I am covering mine with lights and a few layers of insulating blankets tomorrow. I love these guys too much to see them die. They went through the previous 'vortex' fine (protected in the same way). This time not expecting it to be as cold, but longer! I hate ARCTIC cold for sure!

I hope everyone's palms pull through. This winter has really been an awful one. Tomorrow I'll be protecting everything again. Looks like the duration of this cold is going to be a lot longer than the last and we'll be getting back into the single digits again but the only good news is that even though the duration of cold is going to be long, it's not going to get as cold so you might be able to keep it warm enough to keep it from getting damaged. I am adding lights to mine again. My best protected palm was 40 degrees warmer than the outside temperature and I was using C-9 lights which are some of the warmest christmas lights available and those same lights only kept one of the palms 10 degrees warmer than the outside temperature so I'm more worried about under heating it than over heating it.

At least signs of spring will start to show in the next few weeks.

Good luck.
-Alex

I just covered mine up again. It took about 5 minutes, so not a massive undertaking. I bought some light weight insulating blanket for plants, then draped a couple of other light weight insulating fabric I had, clamped down with large paper clips. Clump of three palms is in an outside corner so it protected on the south and the east. I just use the mini X-Mas lights, afraid the larger lights are too hot. Snow too will add some insulation, so too, the house. Doesn't sound too bad, those minimums, but I am afraid of sun scald on the bright, arctic days to follow and a strong, late January sun!

My issue is the size of the tree. Would be a massive undertaking at this point to cover it the way I used to, My only real option is to add more lights, or some kind of heat source. Just hope it recovers eventually. A little over a week ago, it looked fine, but has since taken a turn for the worse. Never saw it look so unhappy...

My only advice is to not give up on them no matter how damaged they appear. Windmill palms can come back from pretty devastating damage and as long as it doesn't happen two winters in a row, it won't hurt them in the long term. In the meantime don't trim off any foliage that has any trace of living green tissue.

As has been more usual than not the last several years, we are expected to get the bulk of this snow along the coast, But, that's the least of my worries for my stressed trachy, Well below average temps for many days, and so, I strung more lights around the crownshaft, and tried to enclose with tarp material loosely tied. Who knows. Here we go again...

Last year in summer I discovered my windmill palm had bud rot. Pulled about 5 leaves over time. I treated it with Hydro.Perox., few weeks later with a copper fungicide. Now I grabed the wrong bottle and treated it with a normal fungicide called Daconil (Chlorothalonil). I am wondering if that hurt the meristem. Though I covered the whole palm loosely with old bed sheet it looks terrible. Can someone give me advice about trunk cutting.

Right now you want to cover the growing bud with something water proof not a bed sheet.

We are still in winter, you should not be trunk cutting right now. You need to give the palm time to recover this spring. Once you warm up continue treating with copper or peroxide. Trunk cutting is only opening the top up for sun and air movement to help prevent rot. One wrong cut and your palm is dead. So this should be a last resort. When I had to trunk cut I started very close to the top of the palm and cut at an angle so that the cut is exposed to the sun. If the tissue is dead then I will move the saw down an inch and make a new cut. I use a hand saw, go slow and don't cut too far down. If you go past the growing bud...........

Thanks a lot Chadec. Of course I will not cut the trunk now. I will wait until late spring. Maybe it will get a new spear in the meantime.

let's hope we don't get any subzero or heavy ice accumulations. I don't want a repeat of 1993-94.