Very interesting Islandbreeze. I have always thought of Rapidophyllum Hystrix as the MOST hardy of all palms. I still do. Perhaps the one you got just was not the most hardy needle there was. Some palms, even of the same species are just not as hardy as others for whatever reason.

I suppose my belief that Needle palms are more hardy than Sabal Minors is at least partially due to the fact they are PROVEN here in the mid Atlantic. I have not seen too many long term Sabal Minors here over the years, but there are quite a few long term Needle palms here. That said, I am seeing alot more Sabal Minors, some of which are at least 10 years old or possibly more. There are several large needle palms in the area that have been here for 20-30+ years however.

I have both outdoors in the ground, and both seem to be doing just fine. But then again, I am in a borderline 7b/8a zone, although this winter has been more 7a like... at last January anyway. Single digits are very rare here, and we have had 2 nights of that, and a stretch of 4-5 days where we stayed below freezing, which is VERY abnormal.

You can grow any of the palms on your list and quite a few more if your willing to protect.
Sabals are less likely to get spear pull than needles,so they tend to establish a little faster,as far as protection goes I am finding that styro foam works best as it keeps the leaves from being damaged by winter sun and insulates/protects from wind and cold and is easier to warm up under protection,also my styro covers don't heat up during sunny days to more than 10F above outside temps,styrofoam works like snow without the added moisture and 4 little c-7 x-mas lights under a styrofoam(rose cover)adds 40F+ temp bump from outsde temps,note the 2 styrofoam containers in this pic,they have 4 c-7 bulbs,(the bigger one with the 5g bucket has 6)they stayed in the 40Fs to 50F with outside temps as low as -16F

I assume that the insulation board box method is exactly what it sounds like? If not, please explain. I have some very large discarded sliding glass doors that I was going to use as a lean-to against the house and then cover the two ends with thick opaque plastic. This should eliminate wind damage and keep the temp around the plants a few degrees warmer. I read a study that measured the temperature difference between the inside and outside of plastic-wrapped teepee style protection. Their results showed that it increased the temperature by 5-10 degrees within. If the Trachy's will require such elaborate protection (heating element under a wrap) just to get them to survive, then I think I might forgo them. I'm much more comfortable with building a portable cold frame that I can place over the plants for the winter and remove come sprin. I'm currently doing that for my cold hardy cacti, agave, and yucca garden with pretty good results.

jimhardy, that sounds easy enough, but what about when the plants start to put on size? Would building a 6 or 8 foot tall box out of insulation board and placing light bulbs within be sufficient? If so, that would be easy enough to place and remove. Maybe I will give the Trachys. a go. . . :)

Treeguy,
Yes insulation board boxes are just that. Below is my "coldest" box for my needle palm. I only heat it with a low watt landscape spot light. We had a night of -15F this year and the box stayed in the mid-20's. The average temp of the box is 42F.

Good Luck!!
Craig

Thanks for the pictures Craig. Do you leave the lights on 24-7?

I leave the lights on 24/7 if temps are below 32F. Above 32F I put my landscape light setting back on dusk/dawn.

I was thinking about our summers here in WNY and whether or not the palms will do well for me. Our average summer temperature is in the mid to low 80's F and we only go over 90F for an average of 3.7 days per summer. We usually don't even hit 80F until mid to late June. Evening/overnight temperatures are in the mid to low 70's F, rarely if ever above 80F. Cold hardiness is one thing, but how well will they survive the winters if they don't have optimum growth during the summers? Do you think the summers are too cool for the palms to do well here? I know "just try it and find out" is the best answer, but anyone have an educated guess as to how these guys will perform for me? My seedling needle palm only puts out 1 leaf per summer in full sun with ample moisture; he's up to 4 strap leaves now.

Again, here are the species I'm going to try:
Rhapidophyllum hystrix
Sabal minor 'McCurtain'
Sabal 'Birmingham'
Sabal louisiana
Sabal 'Tamaulipas'
Trachycarpus wagnerianus 'Korean form'
Trachycarpus fortunei 'Taylor form'
Trachycarpus fortunei 'Tesan'

