Rate the hardiness of these Palms........

[Rubtherock]

I have three palm species that I'm concerned will be severely beat down under my zone 7B winter. Washingtonia Robusta, Queen Palm, and European Fan Palm. I have three of each in the ground. Of these three please rate them according to their hardiness and let me know which species will tap out first assuming I do absolutely nothing to protect them.

I'm really not so sure how I would rate them hardiness wise after reading this thread. ???

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load ... 89.html?29

[ronbruce]

I'm no expert but from what I've read European Fan Palm would be the hardiest and then probably Washingtonia robusta and then the Queen Palm.

Snow is certainly a good insulator as indicated from your link.

I look forward to hearing from others about this.

[Rubtherock]

I was very surprised to read where his queen palm sustained no damage with 14 degree temp.

[ronbruce]

Maybe it's got a bit of hybrid blood in it. I think I read somewhere they can be hybridized with another type of palm but that's just a guess.

[turtile]

The European fan palm is the hardiest. The other two will can only take the lower 20's. Robusta should be easiest to recover.

[hardyjim]

The overall health of the palm first and then genetics will determine it's hardiness.I had a choice between buying some nice bigger sized palms or a variety of small palms,I opted on the variety so I could learn as much about different protection options as possible. What I have learned is that "cold hardiness" varies from say,Trachy to Trachy(for example),one dies while another of the same variety continues to flourish and then a palm thats supposed to be hardier than another dies.The overall hardiness (in my experience)is determined by health of the palm,you could easily see a C.humilus that's healthy survive 10F while a Needle palm bites it.

I also agree that snow and ice cover can sheild palms from cold/wind events that don't last long,it's also important how long the event lasts and how quick temps recover,snow and ice can also kill the plam if it stays on to long and temps don't recover quickly.

[BILL MA]

Nice explaination Jim, you have done more trails than me by far! I'm way to chicken to let my palms die for field trials. Maybe when I move to my dream house someday I'll play around. It's way to hard to get nice sized palms up here without paying a fortune. Down south is another story but thats alot of driving been there done that .

The funny thing is all of those places mentioned on the garden web where all warm/hot climates. Talking about the queens they had so much stored up carbs from living in a near perfect environment for many years, that brief cold spells don't do as much damage. Remember those low temps. are not prolonged by anymeans, most likely just a few hours until the sun comes up.

Also the more open surface area exposed to frost/freeze, the more it will burn up. A tied up tight palm should suffer less damage than a palm more exposed. Not for extended cold though.

There's a lawyer in Atlanta that has some massive queens that I came across a year or two back that do awsome but they are protected really well. I wish I could remember better but I never thought planting one would be reasonable, imagine that. I would try to find that post, or buy a mule palm next year if you like that look there alot hardier.

The other two should be really easy to overwinter with your weather.

Bill

[hardyjim]

Thanks Bill,I certainly never let them die
They do that all by themselves,I just wanted to try many different palms and techniques to see what works best.
If you were to pick certain palms out of my collection and have just tried those you would think you couldn't grow palms in Iowa some live while others don't of the same species,for instance I have never seen a Waggie die but I did have one needle die and one live so sometimes it's not claer what kills them.
One thing I will admit to is trying about 6 different methods of protection,one thing thats very encouraging is leaf cages,this worked well and this is good news -to think(as my collection grows) that I can overwinter some palms with no heat!
especially with electricity going up almost 10% here this winter!

[BILL MA]

Don't take that the wrong way Jim. I certainly admire all the things you have done around your yard the last few years. You are a very insperational person, and have definately helped your fair share of people on this board and most likely other boards as well.

I don't know but when I said I was going to bring new protection methods to the table this year it seems like you have already tried them all Have you messed around with using water to moderate temp swings yet. I might mess around with that some on select sunny spots. I hear you for sure about the energy bills going up this winter. Jan and Feb will be up there for my place I'm betting. It will be easier next year when everything is rooted in better, less heating mini lights are pretty cheap though. I'm sure when that dreaded time comes will all put are heads together and come up with some really good ideas to get all of us through.

Bill

[hardyjim]

Thanks Bill.
I have not tried using water jugs,etc, to help moderate temps,I'm sure it works well.I have so many things to cover that it would be to much extra work,in my mind anyway.Might be good inside a leaf inclosure,hmmmm,a gallon in there next to a smallish palm.
When I got into this I really wanted to do as little as possible but the reality is that the first 3 years or so are so important to getting the palms established, before they are even close to the cold hardiness you see for them-this has made me realize that I will have to do more work than I originally planned.So be it!
I like using one layer of platic over things because I have a good idea what the temp will do and it's easy to regulate the temps this way,my palms are actually warmest when the weather is cold,(with the heat on of course)even when it hit -17F at my palce last winter none of the palms went below the teens.
I have to say that the best way to protect by far(I think anyway,there may be times where this is not he best but in really cold areas...)is the syrofoam covers.In my small covers the temp never went over 10F over air temp and the sun was bright but did not cause winter burn like plastic can.Styrofaom is a great insulater like snow,it is also much more efficient to heat inside,I used C-7 x-mas lights(bulbs,mini lights don't give off enough heat) they are half the size of C-9,in the large foam covers I only needed 2-3 bulbs to keep temps in the 30s even when outside temps were below 0F,thats only 10-15 wts!
If only someone made trash can sized styro containers,man,it would be so easy to cover most of my palms!