Ouch! Dont you hate those first nights in the 40's?? Fortunately we are still a few weeks away from that here, but there are only 2 or 3 80s in the 10 day forecast and the 70s are very common with nights in the 60s and even a few 50s. Its amazing how quickly it cooled down. I think that you should still take them out if the days are in the 70s because the air circulation and humidity is definitely much better outside than inside so they will benefit greatly from that. Hopefully we will still see a few mini heat waves!
Good luck!
-Alex

Alex-
They are back out this morning. It's supposed to be a sun soaked 69 today. This is about 7 degrees below normal. I will bring them in again tonight as it's supposed to fall in the high 40s again. I will leave them out as it's suppsed to be 76 by Sunday and I will be out of town this weekend. I take them in and out (at least the smaller ones) as much as I can. Even if it's late October on a weekend and it gets sunny and 60 I will take them out in the afternoon for a few hours. I try and get them as much sun as possible until it is just too cool. I did start playing around positioning them last night getting an idea where they will go. This was especailly tough with my tall coconut. I'ts so big that the only place I can get it full coverage of sun is in my living room window which faces north east. It will get a few hours of morning sun. It will be filtered until the leaves fall off of the trees on my front lawn. I will give it some artificail light as well. I just hpe we get one more week of 80s but so far that is not in the 10 day forecast.

andyandy,I will be glad to send you some of our heat.It's suppose to be in the low to mid 90s for the next five days.I love the cool mornings in the high 60s to low 70s,but once that sun comes out it heats up real fast.The trouble with here is we don't really get a spring or fall.It goes from winter to summer than summer to winter.Plants don't really get a chance to harden off for winter temps.Hope you get some more heat this year.Your a real inspiration growing palms in MI.Do you have any palms planted in the ground?

I put my stuff on my big garden cart and wheel it in and out of the garage. The greenhouse goes back up very soon...probably in the next few days.

Andy, its great your pampering them. They can take cool nights in the 40s - beyond that I would not test there limits and they do not like cold wind or too much dryness. Good to be cautious coco palms:)

I took some of my plants inside to today!! Not because of the weather, but the animals continue to eat them! I have a trap ready, but I cant afford to pay for dinner anymore for it so they are spending the nights inside and the days outside. Good news is, they dont like coconut palms (so far).
-Alex

WOW! Already huh? You know for as much as I dislike my 7b/8a climate, I have to admit I really am kinda thankful of where I live. We are no where near getting that kind of cool yet. Thats more like mid to late October here. We have had a couple of cool downs, but those are like around 80 or so for the high, and 58-61 for the low. Being in the city we still have not gone down below 60F yet, and its going to warm back up again next week after a few days of around 80/62 for the high low. Outside the beltway they have hit the very high 50s a couple times so far. The one thing I do not like is the extreme low humidity the past couple days. Red flag fire warnings, a few brush fires, and humidity that is running 8 to 14%. WAY too dry.

Hope it warms back up for you up there!

Well i took them in agian last night and back out this morning. The weather people here have lied to us the last two days and promissed us nothing but sun. It has been nothing but clouds and today it's keeping us from the 72 we were told. I'm going out of town for the weekend so they will stay out. I'm hearing 77 by Monday but mid-60s for highs my mid-next week. I hope late September early-October is warmer. After a really warm July and August September has felt more like October.

andy-

My crystal ball says get use to this...slight warm up coming Sunday here and then back to the cooler air. The extended looks more of the same. My thinking is we get warmer air in Oct or even Nov... What sucks is sun is limited at that point.

Sun was also predicted here but today there are really mostly clouds. It would be nice if the clouds at least brought a little rain since there's been a lot of brush fires in the area lately, but it seems like it will continue to be dry, cooler, windy, and cloudy!
-Alex

I will be taking my orginal coconut palm in about a month or so. We still have 90f days in the forecast but they are starting to not happen as often. If it was a normal year it would still be above 90f with rarely any days below 88f. So far lowest low since summer is 50f ( summer high for lows was 68f but was 70f at my house). I have seen 90f/78f, but that doesn't happen too often. Average is about mid 50fs this year for this month, usually it would still be around 57f-62f in an average year.
Good luck everyone:)

I still have EVERYTHING out. Coldest was about 58 F so far (urban heat island effect). Sunday was kind of fall-like with highs in the upper 60s and overcast. Extended looks good though--see low 80's now for next Monday. Palms went out EARLY this year due to sustained early heat (early April). I used to bring many in on Labor Day weekend but now wait longer as it's actually much easier to tend to the collection outside than inside--especially if it's still warm. I have to agree with Nova with respect to liking zone7-8 gardening zones. We can grow both subtropicals AND cold hardy plants which greatly increases our potential collections!--Like we need an excuse.

It turns out that opossum were eating the plants. They really ate so much! So far there were 2 of them, but there might be more! So parlor palm goes in during the night now since thats there favorite! But as far as weather goes, it doesnt look like there are any problem that would require any of the plants to be brought in. Coldest night was also 58F here and the days arent all that warm, but the afternoons still get warm so the plants are growing. Very cloudy outside now with some thunderstorms on the way. I hope its a warm rain.
-Alex

back in tonight here (48 tonight) 70 and sunny tomorrow so I will move back out in the morning. It looks like Wed night -Thursday will be the first 24 hour + stint in the house. Thursday is supposed to be rainy and 61 so i don't want them out in that. mid-Sep through late October will be tought because the leaves haven't fallen yet and it blocks most of the sun from getting in my front window. Looks like I'll be breaking out the grow lights.