I think the answer to your question is that you can get almost anything to survive if you protect it with the exception of tropical plants because the ground temps would kill them before the air assuming your keeping the air warm enough.
Cali and I have washys growing and they will damage with repeated exposure to low 20s so any of the palms you have on your list are fine,I think besides the obvious reasons why styrofoam work so well is that it keeps the winter sun from burning the leaves which is the goal really growing palms up north,Needles are so alow growing and require heat as do Sables but needles get spear pull alot easier and need a long season to recover,I think its possible that needle palm leaves are more cold resistance than Sable but that won't help if your needle loses its leaves from spear pull etc.When I first got into this I thought,oh good these can take 0F and less but when you look at these hardiness stories they are almost always well established palms that had mild weather before and after the severe cold event,there probably are some stories out there about these palms surviving winters like you or I have but they usually limp through and die the following winter or the next.What I was starting to say is that the first three years you really need to protect them,they will get more cold hardy every year-I was reading on a Korean website about waggie and they said that they need to be leaf and trunk protected for winter, wrapped,mulched and a shelter from wind built around them with a "clear" top for light and only heated when temps go below 0F,which I thought was interesting.You don't need to worry about your summers being warm enough for Sables and needles if you can bring them through with most of their foliage intact because this will increase the growth over the summer each year,my sables mature leaves are undamaged to single digits in styro covers-
Where did you get you T.tesan and Korean waggies?
One more thing,any of these cold hardy palms leaves become more resistant to cold as they mature with strap leaves being the most prone to damage-your palms will have optimum growth and do well in your climate as long as they come through winter with little damage,if cali can get a washy through you should have no prob with Sables,Trachys and Needles

If your concern is more a lack of summer heat than winter cold, I would suggest Trachycarpus (especially T. wagnerianus). Needles and serval species of Sabal have greater cold tolerances compared to Trachycarpus, but they are also slower growing and have higher heat requirements for summer growth. Trachycarpus will actually slow down in higher heat (over 90 F.), so mine (in the ground) will actually grow faster in the Spring and Fall compared to Summer. As Jim says though, you are going to have to protect you plant (trunk and leaves) through the Winter seaasons.

I agree you can't lose with waggies!they may be the most cold hardy of them all.I don't think summer heat is a problem with Sables or hystrix if they maintain all their leaves over the winter as long as you have avg temps in the 80s- unlike Europe where I think it is a problem,its just that zone 5-6 summer heat is so short lived,mine were really growing with the late warmth we had last year.

Treeguy,you asked about what to do when they get bigger-I will probably just tie the leaves up and heat with x-mas lights,burlap wrap and insulation,its actually at least as easy as building a box if you have all the materials-

Why no mention of Serenoa? Is it too slow growing to be of interest. Or is it not exceptionally hardy?

Bananas,the one you mentioned,serenoa repens(saw palmetto) was not even on my list I made when I was first researcing cold hardy palms,(oops it is)if memory serves they are damaged by middle teens and are agonizingly slow growers,thats a tough combination for zone benders,on the other hand some of us are growing washys that are more cold sensitive than that(low 20s)the difference is that you could get a foot trunk alone and 6-10 leaves even this far north which makes washys well worth the effort but I would not discourage anyone from trying any cold hardy palm if they are willing to protect it in winter,saw palmetto is bud hardy even if the leaves don,t make it.

I'll let you know in about 5 years on the Saw palmettos. I have 4 seedlings of a silver saw palmetto going in the ground this spring.

Thanks all for the information. I was worried our growing season would be too cool and too short to foster sufficient growth. I thought poor growth would lead to poor resistance to cold temperatures and ultimately the decline of the plants. So, I'll focus on keeping as many leaves green over the winter as possible and see what I get!

jimhardy, I got my T. 'tesan' and korean waggie from Jeff, you put me in contact with him.

I also have a couple more questions. This is the first time I've germinated palm seeds. I have a couple Trachycarpus seeds and Rhapidophyllum seeds that are showing cotyledonary petiole growth after just under two weeks in warm moist potting mix in zip lock bags. When should I pot the seeds up into pots; now or wait until there is further radicle development. Here's a pic:
{{gwi:1121951}}
Thanks for the help!

Treeguy NY -- I think you've got it exactly right when you question whether Sabal and Needles will do well for you in W. NY state. I've had the exact same experience here in SE Michigan (NW suburbs of Detroit). Both the various Sabals I tried and the Needles grew so very slowly that they really were NOT happy here. It's definitely, IMO, due to the lack of summer heating. Trachycarpus fortuneii and T. takil, however, don't have that problem, and are rapid and vigorous growers. Also, European Fan Palms are another good choice, as they too do well in cooler conditions.

