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Went into the cactus/palm g-house on a hunch today.
Both Tesan have spear pull and the same wagxfort that pulled last year.The wagxfort did recover quickly in spring with a total of 6 new leaves.Oddly the Cordyline australis,C.Cerifera and Trithrinax Campestris(Blue needle palm) are fine at this time.
Sometimes the damage doesn't make a lot of sense.
I won't be able to check some other stuff until some of the snow melts as it is providing some insulation still.
Another palm that had spear pull and total defoliation and did completely recover with 8 new leaves-is the Naini Tal.
I will be a little sad if this one is damaged again.
The trick now is to see if they continue to lose leaves from the center out,if they do not(or at least not to quickly)they usually make a full recovery-in spring(-:

Jim, what was your low temperature and length of freeze?

Sounds like some bigtime damage... Hope you've got your Bordo on hand!

Lowest temps "The damaged"have seen is 12(F)with the exception of my poor little Trachy that's kind of"off the grid"
It has seen -2(F) for sure.
Smells like seaweed in it's enclosure.
Yea Paul,I treated everything with fungicide that pulled,can't/won't get to everything.

I imagine the Cordyline will start showing signs of damage later on.

Usually plants look fine and the damage creeps up later especially next summer when it warms up, because the cells in the leaves just turn to mush.

It might be ok, I'd definitely go all out to protect the Cordyline though!

As you pointed out, many palms don't show damage until spring. It can be May here before the full impact is seen. C. australis is much the same. I'm quite surprised you have one in Iowa. I gave up growing them on the coast where I am.

I bought a small specimen as an annual and left in the ground, hoping for a miracle. Doesn't look like I'll get it: the leaves look pretty dead. I guess I can pray for it to grow as a perennial.

Oh Jim that's awful.
So palms severely damaged in one winter are LESS hardy going into the following winter?

They looked so good this summer!

Barb

There are so many variables to cold hardiness as there is types of freezes and resistance within individual plants.
For example,if I walked into a store and randomly picked some "cold hardy plants"I could very easily crab a bunch and have them all die.
This is why I decided to try 8 different protection methods and sample a large number of each type of plant.
Palms, etc exhibit different levels of hardiness-one of the wagxforts had spear pull one did not.
All my waggies are fine.
The Cordyline was knocked out last year by the combination of rain and sudden temps below 20(F),my bad,I didn't protect it in time.
I did this year and would bet that they are hardy to near 0(F) under the right conditions.This one came back from the roots and has changed it's leaf shape to more like a yucca,narrower.
Last year it showed damage immediately after the cold and it may still yet.
I think a lot of the damage occurred before the 12(F) temp event as we had a week of weather that for the most part was below freezing.

TerdalFarm wrote:I bought a small specimen as an annual and left in the ground, hoping for a miracle. Doesn't look like I'll get it: the leaves look pretty dead. I guess I can pray for it to grow as a perennial.

Cover it from rain and mulch it.This Cordyline came back from the roots and is growing much more slender leaves.
It appears very solid as I just checked it again- it looks fine-pretty amazing but I think this plant has really showed some profound adaptation!
If I can find some pics of what it looked like last year and this year I will post them.

lucky1 wrote:Oh Jim that's awful.
So palms severely damaged in one winter are LESS hardy going into the following winter?

They looked so good this summer!

Barb

Actually Barb if they make a FULL recovery they should be more hardy.
Interesting that the same fortxwag pulled and the other one did not.My guess is it will be fine next year and not pull again.
This one had an "advantage"over the Naini Tal in that it only lost it's 2 spear leaves,it regrew 6-7 leaves over the summer so it did not lose any mass.
Happily the Naini Tal which had spear pull and defoliated least year appears to be fine so far.
The Naini grew 9 leaves this year!
These palms never fail to amaze me,with what they do and what they don't.
I think the Tesan will recover too,although they do look a little more shell shocked,my fault really for not protecting some of the first year palms a little sooner

I checked one of my small Trachy thats covered in styrofoam and snow and it's fine! Go figure,no heat.I believe this one stayed around 30(F) during the -2(F)event.
I also checked the Trachy that did see -2 and the spear did not pull yet,I gave it a treatment of fungicide and sprayed some freeze-pruf on it,for what it's worth.
It is also in a new enclosure now,very cool if this one somehow makes it-I mean smelling like seaweed and all

bummer jim. pushing zones can sometimes be ugly. here's hoping for some milder temps and lots of sun this winter. as you know the damage will be more apparent next springtime and I hope its all good for you, and the rest of us cold hardy palm types.

Jim,
I'll do that for my little C. australis. If you hadn't spoke up, I'd have written it off.
Please let me know what fungicide you use. I used copper-based last year and am using neem oil this year. I'm open to using anything that works as our late winter weather really promotes fungus.
--Erik

if they make a FULL recovery they should be more hardy.

Yea, that's what I thought too. So it was your late-start at protection, you think?
November was so mild, the cold that followed caught most of us by surprise.

At least your temp is good for reapplying Freeze-Pruf.

And 9 leaves growing on that naini this year is quite the bounce-back! Wow.

I remember your protection summary after last winter.
You were really impressed with the styro covers.

Barb

The fungicide is copper based Bordeaux(sp?)
Oppalm
Usually what happens is the other leaves stay put or maybe you lose one or two,catching it early is crucial to slowing the rot.
If I lose all the leaves I cut down on the trunks to look and see if it's rotted.
My fortxwag held on to all it's leaves and recovered with one small one and then regular leaves.

Yea Barb
It was 60(F) Dec 1 and the next 4 days were not much above freezing,in fact the daytime highs would not have allowed them time to unthaw.
That's what got them.12(F) was insult to injury(and a little more injury) at that point

Speaking of adding insult to injury, I'd better NOT have a look at the big y.rostrata x

Might wait until spring for that disappointment.

Barb

Hope not,that one should be fine well below zero(F)

Here is a pic of my C.australis that grew back from the roots this past spring.
The leaves are about half as wide,it appears this plant has adapted to the cold and has already handled 12(F) so far.


<a href="http://s297.photobucket.com/albums/mm22 ... -09033.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm22 ... -09033.jpg" border="0" alt="C.australis"></a>

I had red sensation in a pot,a light frost and 35* did it in!
Turned to mush!
It was to wet for the cold.
Good luck with her!

That's a substantial size already, Jim. Nice work!

I had one and it died in the hot winds in summer, of all things.

Barb

It really surprised me and would have been pulled if I didn't cut it down to the ground.
I had a spike plant also,unfortunately I dug it up to plant other stuff.The roots were fine
As mentioned above,rain/cold was what knocked them back last Nov.
It really is amazing what will survive with a little moisture protection going into winter!

Hey Jim,
Spike plant could've gone into a pot ?!?

My area normally has no rain at all before the snow arrives (except this year, where we had 3 inches rain in 10 days...very rare).

What you say makes sense.
Barb

I was in search and destroy mode with the rational that anything that didn't make it would not recover in time.
This is true sometimes but when it's not we may get some cold hardy adaptation if the plant makes a full recovery.
I threw this one under the porch,whoops

Jim,

You might be interested in this C.australis discussion:
http://www.growingontheedge.net/viewtop ... 48214b15b7

Barb

Thanks Barb!