Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
_jake_

Severely cold damaged palms what would you do?

_JAKE_
10 years ago

Hello everybody. We had a record breaking cold snap where I live. The outside temperature reached -33 celcius! The thermometer inside the wrappings of my largest windmill palm got down to -17 C. I can only assume that the temperature was similar in the wrappings of my smaller palms. Needless to say my: Mexican fan, Pindo and mediterranean fan palm are fried! Do you think any of them will recover? The mexican palm and large pindo were directly infront of the enclosures heater if that makes a difference? I was considering digging them up and bringing them inside and placing grow lights around them? Your thoughts please.

Comments (5)

  • wetsuiter
    10 years ago

    Where in the world are you with those temperatures? I did the conversion for us Americans... That's -27F and 0F in the enclosure. Not much can survive that.

  • stanofh 10a Hayward,Ca S.F. bay area
    10 years ago

    You would be better off using a greenhouse,planting Palms like Med palm or many other short palms(and still very attractive as with silver types) And heating that in your Siberian winters. A cinder block room with a clear top would work,painted white. I've seen that done for Mango's in cold USA climates.
    You would still have to heat though. Not much above freezing would be good enough for Trinix,Med palms,Needle,on and on..

    This post was edited by stanofh on Fri, Dec 20, 13 at 17:30

  • tropicalzone7
    10 years ago

    Unfortunately I don't think any of them will survive those temperatures. Generally Trachys die around 5F but there could be hope for them
    Sorry that your palms got that cold! I hope that they recover, digging it up would do more harm than good since palms do not like being moved especially when they are already stressed.
    Good luck!
    -Alex

  • islandbreeze
    10 years ago

    I agree that you shouldn't move them now, leave them where they are.

    I cover mine with large clear plastic bags(furniture bags), which creates a greenhouse effect and gets temps up significantly when the sun comes out. Getting temps up during the day is important if you're going to have cold nighttime temps. (I mean like 45-50 when it's actually 25-30 Fahrenheit, not getting it to 80 where it cooks to death with frozen roots)

    I think this would be beneficial at giving at least the trachys a shot.

  • jimhardy
    10 years ago

    The trick now is to keep them as cool as you can without freezing(if poss)
    the warmer it gets in the enclosures the faster pathogen growth will occur.

    Leave them for now and carefully inspect in spring,if necessary you can begin slowly cutting down from the top to see if any tissue is alive.

    I just added more insulation to the outsides of some of my palms as they are saying -13F tonight...the Washy enclosure was holding at 32F when it was 2F out one night a while back,not hard to see where -13F will leave it without some help!