I had a great deal of success getting these to overwinter here under heavy cover without artificial heat, EXCEPT for problems with voles chewing them up. I finally gave up and redug and repotted my trachies, needles, and sables and now winter them in my barely heated garage, because the voles wouldn't leave them alone. I had a beautiful, large European fam about 5 feet tall, thick, full, multi-stemmed and with suckers. I uncovered it in the spring to find a bunch of stems severed at the base, as voles had completely eaten the trunks and crown of the plant. Alas, I dried the fans and used them to make a dried floral arrangement.

My suggestion is that you start out with some Trachies and see how they do for you, which should be great, and then go from there.

Thanks for the info on your experience denninimi. I'm looking forward to see how they do on my property. I guess the only thing now is to try them and see. One of the waggies I purchased as well as one of the T. fortunei I purchased are big enough to plant outside. Hopefully I can revive this thread a year from now with some info on how they survive next winter!

I completely agree with Denninmi: If you are going to protect your palms over the winter, trachycarpus is definitely the way to go. I had one that survived 3 Michigan winters and lived for 4 summers with very minimal heat over the winter. It experienced 6 degrees two winters in a row. The third winter, I was not home to turn the lights on to warm it, and the temp dropped to zero degrees. The following spring, it started regrowing from April until about June, then stopped growing and rotted. Too much moisture, think I was watering it too much.

Ok, sorry to revive an older thread, but I was able to pull up some more info from local climate records. I found the average monthly temperatures for my area and they are much lower than I thought. Here's the data, all in fahrenheit:
Jan - 24.8
Feb - 25.6
Mar - 33.5
Apr - 45.6
May - 56.6
Jun - 66.2
Jul - 71.1
Aug - 69.4
Sep - 62.3
Oct - 51.5
Nov - 40.7
Dec - 29.7

Keep in mind these are only average monthly temps. Average summer maximum is 91 and average winter minimum is -5.

Since my area's average monthly temps don't even reach 75, I would like to ask you experienced folks here if you think any of the Sabals will have enough heat/warmth to grow? Everything I've read says they need it hot in order to put out decent growth. I'd rather not plant a palm and put effort into winter protection if it is only going to send up one frond a year. Based on this data, I've decided to add Butia eriospatha to my list of palms to try outdoors as they come from a high elevation/cool growing season habitat. I'll just have to put extra effort into protecting them. Has anyone up north had good success with this species? Thanks!

I think B.eriospatha is a good one to try,I am planting one this spring,as far as the Sabals go you always try one and see how it does,my S.louisiana have grown well in the few short months they had before fall,you can give Sabals a little help by planting next to a south facing brick wall,adding black rock around them or black mulch,this will help raise the temp on sunny days-Best of luck!

I hadn't thought about adding heat sinks around the Sabals during the growing season. Great idea. I'll stick them right up against the southern foundation. I was shocked to find out our average summer temps were so mild. It sure doesn't feel that cool!

Treeguy:
Welcome to the world of zonal denial! I'm doing the same thing in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which is also a little pocket of Zone 6A. I've not seriously attempted overwintering palms here yet, but it is being tried by a number of people in Nova Scotia. I believe that one trick to this, especially for those of us who never see major heat in the summer (our summer temperatures are much like yours) is to place the palm where it will get the most sun and heat. I am thinking that I might even place some black gravel or stones around the base of the plant to facilitate the heating of the earth and to radiate stored heat at night. This causes the plant to produce the sugars which will be metabolized into the glycols which will serve as antifreeze in the winter. Also, if you've not already done so, hit up amazon.com for a copy of Prof. David Francko's book: Palms Won't Grow Here and Other Myths. there is a lot of information, based on extensive experimentation in there. His discussions of the topic will certainly give you food for thought.

Moisture can be a bigger enemy in the winter than the cold. I would recommend giving the palms a treatment of an anti-fungal before sealing them up for the winter.

I hope you continue to push the limits of what people consider to be appropriate for your zone. It's fun, and we enthusiasts are pioneers in the garden world. When I started, the local "garden mafia" told me "You can't grow that here". Well, the giant grasses and bamboos and yuccas have left them scratching their heads! Rock on, dude!

I know what you mean about the "garden mafia". I was told the same about my bamboos and bananas. I'll try the heat sink idea and see how much of a difference that creates. It can only help! Great info/recommendations, thanks.

