PalmsNorth.com

Planted a year ago and doing very well.
Also a smaller windmill I planted 3 years ago.

Nice looking palms!

Those are some good looking palms. What zone are you in?

I am in zone 7a I think but I have also seen zone 6b on some maps.
Oklahoma winters have gotten milder since I moved here in 1980.

Late winter snow.

Very nice palms Gonz. Have you seen the site http://www.amazinggardens.com/site_index.htmlTulsa and Oklahoma city. I have several of his Sabal louisiana. I`m sure it would be a lot cheaper for you to drive across town than it was for me to order and ship.

John

Okanagan desert-palms wrote:Very nice palms Gonz. Have you seen the site http://www.amazinggardens.com/site_index.htmlTulsa and Oklahoma city. I have several of his Sabal louisiana. I`m sure it would be a lot cheaper for you to drive across town than it was for me to order and ship.

John

Yes I have.
But nothing about windmills or actually growing one in Oklahoma....so since I've already had one in the ground for 2 years and had grown musa bajoo for about 6 years I created a fyi thread on the UBC forum last year.

A friend bought this large windmill for me and shipped it here in exchange for an unlocked 3G Iphone. So I only paid $200 which is what the Iphone cost me in Hong Kong.
I wanted a +7ft windmill palm with a long trunk. Don't see anything like that here.
And I have read that a more mature windmill will adapt quicker.

You can buy 5ft windmill and Mexican palms at Home Depot($120 I think). Many other palms as well. I bought a 16inch tall windmill and Silver European fan palm from there in May for about $30 each. I planted these two in the back of the condo which faces west with good protection from the north.
The windmill should be fine back there but I don't know about the Euro palm.
I will post pics later.

The large windmill in the pics is in an area open to the east and protected from the north. Full sun 5-8hrs/day year round. I put a remote sensor on the trunk to monitor temp and humidity. I created a micro climate .....it is always a few degrees warmer than the rest of the property during the winter....even overnight.

Your C.cerifera(if thats what you mean by silver Euro palm) would handle the sun/heat better than Trachy's would but would certainly be more cold sensitive.

Nice Palm you have there. Is the black wrapped up palm in the first picture when you first got it? It did really well for planting it in Sept. I think you have one of the best 6b 7a zones on the map for sure. You have a Very nice climate to grow palms. I bet you even have full grown Live Oaks in your area?

Bill

hardyjim wrote:Your C.cerifera(if thats what you mean by silver Euro palm) would handle the sun/heat better than Trachy's would but would certainly be more cold sensitive.

This particular palm is called a Chamaerops Humilis Cerifera. It is considered cold hardy in zone 7,high coastal salt tolerant,and drought tolerant once established.
It is suppose to be slower growing and cold hardier than the usual euro fan palm.
From Morocco(Atlas Mountains)

It is best if in full sun but it will get partial/indirect sun. And I need to pay attention to regular watering for a while because the ground will only get damp when raining I think.....the french drain may prevent this. I better get a moisture gauge before it gets cold.

It is protected from direct rain because of the upstairs balcony.
I will mulch it heavily like the others but will create something simple that will transfer water there when it rains.

BILL MA wrote:Nice Palm you have there. Is the black wrapped up palm in the first picture when you first got it? It did really well for planting it in Sept. I think you have one of the best 6b 7a zones on the map for sure. You have a Very nice climate to grow palms. I bet you even have full grown Live Oaks in your area?

Bill

Yes that's the way it was delivered from Florida. I think the weather here is very good for the windmill palm if you pay attention to where and how you are going to plant it.
Also handles the 100+ degree days very well.
Grew through most of the winter.
I gave it time released palm food a month ago and will give it a good dose of potassium soon .
That will be all until next spring.
The root system must be pretty good now.

There are large oaks north of me on the property(gated condo community) about 100 yards or more away. The oaks,other trees and condos(including more homes and trees on raised property further north) block a major portion of the north wind.

