Before the cold spell I had 3 trachys unprotected and one waggie unprotected. During the coldspell I wrapped the plants in plastic wrap to protect from windburn while the soil is frozen. I uncovered all of them today and they all look great except one trachy that got a lot of damage on the leaves.

I have 6 trachys next to my house with burlap around the trunks. The fronds and bud are completely exposed no damage yet. Largest needle palm is laughing at this so called winter. 9 blue pot minors all in great shape. Sabal minor savannah ga., brazoria and birmingham seedlings all second yrs. No damage at all. All other seedlings and palms were covered.

Four Trachys, Five Sabal Minors, and Six Needles are all unprotected.

No damage worth mentioning.

Knock on wood.

1 Trachy (about a foot tall) Unprotected doing really well, 1 washy (protected but no heat) doing well and 1 Pindo (protected but no heat) doing great aswell. Also 1 robusta seedling and 1 filifera seedling looking great as well. Looking forward to Spring :-)

Probably best to list the worst your palms have seen so far this winter as a point of reference. Here in S VA Bch we dropped to 24 and I have 2 Pindos, 1 Trachy, 3 Minors, 2 Needles and 2 Palmettos all unprotected with no damage. I did put beach umbrellas over the hearts of the Pindos when it snowed. I burlapped and put a trash can over my 1 foot tall Washy on the 3 nights in the mid 20's and no damage. There are plenty of unprotected Was hies in the neighborhood that have no damage but with mine being a newbie I'd rather be safe than sorry.

LagoMar, 20 or 30 years ago, that could have almost described a winter here in inland Central FL (minus the snow), a few nights in the mid 20s and hand full of other nights below freezing.

temps reached 24f a few weeks ago and damage is just starting to show.
my majesty got about 25% leaf damage, Kentia got 50% damage, pygmy date got 10% damage. Dypsis lutescens got 75% damage. Veitchia got 100% damage new spear still alive, Queens, Butia, washie all fine ofcourse lol :P

Hi. Here halfway between Phoenix and Tucson Arizona we got wacked.
We had a couple nights where it got down to 19F. I think I lost my 3 foot
Queen palm and multiple Phoenix roebellini with about 4 inches of trunk.
Will have to see if they are truly dead, probably can confirm it in March.
I have a Canary Island Date with about 4 feet of trunk with minor damage
to 2 new leaves in center by spear. I have a Brahea armata with about 8 inches
of trunk about 4 inches across that has NO damage at all!!! This palm seems to
be cold hardy but likes dry conditions. I hardly water it. Might be worth a try
in other parts of the country. Damage to the street and resident palms around
town and in Casa Grande are now showing damage. I had to wait for a week
or 2 to see bronzing of leaves. Washingtonia palms mostly damaged or killed on smaller
palms but some 15 -20 footers possibly killed. Most of the adult Queen palms look very bad.
Some may recover, but too soon to tell. Chamerops humilis is very hardy here and drought
tolerant and I don't see damage on them. Larger Roebellini palms only minor damage. Large Date
palms of various species only light to no damage. I have seen tall robusta, filibuster, and filifera
with no damage and some with bronzed leaves. I have not seen any Pindos here but they sell them
locally. I might be overlooking them and assuming they are Date palms as I am new to the palms
here as I have only lived here less than a year. I guess the point is the area where I live is zone 9
and still palms can be killed here. But I think many will recover and probably by the end of Summer
one would never know they were Winter damaged. But again I suggest members check out Brahea
armada and Chamerops humilis as possible palms for 7B and zone 8.

Interesting Bob. Just goes to show that just because your average winter is one thing (9a in your case) doesn't mean that it can't get colder in a severe winter. If you are seeing severe damage to Washingtonia I suspect you may have dropped several degrees lower than 19.

Hi. Well it seems there are robusta that have only a few, short leaves and those are severely damaged. I have a hunch these palms have to start fresh in the Spring and perhaps they will die eventually. But some of these are 25 footers so they have been around for awhile. There are a couple 35 footers across the street from my house that are totally undamaged and I have been observing them from late April 2012. It seems most, if not all of the leaves on their full crown have been replaced and they fruited in Summer as well. These 2 palms also self prune and that is how I am able to tell how many leaves have been replaced. There is a fairly large filifera down the street that is very robust. Heavily fruiting this past Summer. Filiferas are impressive trees and have a huge trunk diameter. Probably the most amazing thing about the palms growing in the desert here is the fact they are flourishing with only 9 inches of water per year.

