Something to try for us cold-climate tropical optimists!

I've heard of people north of zone 7 wrapping their favorite t. fortuneii's, t. takils, and t. wagnerius with c9 Christmas lights to keep them from freezing. My concern has always been that the bulbs might burn the leaves/trunk. The other day while googling infrared heat sources I found these: http://search.ebay.com/repti-heat-cable_W0QQfkrZ1QQfromZR8 . Repti Heat Cables. They're low wattage, designed for radiant infrared heating, and water resistant. They're also meant to not be so hot they can easily burn whatever they touch. As a pretile lover I know that reptiles can be harmed by giving them a heat source that is too warm. They'll lay against it and burn. :(

Anyhoo, I'm going to get one and use it for colder nights for my t. fortuneii, which so far has not needed to be protected and it appears to be as happy as can be.

Here's hoping everyone has a wonderful holiday season!

-Joe G.

This message was edited Dec 3, 2005 2:25 PM

Joe, thats a good idea, especially for the coldest nights. Most of the Sabal palmetto around here are wrapped in Christmas lights for the winter. Even though it is out state tree, I live in the colder, upper west corner of the state and many palms that are hardy at the southern part of SC are marginally hardy here.
I have thought of something kind of crazy for my Chameadorea microspadix palms and was wondering if it might work. Instead of lights, I was going to buy a couple of boxes of Thera-care 8 hour heating pads. Since the Palms are small and the trunks are very thin, i think I can wrap a few pads on them during the coldest nights of the year. Im not worried about saving the fronds, as they are a little too fragile to be wrapped and still look good, but Id like to keep the trunk living. They are hardy bamboo palms that can take down to about 12F, but if we get a little colder than that , (which we do some years), Im thinking about trying this. Does it sound crazy or ?

I was thinking about a moist heat heating pad, but then I found these: http://www.infraredheaters.com/panels.htm . The only thing I can think about your suggestion is it might be expensive. I just found a "wall of water" frost system, and when searching for a picture of it, found this: http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/garden/07851.html

Looks like an excellent resource!!!

-Joe

Joegee,
It would probably be best to try to keep the spear on your windmill as warm and dry as possible. moisture, in and around the spear can cause lots of problems so I think the infrared heaters might be a better choice than moist heating pads. Also, you may want to think about buying frost cloth. It is sometimes avialable at HD or Lowes but it can be pricey too.
Yes, I agree about my idea being a little expensive....but, I will probably only need the pads one or at most two nights out of the winter. It would be ridiculous to try to use them if I was in a much colder area where I needed them more than once or twice. I would put out Christmas lights but the Palms are situated at the entrance to my driveway, which is a good 150 ft. from any source of electricity. Good Luck with your palms!

Joe if anyone would know how to over winter Palms it is my father. He has been growing them in KY for over 30 years. You have the right idea but a few tricks can help. We put up a wire cage like you have then some frost cloth over it this is to keep it from getting to hot. On some winter days it can get over 100 in the small tents this is a perfect place for rot so the frost cloth help prevent this. He uses fog lights to heat his plants and he only does this when it is below 15f or colder. The tent is wraped in plastic and mulched around the bottom. I will try to find some pics or take some tomorrow of his windmill palms washingtonia and butia. THANKS He has had a few sabal and windmill out for 3 years with no protection that have both survived. My personal favorite is washingtonia for its speed I have to say the yucca rostratas have not been protected in 7 years around here and do great.

Thanks Brian. I was hoping you'd notice this thread. :)

From what I have read I suspect this trachy will do OK. Its only open exposure is to the east, and it's close to the house foundation, but I am getting some reptile wire just in case we hit single digits. I notice tomorrow night is s'posed to be 10 f. Since this is a new planting, only one season of growth, tomorrow night it will get some covering. Poor thing.

I'm going to be planting a needle palm in the coming years out front that I am only planning to loosely mulch the first few seasons. My understanding is that once they get established they're hard to kill. :)

The reptile wire is if we hit any single digit temps colder than five Fahrenheit. There are no single digit temps in the forecast, and I can probably count on a two to five degree temperature bounce since I live in town, and maybe another two or three for this plant's location (am I being too hopeful?)

Anyways, your posts are some of the posts I turn to when I am thinking about growing tropicals up here in the northern hinterlands. It's odd, this is the first year I have experimented with cold tolerant tropicals -- I found myself going into denial as autumn progressed, that winter would arrive, that it would be as harsh. As the snow falls outside the idea that maybe autumn 2005 will just last until March 2006 has been proven wrong. :)



I almost, ALMOST wish I hadn't gone down to Aiken, SC twice this summer, enough to fall in love with all the gorgeous plants ...

Ah well. Thanks for commenting!

Peace, and here's hoping your holidays are wonderful. :)

Joe G.

Oh, and re: yucca rostrata, according to this page, http://www.plantdelights.com/Catalog/Fall/page69.html , they're hardy to zone 5. Those are also on my "to purchase" list. As you can see, I have a yucca filamentosa problem around my lil' trachy. I dug out a large y. filamentosa to put in the trachy. Apparently I didn't get all the roots, cuz now I have bunches of little filamentosalets growing around it. They are moving to friends' houses in the spring.

