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novaplantguy_z7b_8a

Phoenix Roebelenii Survial Story

Hello all. I have not posted here for almost a year and a half or so. For those that remember the me hello again, I've missed y'all!! For those who are new since my last posing, hello! Anyway for those that remember when I used to live in Old Town Alexandria near the Potomac River you'll remember I had several palm trees, tropicals, bananas...etc. 2 of which were these, Phoenix Roebelenii (Pigmy Date Palm). One was 7 feet tall, and this one when I purchased for 8 bucks at a grocery store in 2009. Itwas about 2 feet tall with about 6-10" of clear trunk back then. When we moved to Purcellville VA in Western Loudoun County (in the Blue Ridge Mountains this one and the 7 foot one were outside until early December. Normally this was fine for them, but it being colder than where we had come from here, and an excessive cold snap it was not. (They can handle freezing temps for short periods). We moved from what was a zone 8a, or extremely warm zone 7b, to a zone 6b, with an elevation of 600+ feet above sea level at our home. Slightly cooler climate, with much more snow in winter, and lower temps during cold snaps, and for longer durations. However, this cold snap getting as cold as it did was unexpected.

Anyway we were hit with an unexpected hard freeze where the temps went down into the mid teens over night. I forgot to bring them in and they were fully exposed for the full night. Temps bottomed out at 14F with heavy frost. The next day I brought them both into the house. They both had the foliage dry up and die within a few days. The central spear rotted and pulled out with a gentle tug on both and I thought all was lost as that usually spells certain death for most palms. I placed them both in the basement and forgot about them for the entire winter. Not a lot of light and no water.

One day in late April 2012 I was in the basement looking for something and noticed this one looked different. I examined it and to my surprise there was new growth coming from the central growing point. I immediately pulled it out of the basement and outside and took this photo. I removed all of the dead leaves and began to care for it again. At first just very tiny rudimentary leaves which were severely damaged pushed out, but, it was in deed growing again. I thought that perhaps maybe I just might have a remarkable survivor on my hands. Below is the photo of what it looked like when I pulled it out of the basement, before I removed all of the leaves with the exception of the tiny green shoots coming out of the central growing tip.

Over the spring, summer and fall of 2012 I left this palm outdoors but closely monitored it and cared for it. Repotting it, feeding it regularly. It responded by pushing the damaged new leaves out and began producing moderate sized leaves but still smaller than normal. By the time November came around I brought it inside and continued to care for it. The already slow growth slowed more but did not stop completely. In April of this year (2013) I placed it back outdoors, again repotting it and feeding it. As you can see not only has it fully recovered, but it is growing normally and producing almost normal sized fronds and is looking fantastic! It now stands at 4+ feet tall with about 3.5 feet of clear truck. Amazing to me that with all of the hardship this living thing went through that it survived and is now just about back to normal and in very good health. I'm so glad that I notice this one trying hard not to die in the basement after I thought it was lost as it was one of my favorites. If eventually this tree does survive long enough and gets too big for winters indoors in a house (and I'm not living in a warmer climate or have a greenhouse) that I will donate it along with its story to a conservatory , or a botanic garden in a place where it can thrive outdoors for the remainder is its life Below is a photo I took of it yesterday evening.

Sadly, my large 7 foot P. Roebelenii which I had for 3 years, and got to bloom twice in that time, did not make it.
However, I did find another one that is about 3 feet tall with 1 foot of clear trunk. It was on sale at a roadside nursery in D.C. last spring, and this year it is about to bloom.

Side note: My T. Fortunei survived this cold snap, and entire winter, largely unscathed and has remained outdoors, in a pot in our 2 winters in this colder zone. It has only suffered minor burns on leaf tips on older leaves.

Comments (6)

  • tropicalzone7
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Glad to see you back on the forum! Great story, that really is an incredible temperature for a Roebelenii to survive. Glad that your Trachy survived the winter as well!

    How do you keep your Roebelenii's indoors over the winter? I've had them several times in the past and every winter the new fronds don't open up properly and they completely burn when they go outdoors in the spring. This year I got a really full Roebelenii so I want to make sure it still looks nice in the spring. I'm thinking of storing it in my garage since it does get that exposure to cool weather, but nothing freezing.