Nice pic!
My palms are doing okay but worse than usual. I used lower wattage christmas lights this winter and my pindo palm got down to 15F (the actual low was 11F). I can already see damage to the outer fronds, looks like at least 40% of the crown has damage to it. I hope that there isnt more damage that just isnt being shown yet, I really dont want to lose it! My Livistona is doing surprisingly well. It got the same protection as my Butia but only minimal damage (last winter it was badly damaged and my Butia was completely unfazed). I only wrapped my Oleander this year with a frost cloth, no lights or other heat sources added) and it looks pretty decent, just a little bit of burn to the outer leaves but it should hopefully outgrow it fast in the spring. The trachys (both protected and unprotected) are still looking good, but my asparagus fern is really surprising me since it is in a pot and is completely green! I didnt realize how cold tolerant they were. If it survives the winter then I will definitely be planting it in the ground in the spring!
Hopefully winter is on it's way out soon. Looks like 30s for highs this week, then mid 40s. Accuweather has pretty mild temperatures for the month of February and we should be good if we can get through the month without getting too cold!
-Alex

More importantly, Punxsatawney Phil says it will be an early spring! I'm glad it was cloudy up there because there was bright sunshine yesterday morning down here. PS Bob, Washies are desert palms so they love less moisture. With that in mind I try to keep mine dry in the winter.

Hi. One of my neighbors has Orleander shrubs. They look good. I see a dead branch on one of them. That's a common plant in my town. I was told you have to be careful where you plant Orleander because they have strong roots that can break water pipes. They do look pretty when in bloom. A shrub I might plant for a screen is Tecoma stans or a hybrid called "Orange Jubilee". I might try a Butia down here. I saw a real nice big one at Lowes last Summer. It was even starting to fruit. It was in a wooden box container and they wanted $100 for it. I would also recommend a Canary Island Date palm to try in some of the colder areas. If one can get a good sized one at a good price. My Brahea armata that is doing so well was in a 15 gallon tub and I got it for $86. As I said, it was completely untouched by the cold temps. Here is an old picture taken shortly after I planted it.

My pindo is the only protected palm in the garden. Last winter we didn't have a single daytime high below freezing. Last week we had four in a row and bottomed out at 13, coldest night I've seen since I moved here full time four years ago. We've had a few minor, dry snows this past week too from a trace to 2". Even protected, I expect a bit of damage to new fronds emerging from my pindo like last year.

Other palms are unprotected.

11 windmills all look fine, other than a few ratty tips to some fronds from wind and icesickles dangling. They looked stressed during the coldest and snowiest of last week, but bounced back quickly when we got above 40. Sort of like acuba.

Two 7 gal palmettos from Gary's Nursery in NC look better than the windmills. Their stiffer fronds seem to handle the light snow better.

One Sabal Birmingham (also from Gary's) looks fine. One lower frond looks like its bronzed, but could just be the oldest one reaching its end.

Three Med fans (all blue pots); the largest (planted as 7 gal two years ago) is well sheltered from wind by two larger camellias. However some fronds appear bronzed, probably because it also gets full afternoon sun on cold clear days. I've read that warm direct sunlight after extreme lows or winter precipitation can cause this. The two smaller ones out back, get less sun and look great. Last year, they had a tiny bit of new frond/petiole damage after they started growing.

Six (blue pot needles) all fine.

Many seedlings (sabal minors and palmettos, med fans and windmills from seeds scattered around my beds) mostly are unaffected. The only ones that seem to be suffering are palmetto seedlings out front, also in bright afternoon sun light and exposed to northwest winds. The strap leaves are burned to the mulch level, but are green below the mulch. Last year they recovered and grew several more straps. Long term survival questionable there. Happily the other palmetto seedlings in more sheltered settings are fine.

The palms I'm most concerned about are two saw palmettos that were planted last spring. A friend brought them back from Florida last year and they are purely experimental. Mostly they look well, but some burn on some frond tips. But the new emerging spears look really brown. I will resist tugging on them for now. But if I lose them, ill replace with something less tender.

Overall, I'm confident the core of my palms will be fine.

Some powdery coatings of snow recently, and below avg. temps, but my man looks okay...

What variety of trachy is that?