years of free range chickens -- would be fabulous.

Next time you're building protection, maybe build it like a pyramid or a cone.
Snow would slide right off.
Whereas a flat topped structure could suffer roof cave-in from accumulating snow weight.
Or just angle it somewhat.

Yes I can see the difficulty with the round bales...serious farming country.
Aren't many farms left here that use round ones...guess everybody is downsizing 😆

Maybe invite your wife to the forum...for your absence in Belize?
We'd love to meet her.
Barb

I agree Barb that he's lost his novice status.

Yes I have a good job, which in this economy is spelled J-O-B. I'm just glad to get a pay check, and if it leaves enough for frivolous hobbies, so much more to be grateful for. As for Belize, my budget is tiny. I plan on camping vs. staying at a resort.
On to how this novice did during the first "winter" storm (temps down to about 9 oF/-12 oC and well below freezing for ~36 hours with very strong winds):
The Trachy with trunk wrap but exposed leaves is alive and well. The new leaf stalks are tight when I tug. The lower leaves, protected by the door, are a deep dark green. The upper leaves which were blasted by turbulence as Barb predicted are frayed and limp and showing a change in colors. I am not sure what to do before the next storm but I'll be thinking about that.
Both Butia look great.
The large Butia, which was planted in May, was in the flimsy plastic shelter with trunk heat tape and a 5-gallon jug of hot water. It looks great. The thermometer at the edge reached, "well below -5 oC" but the water jug close to the trunk did not freeze. Phew!
The small Butia is going into its third winter. It was under a large bucket with hot water bottles which froze; measured air temps were, "well below -5 oC." No leaf stem pull; most leaves look bright green except for the longest which look a little limp and pale.
The small Chamaerops humilis, also going into its third winter and with a trunk for the first time, looks super. When I removed the bucket over it today I saw that the heat tape had shifted and was not touching the trunk or leaves anywhere. It probably helped anyways, plus I think C. humilis is a tough plant that deserves more respect on this side of the Atlantic.

Plants are just like people, Erik.
Trachies in particular HATE strong wind, leaves will fold up lengthwise with dessication even in summer.
Eliminate cold wind = happy trachy.

How'd your big plastic enclosure fare in that wind?

Barb

PS--camping in Belize...take us with you! 😉

I'm sitting by the fire looking out the window at my palms in the cold (20 oF/-6 oC) sun and steady wind.
The flimsy Butia enclosure has held up better than I have any right to expect. It was a balmy 0 oC in there this morning!

What has me really thinking is your comment, Barb, about Trachys hating wind. You're right, and I have lots of wind.
So, why did I plant a Trachy? Why did I buy another in October (will be inside in a pot until May)? Why do I love my little Waggy (in a pot and inside each winter)? All I can come up with is that it is because I grew up in Portland, Oregon. Trachys grow well there so probably the first palm I saw as a boy was a Trachy. So to me, they are the quintessential palm.
However, Trachys may well not be the best for my Oklahoma garden. I have strong wind all year. In the winter it is cold and in the summer hot.
I need to re-think my palm choices for the future. The Butia seem to do well, although they need a little more winter protection than I would prefer to have to do for a large collection. Washies are very happy in the Summer but would need to be brought inside in the winter or enclosed and heated. The C. humilis has done well--maybe more of those? Perhaps I should get into Sabal? (After all, S. minor grows wild in one corner of the state!) My over-all happiest palm is a Chameadora radicalis. It lives in a pot and comes in winters, but it is the only palm I have that grows even in the winter and flowers every summer. Could I grow them outdoors and overwinter them?
My question is, does anyone have suggestions for palms better than Trachycarpus for a windy site that gets somewhat cold in the winter and quite hot in the Summer?

Don't give up on a Trachy Erik (please).
Knowing what they do--and don't like--just helps you provide optimum siting.

For instance, we generally get a lot of wind too, and hot drying winds at that.
So I planted mine on the east side of house, 4 feet from the house.
Even though it's in a palm hut during winter, I had to plan for when the hut is dismantled (March through October).
It's protected from brutal NW winter winds, and also from extreme heat/drying westerly winds of summer (and temps up to 102F!), only getting a.m. sun.

If Trachy survives at my place, it'll survive in that location, nowhere else here.

I'm not overly fond of clumping palms, so a Needle palm isn't an option.

Maybe move your Trachy to a similar area up against the house?
Two storeys, naturally, are better than one... 😀

Barb

Most palms are pretty tough in the wind once they adjust,cold wind will decimate any palm/plant.
Trachys excused.
Put your Waggie outside and see how much those stiff little leaves move.
Best Trachy for wind T.wag.
Yea,the Sabals would work nice for you,Brazoria gets large along with S.louisiana.
Needles would also be a good choice,I wasn't a fan of these either but when you see something still around protected only by leaves and no heat after a winter of -17(F)-
you start to really respect these and now that some of my Sabals and Needles have put out some fan leaves,I am starting to see the cold hardiness that was advertised with these!

