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Is it possible that my needle palm got bud rot already? The newer leaves have a yellowish color to them. I'm wondering if water got in the crown and froze. Can't post pics now but can later if necessary.

Very possible...the first cold is the worst cold for the palms
esp when it comes early like this year,a bunch of my offsets
from the offsets pulled this spring from our lousy March.

It's crazy because when I noticed the leaf discoloration we had only had a low of 17 F (zone 8b). It makes me wonder how these can even be grown in northern florida. I suppose they probably don't get that cold in Tallahassee in October though. Do you think protecting them from moisture before an early freeze would help or would it not matter? Have you noticed similar performance on Sabal Minor McCurtain?

LOL

I know...the only thing I can tell you is,one of mine survived in a leaf cage
the winter it got down to -18F...I became more fond of them then.

I just look at the leaves and if they are behaggered -I just cover them.
I do think that getting some trunk size will serious bump up the hardiness
and I am sure there would be a toughening up of the leaves,
I have one that has been exposed more that is a clumper and one
that still has its main trunk and outside the Sabal is the only palm to never pull.

I don't think moisture over winter for these is an issue unless the palms are small.

I heard the palms that come in the blue pots, "the cold hardy palms", are garbage; which is where my needle palm came from. I'm thinking of trying another company to see if their needle's are more hardy. Do you heat your regular Sabals (not McCurtain)?

Protecting any palm from moisture before an early freeze would help, especially Sabal minor, needles are more hardy, hope yours get out alive.

cuja1 wrote:I heard the palms that come in the blue pots, "the cold hardy palms", are garbage; which is where my needle palm came from. I'm thinking of trying another company to see if their needle's are more hardy. Do you heat your regular Sabals (not McCurtain)?

I think the blue pots are the (Monrovia?)plants from Florida,so possibly not as
hardy as one that has seen some cold-easy fix,protect when young...as the new
leaves and stem that holds them form they will become more hardy as they are
exposed to it=just takes a while toughen up but they will.

My blue pot needles all died when they spent a winter unprotected in any way. Not sure it is a consequence of their source. I still think of them as hardy; the Tulsa Zoo has had one for years not protected in any way, and the Oklahoma City Zoo has several they do not protect.

Personally, I would try to keep them dry, but just based on my limited experience.

Well...like so many things in life,if you can get established you can stick,
that is tough to do in a cold climate but a breeze if a few minimum requirements
are meant-until your palms start getting bigger-don't assume any hardiness.

Here is pic of my Needle Palm I got from Jungle Music. This will be it's 2nd winter in the ground and although I have a 6ft section of plumbing heat tape around the root ball, the only other protection it gets is that 1/2 barrel and the plexiglass top to keep snow off of it. It has no supplemental heat and does just fine.

It looks snug.

sashaeffer wrote:Here is pic of my Needle Palm I got from Jungle Music. This will be it's 2nd winter in the ground and although I have a 6ft section of plumbing heat tape around the root ball, the only other protection it gets is that 1/2 barrel and the plexiglass top to keep snow off of it. It has no supplemental heat and does just fine.

Do you protect it from rain before it freezes? That's the only thing I can figure out that I did wrong. I didn't think you even need to protect them until about december. If they can get bud rot in october, what should you do to prevent that?

I haven't. Palm is up against side of garage on South side and to certain extent under eve of house. What you see in pics isn't air tight at all.

cuja1 wrote:Is it possible that my needle palm got bud rot already? The newer leaves have a yellowish color to them. I'm wondering if water got in the crown and froze. Can't post pics now but can later if necessary.

I don't see anything wrong with it.

On a different note the following year after buying I bought two Needle palms in Blue pots late summer on close out for $25 each. Planted them in the ground again, close to the house and I didn't use heat tape, but did put 1/2 barrel over them with a cover and neither of them made it this spring. They were 5 gallon container just like my first one from JM. I can't help but think the heat tape worked as designed to keep roots from freezing.

I've heard that they need to survive 3 years in the ground with protection to get established to the point where they don't need as much protection, if any at all. I for one will protect mine every year and plug it in.

One issue with Needles is that if they pull at a small size-they will often
abort the main trunk in favor of quantity/the side shoots and you lose the main plant..

Better to be careful at first and protect-I had some of the side-shoots off the side-shoots
pull from our crappy March here last year-that did surprise me but they were small.

It would be great if we could all start with small plants (maybe even from seed if you are a younger person )
and find the strongest of the group and plant those! I have ended up backing into this method...whatever I lose
is replaced with the toughest of the smaller palms I have-got a real cold hardy Takil and Tesan in that group
and a few Manipur and Takil in pots that have made it where other have pulled-it will be fun to see how these handle
cold later as they get bigger.

@Jim, we all did have a totally crappy spring. Wet heavy snow here in Omaha first week in MAY totally sucked, and damaged some stuff I had put outside. Cool temps just added to the frustration.

Yea...I think we had our warmest march(2012)followed by our coldest(2013)...lots of snow
in late Feb/March,I really hope this early and brisk start to "winter" will have us enjoying an
early spring in March(at least decent)-I would also love to see what the tropicals could do
if we ever had even normal/+ rainfall again.


BTW

I was reading on the forecasters discussion this morning that there could be a major winter storm in a week....

My needle has been in the ground a few years now..it has almost a foot of trunk and I don't so alot for it. last year it had a bag of straw over it..this year it has burlap wrapped and some plastic over the burlap top to keep the rain off..im sure wind and all gets in there with out a problem and I see no bad signs yet. It might have helped a spear was emerging when it was raining to keep the crown packed well and not let as much moisture in... I also left a potted chinese fan out b/c I didn't have a place to put it..2 of the 4 trunks pulled...the other 2 are hanging in there with temps in the mid teens already

Mike, have you thought about planting your Chinese fan palm in the ground as a die back perennial? Last year I had two and both made it just by cutting them back to the ground and I threw 3 bags of mulch over the top.(got idea from another member here to buy bags of mulch on sale in the fall and use the full bags as insulation)


Both palms made it even though we had the coldest, wettest spring on record. No, they didn't come back to the size they were I'm sure because they got such a late start but they did survive and hopefully will come back even stronger this coming spring although I'm over wintering them a bit differently.

if it makes it to my new house ill plant it

I think Needle palms are just great also. I just blanket them here sometimes with no addittional heat and we went down to -36C once last winter and there was very little damage first needle has been in the ground for 3 years the larger ones are new almost 8 feet tall . I sent a few of these big needles to a few members in BC, Long Island. Ontario and Montreal South Shore Maybe they will post pics. !!