    Thanks for sharing!
    -Alex

  • subtropix
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    The solitary one in picture flowers annually now. It suffered bud loss a few years ago due to cold. It started to recover a bit the same season of the loss, then took off in following years and started its flowering. It overwinters in a cold garage--have no place in the house for it. It does not grow in the dead of winter but usually does not suffer any damage due to cold. in the Spring expose them to direct sun gradually. Still, this one does have some burn on older foliage but currently it is in a sunny, hot exposure and new leaves are fine. Love'em.

  • andyandy
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    That is a great recovery. They can be pretty tough. I had one lose almost all of its fronds do to a freeze in October when I went to State college for a UM Penn State game. it came back nicely the next summer.

  • NoVaPlantGuy_Z7b_8a
    Original Author
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Thanks everyone. Yeah I was pretty shocked and stoked at the same time when I discovered it in the basement trying its hardest, using every last bit of stored energy it had to recover. I placed it outside as you see in the first photo before any of the new "mini" fronds opened. The first 4 or so that opened were only 1/4 to 1/2 fronds and were tiny. They were clearly severely damaged and stunted / disfigured towards the tips. Then the fronds started getting larger and larger. Eventually it started putting up more normal sized fronds but still slightly smaller than usual. I think it is still pushing out fronds that are not quite full sized yet but close. The new growth this spring / summer is more lush like what you would see in a greenhouse likely due to the very moist and mild conditions. I suspect it suffered no burns from sun because the first time I put it back out none were "open" and this year I put it out early in the season before the sun was very strong, and also had it in a partially shaded area so it did not get full sun all day. I moved it to its current (and usual) outdoor location around Memorial day.

    It does slow down growth when I bring it inside, but it stays in a fairly bright, although mostly indirect sun location during winter. The other thing I do (mainly to combat spider mites to which these palms appear to be magnets) during winter is on warm days, usually once per month I take it outside and hose it off fairly hard. It knocks back the mites to manageable levels (almost none) and by the time I get to doing it again they have not built back up too much. I find it helps putting it outside for a day or two on the warmer days in winter with sun. Usually 50F or higher. My other one which has substantially larger fronds, but is much shorter also got mealy bugs this past winter and I used the same hosing method on it this spring and it appears to have worked just fine. I see no signs of them anymore. It's a bit of extra work to haul them in and out several times a winter, but so far I have found that it helps keep them substantially healthier than they were in the past when I just left them inside for 4 straight months. This year they both seem to be doing just fine although the one that survived that harrowing ordeal of severe freeze then neglect seems like its pushing up fronds that are slow to come fully out / open. They appear to eventually get there though. The newer one that is shorter that I mentioned (not pictured that I mentioned that was infested with mealy bugs) has 3 bloom spathes on it so its getting ready to flower.

    As for the windmill its looking a bit ragged but still chugging along and getting big. I need to pull out out from its location and take off most of the fans as there are lots of fronds either dead or very burned. The new fans look great though, but its going to look a bit naked as there will only be 4 or 5 in the center left.

    I also lost a few plumerias, and all of my sago palms to that same freeze. The plumies just melted. The sagos struggled next season to push out very mini leaves. I chalked them up as a loss as well and after the first freeze last fall they were toast.

    I do still have my miniature plumeria however and that thing is doing fantastic! It bloomed for me last year and may do so again this year. For the life of me I can't remember exactly what it's called. Perhaps I named it in an old post but I will have to now search. Part of its name is small southeastern asian country.

  • stlpalmlover
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    How big will these palms be when they flower I just bought a 4 trunked clump at Home Depot and was wondering when it will flower it's about 6 inch trunk and 2.5-3 ft at the crown and trunk is around 3 inches across

  • subtropix
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Mine did not start until it at about 3-4 feet of trunk and was in a 19 gallon tub. Once it does start to flower, it seems to do so annually, for me in July. They will be either all male or all female flowers. It is my understanding, that most multiple plantings of this species are separate plants--so likely to have different genders I guess. (Assume you get single gender flowers if you have a suckering Roebellini--seemingly rare in the trade).

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