As some of you know, I am in Belize right now. I dressed in sandals, shorts and a short short this morning. My Belizean friend was appalled--aren't you cold? She was bundled up. It was about 60 oF this morning.
Yesterday I went to the Belize Botanic Garden and photographed palms, plus cycads for Steve.
My real reason for writing is not to make you jealous but to let you know that my flimsy Butia shelter seems to be working. Before I departed last week, I put in a wireless transmitter so my wife could check temps inside for me. I also put 1/2" foam insulation board on the NW side and the top. (My other sheet was taken for the henhouse during the Christmas eve blizzard, hence the East and west having just the original plastic.)
The 5 gallon water jug is in there but I didn't ask my wife to do anything with it as it is just too heavy for her. I added another layer of burlap over the heat tape.

Here is her update from this morning, with my explanations in [brackets]. Feel free to skip past animal woes if you wish to get to the plants at the end.

"It is sooooo cold here that I am feeding everyone twice a day. I also stopped at the tractor shop on 151st on the way home and they told me I was probably plugging the orange part in upside down. Came home and tried their advise and it is making bubbling sounds. Hopefully it will work now, will no by the time i get up. Next problem is the stock tank lines are frozen and I have about 25 gallons left in it. I brought the back yard hose into the house to defrost and have plans to bring in the extra 25' from the barn next. hopefully I will be able to reach the back tank and refill it. The goats are requiring water in their own area as they can no longer reach into the tank....god this cold stuff sucks! I'm still glad I didn't leave this to Danna and Robin, they would not know where to start with the problem solving that I have done this week. I even opened up a vent in the ball room [converted garage where tender plants sit by a south-facing window] for when the furnace comes on. I figure if the rest of the house is below 55, the ballroom is much colder and it won't hurt to try to warm it a little. Your palm [Butia, planted last May; details of the flimsy shelter are in posts above] reading this morning [about 9 am, when the sun had been on it for a while] was 37 inside the hut, but the air reading was 44 [inside the bedroom!]....I'll let you know if your record low of 21 is beat later this week when temps go below 4F. i'm not looking forward to that night as I am scheduled to work and the animals will be home alone."

So, what do you think? Will my large but new Butia make it through the week, when outside air temps will go to the bottom of Zone 7? What about the established small Butia under a hay-filled bucket with no supplemental heat? The Trachy? The C. humilis I am confident in, as it has made it through three winters with no supplemental heat (just a bucket) but it does have heat tape this winter as it finally got a little trunk.

Erik, your wife's a real trooper getting around to all the emergency stuff during the horrible cold.
It's tough on a farm with animals -- I recall from personal experience -- another story, another time.

short shirt? or short shorts? 😆 😆

First of all, the "ballroom" 😐
55F is likely the lower limit for tender tropicals you have inside.
My musa basjoo is collapsing in the cold building, about 50F, too cold.
Your wife's right in giving those some heat.

37 inside the Butia shelter seems too low after sun had been shining on it for a while.
By Friday's projected temps, a week+ of cold is likely critical/severe damage stage.

My guess is that Butia with no heat (despite being covered) will not make it, Butia with heat 30% make it /70% won't, the Trachy: 50/50, C.humilis based on 3 year history 90/10.
I hope I'm wrong about odds against survival.

And I hope the animals get through it.
More snow for your area could make all the difference, providing more insulation as long as the palm enclosure roof is solid enough.

I hope others here have better thoughts...

Looking forward to seeing pictures of palms and cycads around Belize.
Barb

"First of all, the "ballroom" 😐
55F is likely the lower limit for tender tropicals you have inside.
My musa basjoo is collapsing in the cold building, about 50F, too cold.
Your wife's right in giving those some heat."

Hmmm...the living area of the house is less than 55 oF! The "ballroom" was a garage converted by the previous owners to an entertainment room. They did not insulate it. I insulated the ceiling, but not the walls. Thus, it gets cold in there but does not freeze. It has huge windows to the East for morning light and one to the south for the afternoon. We have two lights on timers to give them evening light and a little warmth.
I think most of the "tenders" will make it as I try to buy tough "tender" plants. For example, the palms in there are:
Trachy (bought too late in Fall to plant), Brahea, Jubea, Waggy, Sabal mexicanum 9x2) and my favorite, Chamedeara radicalis. Two sago palms, a big Brugmansia and some small mexican petunia, lantanta, rudbeckia starts and a late, small tomato. Oh, a couple of gingers as well. The Hibiscus rosa-sinensis, Washy and a few others are in the dining room at a toasty 55 oF.

Last winter, everything was in the dining room except the gingers. It was very crowded, and the gingers did fine in the relative cold. Of course, this winter is much colder than the last.

Erik,

Glad those ballroom varieties are hardy ones, after all!
I thought you had VERY sensitive tropicals in there.
Those varieties are probably happily growing new spears!

Barb

Yes, I buy tough tenders. The reason is we get some unexpectedly cold (>25 oF) weather for a brief period in October and April most years. Thus, everything that lives in pots on the patio has to be able to survive a surprise cold snap that we did not see coming at a time of year I am very busy with work.

"My guess is that Butia with no heat (despite being covered) will not make it, Butia with heat 30% make it /70% won't, the Trachy: 50/50, C.humilis based on 3 year history 90/10.
I hope I'm wrong about odds against survival." --Barb

Would anyone else care to make predictions?

I'll go with...It makes it, Butia and Chamaerops should be close in hardiness buy we shall see.
I need to go see what the temps in my ballroom are right now 😉