Every spring I have to pull the acorns sprouting everywhere.

Do you have any oaks in your area that are evergreen? I will be looking for a good specimen from your area one of these days.

Bill

thanks for those pictures...a great microclimate in there!

any chance you can post a pic of the remote sensor that you attach to the trunk? maybe also the readout/display that presumably is in the house? I'm looking to buy one and am interested in what's available.

Great looking palms.
Barb

BILL MA wrote:Do you have any oaks in your area that are evergreen? I will be looking for a good specimen from your area one of these days.

Bill

I have not seen evergreen oak.
All drop leaves here.

lucky1 wrote:thanks for those pictures...a great microclimate in there!

any chance you can post a pic of the remote sensor that you attach to the trunk? maybe also the readout/display that presumably is in the house? I'm looking to buy one and am interested in what's available.

Great looking palms.
Barb

I bought this at Lowes on sale for about $20 in the garden center.
Looking for a monitor to use up to 4 sensors for the front,back,and the utility room such as this....
http://www2.oregonscientific.com/shop/p ... =5&pid=885
But would like to set a temp alarm for the utility room to alert me if temp falls below freezing.

Chamaerops humilis var. cerifera

Gonz, thanks.
I have a similar display unit, part of an anemometer.
Great accuracy.
But if there are, say, 4 separate units with 4 displays, could the readouts "cross"?

In other words do the readouts need to be very close to the sensors if you have more than one?

An alarm is a great idea, let us know how/if you find such a system.
Barb

Hey Gonz,
Thanks for answering my million questions on live oaks! The only think that got me going on
them is I remember seeing the picture of one in Palms won't grow here from Tulsa. I didn't
know if they were all over the place thats why I asked. Here's the picture from the book, Tulsa
is a big place so you probably haven't see it. Looks like a hospital in the back ground.

http://books.google.com/books?id=n_iE35 ... q=&f=false

By the way your first picture of your windmill coming off the truck wasen't on my screen the
first time I looked. Then Iasked you the dumb question about your wrapped palm. LOL

Bill

I have tried to find stations with multiple sensors,no luck.Sometimes the closer sensors are the ones picked up,I have a few different ones that don't conflict but for the number of readouts I want,I have had to just use some with cords that I read outside,not the best solution but glad it works

I seem to recall that myself, Jim.
If more than one is required, the wired gauges are likely a better bet.
Probably prevents "crosses", wrong readings.
Barb

Yup

Back patio area.
This is the windmill and silver euro fan palm I bought from Home Depot in late spring.
I will mulch it good and put a card board box on top of them when there is ice or too cold.

Installed a french drain. The windmill and other plants are practically on top of it.
So far so good.
Not worried about the front area but better keep watch on these.

Nice size specimens, very healthy looking.

The silver fan palm will be slower than the windmill but they'll both grow so wide, you'll be relocating your patio in 10 years.

Barb

lucky1 wrote:Nice size specimens, very healthy looking.

The silver fan palm will be slower than the windmill but they'll both grow so wide, you'll be relocating your patio in 10 years.

Barb

That's why I put the Euro under the balcony. Yes it is much slower and I was hoping to control the size by pruning.

Now with the windmill I was very careful where to plant it.
Nothing above it.
Using a plum-bob and tape the center of the trunk to the outer edge of the upstairs balcony is just over 4ft. so I figure an 8ft diameter crown should be ok if they get that big. My large windmill has a 7ft diameter crown.
The edge of patio slab to the stone is 16 inches so it should have room to expand. I centered it.
The trunk diameter of my large windmill is 9 inches.

What would be different in the back are the south winds. Gets pretty breezy back there in spring and summer...especially during storms. And some western exposure during winter.

I am facing north in the 3rd pic.

Need to prune that bloodgood though.

