No doubt there was damage in orlando, but those first few pics were ridiculous!! It makes me sad to think of the MILLIONS of dead palms probably in that city alone. Orlando has a much better climate for palms all thanks to the urban heat effect. There are royals in orlando with less damage than the queens nearby (which look like they have no recovery in sight).

I think after this cold spell Orlando deserves to be a zone 9b maybe a zone 10a (since there are zone 10 plants that surivived this historic cold) and Clermont should be a zone 9a maybe even an 8b in other areas nearby.
I wonder how the theme parks in orlando turned out. I know that some plants especially annuals had to be replaced, but Im thinking a lot of the tropicals made it through, probably with damage on some of the tender ones though.

Good luck!
Thanks for sharing the pics. They may be ugly but it really indicated the terror that the beautiful florida landscape had to go through this past winter. This freeze will definitely make people plant more cold tolerant palms in the severely effected areas just like the 1989 one did but eventually people will push there zones to the limit again. Now all you can do is hope that a hurricane doesnt wipe out these palms progress. Looks like an above average season!

Wow the damage is brutal. How cold did Clermont get for those queens and washys to be soo fried???

The last couple of Royals look great. They must of not experienced below 31F.???

Urban development really does make a big difference, those few degrees that can really affect things.

I live about 25 miles northwest of Detroit, but work about 10 miles out from city limits in one of the older, inner ring of suburbs. Everything here is about 5-7 days ahead of the same plants at my house. And, when we have those first snow in November/December, there is always more snow on the ground at my house. In fact, it's quite common for my immediate area to get an inch or two of snow, where I work to get like a dusting, and the same weather system to bring only rain in the City of Detroit proper. Those 3 or 4 degrees make the difference.

The great lakes area is another place with a lot of microclimates. Where I live the microclimates are a little more subtle slowly getting less mild the farther west you go and the farther away from the city. In the great lakes chicago is like a zone 6a maybe even 6b microclimates and surrounding areas are more like 5a's and 5b's. And the lake effect snow is always really interesting because sometimes there is just a narrow band that comes from the lake and is maybe 10 miles wide and 30 or 40 miles long and since it doesnt move much some areas get 3 feet of snow from it and areas 10 miles away dont even have to shovel!
Im really amazed at the mircoclimate in orlando because the plants there do just as well (maybe better) than those in tampa which is not only a city, but also right by the water.
Microclimates are very interesting and they are in all of our backyards too!

Good luck!
-Alex

I have been so busy lately but had to drop by my favorite forum.

Very good points. The damage is bad, but it appears that most queen palms made it. They are hardy to 15* unprotected, so my guess is that some cold spots really dipped low for a short while before sunrise during the cold weather in FL.

I noticed while in Orlando that urban areas; even just large highways with a few buildings prevent temps from dropping whereas under-developed or green areas were hit hard - the Hospital palms for example. I would guess Urban Orlando is zone 9b maybe 10 and the rural cold spots are 8a-b on rare cold winters 9a usually. Sorry rural Orlando.

I'm in Polk Co. I recorded a low of 16.7* and lost my 6' Bismarkia and a few Serenoa Repens., everything else seems to be coming right along. Many of my palms showed cold damage, spots on the emerging spears, such as my Needle palm and my Windmill even. A lot of my Saw Palmettos have some bad spots on the emerging spears, most are coming back, but a few are toast. The only ones to show zero damage were my Sabals and my Euros.

Jay- 16.7? How do other palms in your area look, such as the queens and washies? Also, was this the all time record low for your area?

I tried looking up the recorded lows for Clermont on wunderground.com but only saw results of 25-27F. For those queens and washingtonias to be in that bad of shape, it must have been much lower....high teens likely.

The low temp here this winter was 14F and that was in NYC!! Thats only 2 or 3 degrees colder than you in Florida. The cold this winter there was really amazing and very historic. But the duration of cold in my area was obviously a lot longer than down in florida, but I am really surprised and amazed at how cold it managed to get down there. The keys tied a record of 42F! Water temperatures went down to the upper 60s and killed many fish and tropical coral. Some of miami went below freezing although thanks to the great microclimate, many areas stayed above freezing.
This cold really outlined the areas where certain palms can grow in florida and thrive. Any plant that survived this cold spell can be considered a reliable palm to plant in that area.
Really just amazing cold!

