So I posted some photos and such of my Trachy back in November of 2008, and stated I was going to try and overwinter it in a pot, on the ground. Well, I did just that, and not only did it survive, it survived with not too much leaf damage, and it is now growing like gang busters. This palm was on the south side of a 3 story red brick building, right up against a wall, protected from only wind. Not from rain/ice/snow. It even had frost on it quite a few times that close to the building, which is not normal.

Basically, I put its pot, inside of another pot that was twice as large, and filled the space between with mulch (wood), leaves, and clippings from shrub trimming. I packed the space TIGHTLY with this "mulch" mixture. I also added a heavy layer of wood mulch, 3" deep on top of its soil, and covered that with 3-4 large river rocks. The pot was directly on the ground, and the edge of the pot was touching the building. I never covered the crown/ leaves. On the coldest spells, I wrapped the top of the pot, and the trunk in clear 1/8th inch thick plastic, the same kind you use to keep drafts out of old windows or to cover window A/C units. On warmer sunny days I would remove the plastic and let it "air out". It did get sun on sunny days, pretty much most of the day. while it was protected from most winds, there were a few days where the winds were from the S/SW, and it did get whipped around pretty good, and that did shred the leaves a bit. It did take the full brunt of a couple of ice storms, and several snows, including one of 9 inches. It also saw 8F, about 5 times, and saw below 16F about 13 times, and did have a few spells of a couple days where the temps never got over 20F. The other thing that I did ( or did not do) was water it all winter. I let mother nature take care of that. I poured NO water into the pot AT ALL from december until april of this year. Some snow and ice did get in the pot, as did some rain.

That was all I did. The rest I left up to mother nature. I diligently paid attention to it, and did notice after one of the ice storms what appeared to be some leaf damage, on the second newest leaf. The newest leaf was open, but still straight up and down and had not pushed the petiole up much at all, and the spear stayed hard, and green, and very strong all winter. Aside from looking a little tattered, and a rather pale, light green now, it is doing fantastic. The leaf that was straight up and down, but open, but with hardly any petiole showing has now fully pushed out, and the spear has also fully pushed out and opened fully, and there are two new spears coming, the next one should begin to open in a week or so. Below are some photos of the palm, its corner it lived in, its pot arrangement, and its leaf damage.

This thing has proven to be tough as nails. I guess it is now fully hardened off after going through one of the worst winters (in terms of severe cold snaps) here in NoVA in 10 years.

Captions are for the photo BELOW each caption.

Trachy May 27, 09

Trachy May 27, 09

Trachy Pot, inside a pot, insulation arrangment -- Note that I have cleared away much of the top layer of mulch and leaves.

New Leaves: Leaf on the right was way down, standing straight up and down with almost no petiole showing until late april when it started to move. Leaf on the left was the closed spear that made it through winter, and opened in late april.

Closeup of New Spear. The large spear was almost entirely down in the trunk all winter. If you look closely you can even see the next one after it on the left side of it pushing out now. I expect this leaf to open in the next couple weeks.

Here is the "corner" where it resided all winter, just as you see it. It was placed in the photo where there is now that empty pot you see.

Close up of freeze damage from ice storms.

Photo of the entire leaf that suffered most of the freeze damage from ice storms.

And the small trachy that I kept inside in a south window. It pushed up 4 new leaves this winter, however when i put it outside, 2 of the new ones burned from the sun and had to be removed, but it has since put up a whole new leaf, and has 2 more that I can see coming.