My little euro fan grows about 2 inches height a year...I should've started when I was 15
I placed it beside my big CIDP so the euro could "get the hint" (and grow).

Yours will look gorgeous under that balcony for a long long time.

You put a lot of thought into placing the windmill, it should be fine if it can handle those summer winds.
Mine can't stand the wind, so on the east side of the house it's happy.

Yours is protected from brutally cold northwest winter winds, should be fine with your planning.

The bloodgood colour is a good contrasting colour to the palms.

Barb

lucky1 wrote:Gonz, thanks.
I have a similar display unit, part of an anemometer.
Great accuracy.
But if there are, say, 4 separate units with 4 displays, could the readouts "cross"?

In other words do the readouts need to be very close to the sensors if you have more than one?

An alarm is a great idea, let us know how/if you find such a system.
Barb

FYI....

http://www.honeywellweatherstations.com ... eters.html

I have been using the TM005X Wireless Thermo-Hygrometer from Honeywell for about a month.
Three remote sensors and interior.
One sensor hanging on the frond of the big tree,on the small palm in the back,and the third sensor(with probe) in my utility room(furnaces and tankless water heater).
I am using lithium batteries for the remotes.

When they arrived I kept them inside next to each other for a few days and all the units were within 0.3F or less of each other....humidity read within 2 percent.

It reads 26.1F outside right now on the big palm.....but 37F at the trunk because of the C9 Christmas lights.
The weather service says it's 23F atm with zero wind.
I have the main unit set to display a different sensor reading every 5 seconds.

Lowest so far has been 11F according to the weather service sometime last week but I was out of the country during that period.

Have not protected any yet accept for the C9 lights.
All look fine....mulched,dormant,green, and spears are intact.
Not much precip for weeks though.

Gonz.
Thanks for the update. I've been wondering how your palms have been doing. Those are tough plants and the lights must help a lot. In my (limited) experience, March is our hardest month. We get several hot (80 oF) days and the plants start growing, then we get rain followed by temps in the 20's oF. The crowns start to rot after a few cycles of that. So, I suggest rain protection and fungicide for late winter.

I have links to photos of my Bixby (151st & Harvard area, so well out of the urban heat island) garden on my "winter protection by novice" thread. Can you do me a favor and check out what I'm doing, then offer area-specific advice? I'm leaving the country soon and want to fix any problems before I go.
--Erik

TerdalFarm wrote:Gonz.
Thanks for the update. I've been wondering how your palms have been doing. Those are tough plants and the lights must help a lot. In my (limited) experience, March is our hardest month. We get several hot (80 oF) days and the plants start growing, then we get rain followed by temps in the 20's oF. The crowns start to rot after a few cycles of that. So, I suggest rain protection and fungicide for late winter.

I have links to photos of my Bixby (151st & Harvard area, so well out of the urban heat island) garden on my "winter protection by novice" thread. Can you do me a favor and check out what I'm doing, then offer area-specific advice? I'm leaving the country soon and want to fix any problems before I go.
--Erik

Looks like you have much more sun exposure than mine. The sun is low this time of the year so only the crown is exposed. At 8:30am I have another 3 or 4 hours to go before the sun is blocked by the condo.
Reading 48.3F at crown and 55F at the trunk now.

What I do in late August is switch to 0-0-60 potassium.I want to do this at least 6 weeks before things cool down.
http://tct.netfirms.com/tropics/coldfert.html

After the first night below 30 degrees in the fall I spray all of the leaves with WiltPruf...then spray again in 2 or three months. I think I will use it in the summer next year too.
I have two concentrated one quart bottles and use those pressure pump sprayers.
Four years ago in January my first palm(18inches at the time) was totally encased in ice during freezing rain early one morning. I jumped out of bed and ran outside to put a cardboard box over it. Removed the box the next day and it looked wet and green like spring. No damage at all.

http://www.wiltpruf.com/

The first windmill I've planted I just put a thick cardboard box over during the first winter. Made it through that snowstorm that came through few days after Thanksgiving.