Hi, guys! I live in west of Ukraine, zone 6. This zone is not the best choice for growing palms and other exotic plants. But last year, i planted small trachycarpus fortunei in my fathers garden. This palm have survived our winter with frost about -20 C for two days in december without any damage. I do not use any extra heat.
[img]http://s40.radikal.ru/i089/0902/35/6cd206435b01.jpg[/img]
Therefore i think what trachycarpus fortunei is one of the best hardy palm!

The black mulch I added to my palm gardens adds about 10F on a sunny calm day-

serj_ukraine you need to understand something about trachys
and that is they can be damaged and not even show until months later.

Welcome Serg,couldn't get your link to work,would love to see pics of your trachys-

This is Serg Link, leave off the first part
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/followup.cgi

Sorry my mistake this is it, leave off the first part, and last part , this link is correct
http://s40.radikal.ru/i089/0902/35/6cd206435b01.jpg

Hi! I'm here. I have posted some pics of my trachycarpus.
[img src=http://s40.radikal.ru/i089/0902/35/6cd206435b01.jpg]
[img src=http://s43.radikal.ru/i102/0903/0c/71658ccd0c91.jpg]
[img src=http://i057.radikal.ru/0903/55/a087002353c3.jpg]
To topher2006. Thank's for this useful information!
To jimhardy. Thank's. I liked your palms and other exotic plants!

Serg,I still can't get your links to work-

jimhardy, I still can not put correctly link to my pics. How can i do it?

Try using webshots or photobucket and loading you pics from your computer to there then just copy and paste your links from there.

This is a direct link to my pics.
http://s40.radikal.ru/i089/0902/35/6cd206435b01.jpg
http://s43.radikal.ru/i102/0903/0c/71658ccd0c91.jpg
http://i057.radikal.ru/0903/55/a087002353c3.jpg

Thanks for posting your question treeguy. I have 7 gal. Rhapidophyllum hystrix, Sabal minor, and Trachycarpus fortunei that I'd been considering planting at my parent's house in 7a Virginia. I appreciate hearing the real world experiences of growing these unprotected in colder zones, and I marked T. fortunei off the list. My parents are too busy to protect anything. I'm going to gamble with the R. hystrix just because it looks better as an individual specimen than S. minor in my opinion.
Needle palm in the background, bluestem palmetto foreground.

Glad to hear this discussion has helped you. It has certainly helped me too. From what people have said, the amount of effort you put into winter protection will determine which palms you plant. For me, that bit of advice turned into "how many hardy palms I buy will determine the effort I put into winter protection". So the madness begins . . . the only problem is now I have more cold hardy palms than I do space along my southern foundation! I suppose if I'm going to go all out with winter protection, any sunny location would be adequate. I'll have to think planting sites out a little more. Thankfully, most of the plants I've ordered are quite small and won't be ready to go outside for at least another year. I may have gone just a little overboard, but here's my "final" list of palms to try growing outdoors in western NY:

Butia eriospatha
Butia capitata var odorata
Rhapidophyllum hystrix
Sabal 'Birmingham'
Sabal louisiana
Sabal miamiensis
Sabal minor 'Cape Hatteras'
Sabal minor 'McCurtain'
Sabal 'Tamaulipas'
Trachycarpus fortunei 'Nainital'
Trachycarpus fortunei 'Taylor's Form'
Trachycarpus fortunei 'Tesan'
Trachycarpus fortunei 'Winsan'
Trachycarpus takil
Trachycarpus wagnerianus
Trachycarpus wagnerianus 'Korean Form'

Some of these are seeds and the rest are one or two year seedlings. It will be a year or two of growing in pots before they're large enough to plant outside. Hopefully I can post pictures in a couple years of my far north palm collection like so many people here have!

Quite a collection. I wish you the best of luck with your palm garden! I like the Florida natives on the list especially. Sabal miamiensis is an interesting choice. I wouldn't mind having one of those (they are technically extinct), but I have the similar Sabal etonia. Mature S. etonias have proven to be almost impossible to transplant for me. Seems to be somewhat of an aggressive grower for a Sabal seedling though--they are the sun-worshipers of the genus.

Heres one of my S. etonia about 3 yrs old in partial sun.

Serj,I did see your palms this time looks like a good protection plan,I thought the second pic was of a frozen caveman at first,but your 3rd pic cleared it up.I would think you'll get 5-6 leaves this year,good luck!

Treeguy,you have done your homework,IMO S.tamaulipas is not as hardy as people say,I think this comes from an area that is pretty constant in its temps,it is a great Sabal though and I wish you luck if you can find a sizeable one.