Good luck!
-Alex

Near me, there are lots of dead looking Queen palms, Foxtails, Robellinis and the Washingtonias look bad in places. I'm out in the country basically with no trees around and it gets COLD here! Look at that map, we even had snow flurries and sleet this winter and that particular day, out high was only 33* here! That's one of my Sabal Louisianas covered in ice.

I definitely would be surprised to hear of any palms that are even a little tender to survive those temps.
Im glad you posted an image of the radar because I think that is so cool. I think the sleet line ended up reaching parts of southcentral florida. Really impressive.

Good luck!
-Alex

Yep, Saturday January 10, 2010. I sure remember that day. I was outside wrapping my coconut palm while being sleeted on. The daytime HIGH here was only 37F (avg for that date is 71). I woke up that morning to ice pellets banging against my bedroom window - felt just like times back in Illinois.

Thank you for posting that radar as well. I was so consumed on protecting my plants that day I forgot to check the radar maps. Interesting to see the line of rain (green) amid all the sleet (pink) while the front passed over Orlando.

I was in the middle of the "Lakeland Heat Island" if there is such a thing, and the lowest I saw was 26F. Where I live, we didn't see any snow, but our friends were sending pictures of snow, sleet, and ice to us on facebook. I thought for sure that the day where the high in urban Lakeland (right next to I-4) was 37F, that we'd see snow, but we didn't and only dropped to 27F that night. I even joked with my mom on the phone that I was packing for Key West.

Regarding the dead plants in Clermont, it could also be that other conditions played a part. The wind was howling this winter, and that has a way of drying out the trees faster along with negating some of the microclimates. A lot of the hardiness information we get is based on just a regular freeze with little or no wind. Can't say for sure, but I would theorize that it also helped lower soil temps because of the air constantly moving.

We also have to factor in individual plant genetics. I heard of coconut fatalities within 500 ft. of other plants that had maybe 40% leaf burn in Miami, then went to a very nice microclimate (surrounded by dense plants on all but the south side) in Vero Beach and found a plant with no damage.

This was easily the longest cold spell I have experienced, but not the coldest. When I lived in Frostproof, I saw 24F one night. It really sucked, but it didn't last long and the next day was 60F for a high, something that just didn't happen this year.

I think some areas in florida didnt even manage to break out of the 40s on some days. Key west didnt get above the 50s one day which is really unheard of (and a low of 42F tied the record!)
Definitely one of the worst and definitely longest cold spell to hit Florida in a very long time! The only thing that saved some of these plants were microclimates. Gotta love em!

The day we had sleet and snow flurries, our high here was only 33*.

What was interesting is when most of the east coast and south was having that cold front, the west was warmer than usual. We had our record cold about a month before the cold front hit florida:( I also noticed that when east of the rockies had an warm early summer, west of rockies had highs more than 10f below average.Interesting how weather in one area affects weather in another.
I hope that everyone has a mild winter, and good luck everyone!

Hi
Recently too a trip from southern PBeach county to Vero beach You could almost predict the damage by the mile markers lol By species the most damaged were coconuts that was even true in my neighborhood . Neighbor to the east lost 6 while west got damage in a couple of cases not even serious. Yards are less than 500 feet apart.
I personally lost nothing except for some alocasias and a Panama hat palm.
I was thinking that with all the record highs set in dec the rest of the winter would be a breeze.lol
Ma Nature has no respect at all for zones
Anyone care to predict NEXT winter?? lol
Note they are predicting record hurricane season . Hope they are wronglol gary

I live in Tallahassee and we got no snow or sleet. The sago's and washingtonians were the the only damaged palms. The queens were killed, although I don't know why anyone would plant them here anyway. The date palms and cabbage palms did fine. All my bananas came back too!