Merry Xmas! Can't wait for longer days now. We're having strong winds here in coastal Los Angeles (Santa Monica). But temps are pretty good, days in the high 60s and sunny, nights are in the mid 40s. Temps are on the rise - 72 on Saturday, 75 on Xmas day and 74 on Monday and all of next week we're 67-70 and sunny. I hope this is a mild and humble winter for everyone :)

Merry Christmas! Who knows, maybe this winter will one of the mildest in a while. Happy Palms!

LOL.. we rather a mild than white & cold Christmas. Well, it is the palm forum. My greenhouse will benefit from longer days as well. January is usually a hard month on palms here in NYC, hopefully temps will stay above normal and we'll get a break from snow. Last year was too much snow with the Christmas Blizzard.

Merry Christmas! (If your comfortable with me commenting on your forum) ;)

Merry Christmas! I'm dreaming of a christmas where I can go outside and water all my tropical plants. Its a bit too cold for that, but at least its been mild enough to keep all the outdoor palms happy and unprotected.
We had a bad winter last year. It would be nice if 2012 brought some nice weather. Right now, Im just thankful for everything, even when the weather is cold!
-Alex

Thanks Alex and everyone.

Hope you covered your palms since last night was 26* and Jan around the corner. I wrapped mine in lights and plastic since the pindo bud was damaged last year. They said its supposed to be milder this weekend! Wow, this has been a mild winter so far... thank God no blizzards this year so far. These fluxuations in temps. aid in palm survival, bc it mimics a southern winter with periods of cold snaps and mild spells.

I covered a few of my palms, but I forgot to turn the lights on! Luckily, it only went down to 25F and they already saw 24F with no protection and no damage. Next week's forecast has a low temperature of only 13F for Tuesday morning. Thats a degree away from a daily record low! Its going to be a cold one and I will be sure to have all the plants covered up for that.

The great thing about these nice mild spells is that the ground doesnt have a chance to freeze much (if at all) so far. Its still early in the winter, but it has not been cold enough for anything to be very frozen yet. I noticed that I still have begonias with flower buds on them because they were covered by some dry fallen leaves... I was pretty impressed! I doubt they will have a chance to actually bloom though with next weeks cold spell, but its amazing to see frost tender plants survive past christmas in NYC!

Good luck with the cold everyone! Im hoping for a mild winter.
-Alex

I just checked the foreast and instead of 13F, the are now saying 18F for my area. I'm happy that they are moderating the numbers, its giving me hope that this might not be too bad of a cold spell. It's still too cold to keep many of my palms unprotected (especially Butia and Livistona) so I will be protecting all of them anyways.
-Alex

Stay Warm Everyone!!!

Brrrrr...

Its getting cold around here too!

Glad you got your Palms protected Alex!!!

Sorry i was late to say Merry Christmas everyone...

But i can say...

Happy New Year To You ALL!!!!

Take care,

Laura

Happy New Year to all.

Hi Alex, I notice that the palms can easily take it down to 24 for short periods, and so far our lowest temp in NYC was 22* during the last cold snap. However if you add strong winds like 25 mph to temps in the 20s it starts to eviserate the palm fronds and the damage will show up in the Spring. Palms experience wind chills to some extent and I also noticed my fig trees can also. I was glad last night when I heard it only dropping to 18 Tuesday night.

So far my yard has only recorded 24F as a low temperature (which is surprising since during the fall the night temperatures were slightly lower in my yard, but it seems like the night temepratures are pretty similar to local weather stations this time of the year).

So far the palms look good and I havent been worrying about my fig (I havent even thought of protecting it since most people dont around here lately, but if any record cold was forecasted then I would have to throw something over it!). But its true, the wind can cause damage to the palms that doesnt show until the warmer weather in the spring. Hopefully that doesnt happen, so far I have gotten pretty lucky with that and there hasnt been any surprising damage to my palms.

18F isnt too terrible. Its cold, thats for sure, but if its the coldest we get all winter, I will be VERY happy and my plants will be too! I still hate winter, but I noticed that this one has been pretty bareable so far.

-Alex

I do not like it too cold either. I want to move to south Fl, but my job and family are not ready for us to go.