WOW!Your robusta is really taking off!bananas look good too.I think that black wall behind the washy really helps,I put some black mulch down around mine,this adds at least 10F on a day with light winds and sunny skys.If you wanted to give your robusta a boost going into fall,or all year for that matter ,some black rock instead of that white rock would be warmer,allthough it is doing great anyway! Everything looks awesome,good job! Let me know what you do as far as protection this fall/winter,I will do that same,my plan has allways been x-mas lights and house insulation wrapped with plastic and monitored with remote thermometer,keep in touch.

Everything looks nice, don't you just love those bananas, those are so fun to grow. Good job :)

I like the clean, simple design you have .. not to busy .... I walk out side and look at my yard and think, its just to busy but don't have the heart to trash any palms, etc ...... those little banana trees get to be big trees and sprout alot of baby's .... I had to dig mine up, they were taking over everything year after year .... I even exposed some of the root and stumps in the winter and come June here they come back ... again, nice land scaping.

Awesome wxman! Where are your sago palms? I would like to see it as well!

The sago palm hasn't grown at all since I planted it, but it is still green, so I figured it wasn't pic worthy since it looks the same as when I posted a pic of it in June.

Thanks for the comments guys...

Here are a few pictures of my palm enclosures that I will be putting over the palms this winter, each one will be supplemented with heat.

And a look inside...

Awesome shots and construction! I will definitely be able to use this technique next year or 2.

Dude you aint messing around!LOL,I have been thinking about protection every once in a while lately but you look like you could leave for the winter right now!!!!LOL Your plan looks good, nice job on your mini g/houses.I will start collecting my winter materials end of sept and begin covering my cactus bed nov 1 nice job!Hey check out this pic of a massive trachy in the mountains,look at all the snow piled up on the road,and the missing piece of the puzzle for many of us during winter-Dry air and sunny skies,its the pic over the horticultural info,you will need to scroll down-

Here is a link that might be useful: Mountain trachy

Jim,

Thanks for the comments. In my opinion, you can never start too early on figuring out how you will protect your palms for the winter. With two somewhat-tender washingtonia robustas in the ground, I don't want to take any chances on losing them, so going all out is the only way to go. I wanted to build a structure that could both keep in heat and still let in sunlight so they aren't absent of sun all winter. When they get bigger, though, I'm probably going to resort to cutting off the fans and wrapping it up like iowapalms did. There's no way I'm erecting a 10 ft greenhouse over it.

It will be a challenge though with the butia capitata and the trachycarpus fortunei though as they grow, because I don't think cutting their fronds off in the winter is an option. So I'll probably have to mulch extremely heavily, and tie up the fronds and wrap them with X-MAS lights the best I can, but that's a few years down the road, so no need to worry yet. Most nights here are above 10F in the winter because of the close proximity to Lake Michigan. I only get a few around zero each winter.

I think all things being eqaul your trachy will be the easiest to keep going.Did you see the pic of the trachy in the snowy mountains?If your lows are not below 10F you have a real shot at not needing to heat your g/h with your trachy in it very much, if at all.Hopefully we will have a mild winter like 2 years ago,when it was only cold for about 6 weeks