Everything looks great!

Very nice palms.
One suggestion if you don't mind a little work,get a rake and pull the mulch back on sunny days in the 50s+,it will warm the soil up in just a few days instead of weeks and weeks.

Good luck. Enjoy your palms and the warmer weather too!

The windmills are about 3ft, 4.5ft, and 6 ft tall. The larger two are nice sized. I had the mulch pulled away from the base of the smallest one for the last few weeks, but just put it back to hold the heat in it has gained. The other two are newly planted, and I mounded the dirt up, so the mulch there is just to prevent erosion until it hardens up. I mounded them pretty high up.

Islandbreeze- Do you know what your soil temps were when you planted your palms? I'm contemplating planting my yucca thompsoniana very soon, perhaps today. (50s and sun today, 60 and sun tomorrow) Also I'm going to put in another large trachy and I'm trying to decide when I should have the grower ship it out to me. It's a very large (for shipping Fedex ground) trachy. I was thinking soil temps at or above 50F and/or about April 1st. Did a little probing today and surface to 6 inches down is in the mid 40s. 4.5 feet down it is nearly 50F. I've been moving my mulch as Jim suggests, as well as covering (at night) the large hole I've dug for the large trachy to come.

I'd be interested in hearing other's experiences/suggestions as to safe soil temp for planting these as well.

By the way Islandbreeze, my current in-ground trachy is on its way to looking like your larger one. I lost several older fronds from my protection mistake, but the 3 new spears are moving and I see it having that cool tight canopy look like yours is now, but in a month or so.

What happened with your protection?

Helpful hint: I may try planting the tracky's in a prominent location( such as how the butias is palced in the pot). They look a bit lost in such a nice big garden.

My guess is there really isn't much option with the size of those monsters,keeping them in a pot in the garage or outside would be colder than the ground.

I bet the one with the fat trunk has some Waggie blood somewhere in it's family tree(-:,it's a beaut,I bet it puts out smaller leaves(in general)than the other.

Did I forget to mention those are both beautiful!

Brooklyngreg, thanks for the tip, I had to plant them somewhere where I would have enough room to protect them during the winter, especially after they gain some size, not to mention they should look more prominent after the crowns start to fill in more. I also have hosta and ornamental grasses in that planting that you can't see, so once they start to fill in, they should compliment the palms nicely.

Jimhardy is correct, the largest was too big for any pot that I had, and trachys are a zone 7 palm anyway, so why store them in a garage and keep dragging the pots in and out when I could just plant them and be done with it? Thanks for the compliment Jim! I don't think the largest one has waggie blood, I saw a pic of it when it had a full crown when first planted at Palmmandan's house, and some of the leaves look droopy. However, I do think my smallest of the three is a waggie/fortunei cross. It has completely stiff leaves, and no leaf tips droop at all. Then again, maybe you're right about that big one, if you notice the difference in color of the trunks of the three, the medium sized one with the full crown is brown, while the other two are more gray. I heard waggie trunks tend to be more gray. Hmmmm....

To answer your question, the short story anyway, I went a bit overboard on my protection with ground heat. I had my suspicions but I wanted to run it by Jimhardy to get a more experienced gardner's opinion as well. We concur...

Quick history, this was my first year wintering a large trachy and I wanted to be on the safe side. I bought the tree along with another the same size for my friend. He protected much less then me, but with the same enclosure setup and his looks like the day it was covered! The difference between our heating was the issue. He used a thermocube with Xmas lights and a CFl fixture just like me. Both our trees were kept between 35 and 45F all winter because of the thermocube- verified by remote thermometers. Where I went wrong was thinking all the extra ground heat would be more helpful. I had a rope light around the base of the trunk under the mulch as well as a bunch of mini xmas lights under the mulch all over the ground inside the enclosure. All that heat was trapped down by the mulch. Basically I dried the tree out by the end of winter. The ground was very warm and BONE dry. Feeder roots dried out/could not get any moisture. Sadly this all happened from mid January until early March. Tree was fine when I checked on it during a short Jan. thaw. Humidity in there was high, tree looked fine. First of March, a totally different story! Funny, my friend did not even mulch the outside bottom of his enclosure or place leaf bags like I did. He lives 30 miles from me and is a full half zone colder too. I felt mine was bullet-proof, but I guess I learned a valuable lesson. The tree lost/will lose most of its mature fronds. It is alive and the spear did not pull and the newest spears (3 of them) are moving. It even tried to open a few inside the protection while tied up over the winter. Those will be lost also as they are pretty dried out but at least the new ones are ok.

Jim thinks, and I hope he is right, it will grow a lot of new fronds this summer, up to 10 even. That makes sense as it needs the green badly in order to remain alive. The tree will be ok thank God, but it won't stop me from giving it a big brother (14-year old) in the same planter...

Another observation, the rope light used looks burnt inside and blackened. I tested it yesterday and noticed it gets very hot, much more than it did when I first installed it. It's only supposed to burn like 8 watts. I think it malfunctioned. It was supposed to be waterproof also. Damn fire hazard is going in the garbage! I'll try to post a picture of it, you guys would get a laugh.

On a different note, I think there is something to that brown vs grey trunk/hair color of mature trachys. I've thought it might be a way to tell male/female. The trees my friend and I got last spring, mine has the fatter and grey trunk. His the same height, same grower, same age crop and from the same seed (so the grower said), has a more slender and very brown trunk. I've also observed a difference in my younger trachys. My approx 7+year old which is 4.75' tall now with 1.5' of trunk is definitely grey. A similar one, another Monrovia trachy, brown and more slender, but leaves about the same in rigidity, shape, and color. My smaller ones, 3 to 5 year olds, all more on the brown side so far. I wonder...

By the way, I broke down and planted my 4+' yucca thompsoniana yesterday. I couldn't resist. It looks great. Its head is starting to lean as it is beginning to form its second head. I trimmed back a lot of the dead leaves to tidy it up and can now see where the new head is forming. This thing is going to be really cool...

Planted it in a 40%/40% sand and pea gravel mix with the remaining 20% as premium organic potting soil. Hole was 4 1/2 feet deep by 3' wide (medium clay base). Just the root ball area of the yucca is palm and cactus soil in which the roots already seemed to take hold in as it was potted for a week or two before going in ground. I used a $hitload of root hormone also.

What do they go for? I saw one 15 years ago being sold in Brooklyn for $295.

I live in southern IL and I'm too chicken to put my Trachys in the ground. I still drag them out every spring. There is a guy in my area who has put a couple in his yard this past spring. I'm anxious to see how they fared thru our unusually cold and long winter. Min. temp was about 3 above zero. But we went weeks with high temps only around 10 to 15 above. That was the unusual part.

You all sure have nice homes too.

Looks great Kory!
Another reason they lean like that is a lot of desert plants tend to lean toward the southwest.
I going out to plant 5 tree ferns right now.
This is an exciting week as my cactus order arrives this week and Gunnera manicata comes today(-:

Actually I only paid $89 (plus shipping) for the yucca. I thought it was a steal compared with what the other rostratas go for, especially ones 4+ feet tall. Remember, this is a yucca "Thompsoniana" which is a variant of yucca rostrata. I believe they grow faster. Very similar just the same.

Jim-

I did read that somewhere regarding the lean. But when I gave it a bit of a haircut, I can see something in there which looks like some sort of growth. Maybe I'm wrong but it would make sense as these like to split into two heads. Time will tell I guess... If you know how these form second heads and where it comes out of please share. I'm quite curious and there seems to be very limited info available on this species. My guess is that all the ones available for sale were dug up in the wild because they are such slow-growers.