Tallafl,sorry you lost those two,they look really nice in your last picture-

Thanks for posting pics of your guys. Sorry to hear about your etonias rotting. That will be a difficult challenge for me in my climate because fall and spring are very wet and cool/cold. I have a hard time getting four or five dry days in a row in the fall so that my Musa basjoo dry out enough for me to wrap them for the winter.

I love the extremely costapalmate leaves of S. miamiensis. When someone I was ordering other seedlings from had one, I couldn't pass it up. I figure since it is trunkless, it should be easy for me to provide long term winter protection.

Here's my R. hystrix seedling. It is finishing winter #2 with no protection, planted about a foot and a half off the south foundation:

Jimhardy, that's too bad about S. 'Tamaulipas'. Yucca Do's article on it says they have reports of it surviving 0F with no damage, and a PACSOA reference claims 6F with no damage. I liked the descriptions I read about it because it said fast growing, very large leaves, and hardy. I guess I'll just have to make sure it's protected properly!

Definitely a worthy Sabal,I have tried 3 of them and they never made it past the summer,well actually my last one died a few months ago so.....
Maybe they are hardy once they are established( they are a Sabal after all!)but I never got that far.

Is there anything in particular that you think contributed to their demise? I'd be interested to know so I can avoid such circumstances! My two seedlings currently have 2-3 strap leaves. I plan on growing them in pots until they start throwing fan leaves, then planting them out.

You know I started with a lot of palms/cactus,etc,because I wanted to try many protection methods so,about 30 palms and 30 cactus,I think the problem right off the bat is some are just to small,you really have to be carefull about pushing the limits with smaller plants and some big ones,as I got right in the middle of this I realized that you are better off over protecting early,even if that means over protecting early in the season.I have not lost a single palm over the winter,however most of the damage was done in November, so I would say in the short term late fall / early spring are the most critical times and in the long term the first three years.If your soil holds moisture cover your plants from rain Oct 1 so they go into winter on the dry side and in spring water more regularly when the temps go back to the 70s.

Hey denninmi, sorry to jump in late like this, but you say you keep yours in an unheated garage......do you give them any light or just let them go for the winter and then slowly adapt them to light again in the spring?? Bringing in a 30 gal pot to the garage for the winter would not be impossible as I do this for other plants......if you can keep one in a pot and overwinter in an unheated garage without added high intensity light I might even try one of the Trachys :o) Dan

jimhardy, Thanks for the pointers, much appreciated. Next year I'm deffinately going to add some protection to the needle palm I posted a pic of above. I think the only reason it has survived both winters is because of snow cover on the below zero days. I also have a cold hardy cactus garden. I'm going to take a peek under its winter cover this week and see if I have any casualties.

Good luck treeguy,the only cactus I lost were from overwatering,(actually from not covering them in Oct like I should have!)I have uncovered my cactus garden as of Wednesday but I do have a rain cover handy,its just been to hard to keep them cool this time of year,last weekend with temps in the low 70s it got up to 98F in there,so they are much better off right now,what we need is some rain to get them perked up,hope all your cactus made it.

Yesterday, my Tr. fortunei was burned (partly) by sun radiation. The palm was under glass shield. Is this possibly? And what can i do to prevent this trouble?

Maybe you can just shade it during the peak part of the day-11am to 3pm and start giving it more sun a little at a time and uncovering on cloudy days

Hi Treeguy. What part of WNY are you in?
I'm in Rochester NY (City NW) and am growing Musa Basjoo, Musa Sikkimensis, and Musella Lasiocarpa in-ground. I was told that the Sikki and the Musella would have to be dug up over winter, but I left them in-ground very covered up in mulch and they're doing great. This was their first winter here.

MY palms are all in pots and while not in-ground, they ARE in an unheated porch out back. Monitored temps dipped as low as low 20's some nights with usual highs in the upper 30's/low 40's. There was a brief super-cold spell where the lows read in the teens, but daytime highs were 30's. My palms are T. fortunei, T. wagnerianus, T. takil, T. latisectus (everyone expects this one to die, so I'm thinking about mailing it to a cousin south), and two Butia capitata. The pots aren't insulated or anything, so I was lucky.... but they lived. I can't plant in-ground until I buy a home, but I'm definitely planning on it. I have waggies which I germinated from seeds and they spent winter out in that shed too, but I brought them in during the cold spell.