Now I only cover them with Plankets for ice and snow.
http://www.theplanket.com/

Now last winter was the first for the big palm. It did ok but there was sun burn damage on the older fronds and a few black spots but the upper crown leaves were fine. This happened after that heavy wet snow last March.
I forgot to apply the WiltPruf.
The palm was very thirsty....the frond blades were folding inward....but once it warmed up and the rains came they opened up.

Something else I did for them last Spring/Summer was add mycorrhizae inoculants to the soil several times.
http://www.global-garden.com.au/burnley/may97dte.htm

Also sprinkle Epsom Salts before the first spring rains and every few weeks during the summer.

I have extra mulch,Plankets,Burlap roll,bungee,and extra C9 lights incase something really bad comes this way.
But so far in the past 5 years all I do is loosely cover them to protect from winds,ice and snow.
Also have the copper fungicide but never used it.


About the Musa Basjoo.....

I used to grow these. First winter I cut down to the ground and dump mulch on it.
Maybe has something to do with the rich clay based river soil but they grew up to 15ft with a base diameter of about 8-10 inches.
That was nice. They were beautiful.
But they started taking over my little space and nearly destroyed my back patio fence.

Had to kill them. Had to kill them all. They were like weeds.
Took me almost 2 years to kill them off. Applying weed killer was not enough....kept coming back.
Finally decided to dig to the corm(it was huge)...drill holes and poured in weed killer.....left it exposed for the winter......
That finally did it.
Tough plant.



Well this is everything I've learned and done so far. I am trying to force as much cold as I can to these plants without hurting them.
Everything you are doing looks fine to me. If the freezing rain or snow comes protect the fronds.

I going out and add another layer of mulch around them.
Moisture meter needle is at #2 now but cannot water it....I am afraid to. The tip of the probe is about 12 inches in the soil I think.
But the major roots are deep. I am more concerned about the feeder roots.

BTW, Last spring they had a load of palms at the Home Depot on 91st and Delaware.
Large and small windmills,Mexican,European,and some others. All had a "Cold Hardy" info card attached to them.
They also had the Kentia, Majestic,and others.
Range from about 40-$130. They were half price in September and probably much cheaper or negotiable.
Seems like they sold plenty though so maybe they will have them every spring.

I'll go over the links.
My 15 gallon Butia (in the shelter) and 15 gallon Trachy (trunk wrap only) came from that very H-D (91st & Delaware). I think $125 each. They were an impulse purchase--I was there for another reason, saw them, and had to buy. I've been happy with them and so will buy again if they offer more this Spring.

GONZ
Good plan with the fertilizer schedule.
I like to start them out with some potassium and epsom in spring then hit them(palms) with something high in N as May turns to June,then something more balanced like I will be trying this summer(per Bill )Carl Pools.As we move into the end of August I start moving back down the scale(higher middle number)then end of Oct go with Potassium again and finish with some epsom too.
Great to hear Basjoos are so tough,I look forward to seeing mine in the spring,HOPEFULLY-

healthy looking palms!




Barb-
I did find a multiple sensor weather station it's in the weatherunderground section on joining there system of weather reporting stations-cost $1000
Don't know if extra sensors are more or not,I can pick you up a few if you want

hardyjim wrote:GONZ
Good plan with the fertilizer schedule.
I like to start them out with some potassium and epsom in spring then hit them(palms) with something high in N as May turns to June,then something more balanced like I will be trying this summer(per Bill )Carl Pools.As we move into the end of August I start moving back down the scale(higher middle number)then end of Oct go with Potassium again and finish with some epsom too.
Great to hear Basjoos are so tough,I look forward to seeing mine in the spring,HOPEFULLY-

healthy looking palms!