That the yuccas I located there have never had any winter damage was a prime reason why the yuccas went bye bye and the trachy moved in. :)

Also on my to purchase list is a poncirus trifoliata, winter yellow jasmine, and Kleim's hardy gardenia. The jasmine will live around the base of the trachy, and the gardenias go against the foundation on the north side of the house, which is also well sheltered.

On the north side of my house I am trying a few crape myrtles, and I have a lovely little phyllostachys aureosulcata that I hear won't stay little for too long. :)

Anyways, thanks again for your excellent advice!

-Joe G.

I can ask my father more info on this he knows exact temprate for leaf burn ,damage and death on all varieties of palms. He has taken it seriously for many years in the hopes of growing a truly hardy palm. He has about no kidding 2000 seedlings of windmill palm from all over the world. The theory goes if the windmill palm is from northern Florida they are usually less hardy then lets say from Bulgaria or more northern states. I believe many people are after this holy grail of plants. What they are looking for is a very hardy selected plant. Then coutinue to grow the seeds out to maturity and select even hardier ones till you have a super hardy palm. This works! The only real problem is it can take 10 to 15 years or longer to get a plant from seed to maturity. He has some windmill plams from Alabama that have shown to be extremely hardy. I gave him about 1000 seedlings and he got them all to sprout and left them in a unheated greenhouse. During the middle of winter we went out and looked at this pot of seedlings frozen solid and still green. I told him at the time they were frozen so much that they have not relized they were dead yet. Come spring they were still alive not only that they were still green no leaf burn and I have to say that the pot was above ground and frozen like a block of ice. If you are in the area he has possibly the largest collection of hardy palms around you should visit.

FWIW I regularly wrap delicate exotics with Christmas lights on the rare occasions when we have a freeze here and there has never been any damage to any plant.

Here's a little trick for lower growing plants in areas not quite so cold................I take glass bottles of water and lay a couple up under the plant (or near it) so that the sun warms it all day then at night it acts a little like a hot water bag and gives off warmth. My friend uses water with a tea bag as she says the tea bag does something to keep the water warmer longer. She may be right, but I don't know my chemistry well enough.
Barbara

I've got a small screened porch on the back of my house that has mostly eastern exposure. I was thinking of wrapping it inside with some sort of plastic (yes, I know it's a little tacky, but it is in the back) to act as a greenhouse. We don't really get that cold here, but I've got lots of cuttings (mostly brugs) that are filling up the house and I'd love to get them out of the house. The porch is elevated so it sits on deck material. Do you think this will work? What kind of plastic would you recommend? What do you think, Brian? If it works well, next year I might get some panels made to insert during the winter.
Barbara

It could work it is hard to say to what temp you want it to stay at and such. But greenhouse plastic is best one that is UV durable. I always suggest a double layer with air space between it. As for the floor of the deck you can role out this insulator called duratec I believe it is a bulb wrap with aluminum over lay it reflects heat and cold. I use it as a insulator and it is amazing stuff.

As for the bottle trick rocks work about the same way though if it is cloudy they do not heat up. Adding something to the water does work salt water is more will retain heat longer than regular water. Tea makes sense also it is darker attracks more heat. The more dense the liquid the more heat it will retain.

Brian, that's excellent information! This trachy is from central Texas. I have a sabal from Pennsylvania.

We have had temps down in the low teens here so far, and several days below freezing. What I have noticed about this trachy is that the leaves are the same green they were in late summer. There's no olive-shaded green, and there are no dessicated green leaves. The rose bush next to it is crispy-fried. The trachy's as supple and robust as it was in August. I'm just astonished so far.

I decided early on to let this one go as long as possible, so I could identify leaf burn and other problems first hand. So far it seems to be a little trooper. It is also partway sheltered from above by the eave of the house. Last night's snowfall covered the ground with two to three inches of snow, but the palm is not covered.

Oddly enough, the palm has grown more during the fall, and the spear has grown an inch -- in November, with very chilly days and nights.

It's an endearing little plant. It seems like it hasn't been told it's not supposed to take hold, so it just keeps growing, and growing.

I found this personal page to have a lot of great information:

http://hometown.aol.com/fitzroya/myhomepage/cooking.html Palms in Colorado Springs! :)

-Joe G.

I was going to wait and cage my fortunei in late December, but we have already had numerous nights in the low 20's and the fronds were showing signs of damage. So, I filled my cage with leaves and wrapped the cage in frost cloth. I then put plastic only over the top 2 ft to keep the spear dry. The whole thing is pretty funny looking - - it looks like a snowman that has been taken hostage!

My 2 Bulgarias are still fairly small and are in pots. So I did the easy thing with them and just put them in the garage.

Bwilliams - - do you have any photos of your dad's palms from the summer? Would love to see what they looked like.

here are a few pics. These are a few years old

another pic

Brian, are these the trachys that stay unprotected out in the open?! They're beautiful!

-Joe

He keeps them above 10f or 15f with flood lights and covers during winter. He has one from bulgaria that has been out 3 years no protection besides a few leaves. It is still small and a sapal minor has been out 4 years it has started to finally get some size to it now.

Those really are cool looking. One thing I have noticed is that palms look better when they are grouped together.