Mule palms in zone 8a?

I've noticed that Mule palms are classified by Dave's Garden as cold hardy to zone 8a. I'll be passing through St Augustine in late January where I plan to buy the darling of cold hardy palms. Before investing a large sum for a small specimen, I would like assurance from Carolina gardeners(especially in the SC midlands) that the Mule palm is indeed fully cold hardy -no winter protection at 16 f with heavy frost. I realize that a small specimen must be GH grown until it reaches a viable size before facing our cold winter nights. I don't mind a few years of pampering. Please advise.

This you by any chance?? http://members4.boardhost.com/speps/msg/1223078374.html

Ardesia would probably know the answer to this or no someone who knows for sure.

That might be a nice palm, don't know much about it myself.

LOL, I would have referred donna to SEPS - which she has already visited. :-)

As I understand it, the Mules are a naturally occurring hybrid of a Butia (very hardy) and a Queen (not so hardy.) My guess is it will be determined by which genes are dominant. There is probably someone out there selectivly breeding them for hardiness.

It is interesting but as recently as 5 years ago you would never hear anyone say a Queen was hardy in SC but I am seeing them all over the place now.

I have seen a few Queen palms in my neighborhood and the problem is the fronds seem to get burnt every year and look not so good until June. They won't die and they do grow fast but........ Looks like a hard winter so I'll see how well they fair around here.

I bet you they'd do fine, although you could get frond burn.
With Queens, the older the palm gets, the more cold hardy they are. So theoretically, you would only have to look at burned fronds for the first years.
I have two queens here and the past few years, I mulched them. Last year the taller one (therefore less protected by the house from Northern winds) had a decent amount of frond burn. I actually thought I'd lost the center growth. It's fine now.
Barb