Barb-
I did find a multiple sensor weather station it's in the weatherunderground section on joining there system of weather reporting stations-cost $1000
Don't know if extra sensors are more or not,I can pick you up a few if you want

Just learned of epsom salts about 18 months ago. Amazing what it does to plants.
Need to remember to put some down during and after days of heavy rains. Maybe add a little palm food as well.

Basjoo has a beautiful velvety Dark green/bluegreen color when the sun hits just right. I might put one in a pot when the back patio is done.

I hope my Basjoos do better this year coming up from the roots.
Last year I kept them inside trying to keep some height.
They didn't do squat all summer.

I agree about the Epsom salts,it seems to really green them up before/after winter

Gonz, sounds like your Honeywell is as reliable as my Bios remote reader.
Odd that in the last few days my La Crosse remote hasn't failed...it probably didn't like the cold!

And Jim, thanks

stations-cost $1000

but I'll pass.
Interesting relating the fertilizing to a scale, up and down, made a lot of sense.
I'll do it that way too.

Glad to see Gonz' link on the mycorrhizae.
I've been interested in the symbiotic relationship of roots w.fungus, etc. for quite a while.

Barb

Right now the weather channel says it's 24F. Windchill is 12 I think. Winds finally down to 25mph NW.
My outdoor sensor reads 26F
Inside the crown is 30.7F
The probe inside the spear base is 44.4F

The tree in the back is covered and reads 27.0F in the crown.

I knew the snow was coming but I decided to cover everything yesterday morning when I found out the winds would be over 30mph.

I just had to send my wife out in this--she is a night ICU nurse. Right now I'm more worried about her than my palms, but when she calls to say she made it I'll go out to check. My Butia shelter definitely can NOT take a snow load. I may be sweeping snow off the roof every few hours. (+ need to warn Santa not to land on it.)
I'll take photos tomorrow.

TerdalFarm wrote:I just had to send my wife out in this--she is a night ICU nurse. Right now I'm more worried about her than my palms, but when she calls to say she made it I'll go out to check. My Butia shelter definitely can NOT take a snow load. I may be sweeping snow off the roof every few hours. (+ need to warn Santa not to land on it.)
I'll take photos tomorrow.

I am glad it's not the wet snow like last March. I was brushing off the snow a while ago but now I am going to leave it alone....maybe insulate some.
Have a mulched Australian dwarf bottle brush that I covered with a box....thought it would be dead by now but it is still alive and look pretty good.

Interesting.....the temperature inside the crown of my big palm has gone from 30.7F to 35.8F and the spear base is up from 44.4F to 50.F.

*I have about a dozen C9 bulbs clustered around the outside of the spear base on both palms and a cluster around the bottom of the trunks*
They have been on continuously since yesterday morning.

No heat source for the one in the back but the three 1 litter bottles of hot water I put around the base before I covered it. The water must be cold by now.
The temperature has gone up 0.7F after falling for 4 hours since covering.

I guess the snow must be insulating now.

Hey you guys in the Tulsa area, I think its moving your way. 14 inches or more in OKC. Temps in the low teens or lower. 30-40 mph wind gusts. Thank God and George Bush for this global warming! Here are some pics from tonight.



Here is a snow ledge.

Merry Christmas
Jim

Snow is a great insulator.
Some of my palm covers stayed near freezing when it was 0(F)without heat.

jimmythesnake wrote:Hey you guys in the Tulsa area, I think its moving your way. 14 inches or more in OKC. Temps in the low teens or lower. 30-40 mph wind gusts. Thank God and George Bush for this global warming! Here are some pics from tonight.



Here is a snow ledge.

Merry Christmas
Jim

Looks like you're going to have you own avalanche.
They say that's a record in OKC.
I can't tell what's going on outside. Too windy.Windchill is 5F.
I am glad I covered these. I don't think the big one was ready for this.

hardyjim wrote:Snow is a great insulator.
Some of my palm covers stayed near freezing when it was 0(F)without heat.

Good to know.