Hooray it's spring again! How was everybody's winter?

[Jacobb92]

Mine could've been better, all of my Washingtonia palms are now deciesed. My Trachycarpus F.'s are both completely defoliated but remain stout and will most likely pull through. I kept my four clusters of Chamaerops humilis palms and my Sabal seedlings in my homemade 7' x 3' x 6' greenhouse, and they all came through this winter flawlessly. The g/h stayed in the 35-75' deg F range with a couple of freak 90 days when I forgot to prop the door open during the day, and some 26-28 degree nights when I forgot to plug it in and or put the insulation roof on. Sabals and Chamaerops are my new favorites, not for their looks or speed of growth, but for their compactness and hardiness, took them all out of g/h and put outside unprotected since February 5th. My minimum temperature this winter was between 0-5' F one night and 5-7'F the next after a freezing rain event around the 15th of January. (was forecasted to be a low of 10'F) and before that, didn't drop below 15' F. So by far the warmest winter I can think of, but that freezing rain crippled my poor windmills, they were completely green until then.

[Jay-Admin]

Sorry to hear about your Washingtonia palms! I had a colder winter than usual. Plus lot's more snow.
I'm pretty sure most of my Yucca rostratas are fried. My biggest one survived so I'm happy about that.

[andym]

Hi all
Winter here was mild with a minimum of 19.4F but generally around 23F. All my palms ..Butia, Chamaerops and Trachies were all ok. Yuccas with the exception of one all ok. Agaves too ok but Filifera has heavily fungused leaves. So quite happy really and I'm in a cold part of the Country. Dicksonia Antartica tree ferns kept their green leaves all Winter. Musa Basjoo stems remained upright but had some part collapse with Musa Sikkimensis.
Here in the UK I worry about too warm a Springs as there is a tendency to have cooler summers that follow. We don't generally get hot summers except the odd one day wonders. Highest Summer temperature last year was 93F and that was in June.

[Okanagan desert-palms]

We have had the coldest winter here in the last 12 to 15 years. It was also the duration of cold Ex: -19.5c overnight and highs of -9c for a week in a row and having 4 cold snaps similar to this. If I had not heated palm huts during these periods all of my palms and yuccas would be toast. They look the worst after winter than they ever have. New growth is starting now. It will be at least three months before they look like healthy palms again. I will post pics of the damage and recovery.

John

[Jay-Admin]

Well I didn't protect anything as usual this winter. I have about four rostratas that didn't make it. My
trunking rostrata looks great and my other trunking yucca recurvifolia looks like it will pull through. My baccatas
look great as well. I guess I will have to wait and see. All my cacti look good so far.