Actually, it gets pretty cold here where I'm at. We have already had close to 10 days this year below freezing and many of them in the 20's and one day at 19*. Last winter, before I planted any of my palms, we hit around 20* as well and had many, many freezes. First was in October when we hit 32*! We had a total of about 1 week of temps in the 20's... not all together, but 3 in a row one week. We often get below freezing until we are into March and I've even seen it even happen then a few times. The last 3 winters have been getting colder and colder for us... seems more like the 1970's and 1980's when we had a lot of cold weather down here. After some snow flurries and some sleet yesterday and a high of 35* we need to warm up! BTW, it was 23* this morning and they are calling for colder weather tomorrow morning.

The picture of your dwarf coconut tree looks nice there. It has healthy looking fronds. I wonder if it's just a dwarf, or is it really sick? So, were you able to get fruit out of it all the 10 years you've had it? Thanks for the link to the Indonesian website. They do have a lot of healthy looking coconut bonsai. I'm still trying to find out if they actually will produce fruit eventually. I've looked at some bonsai fruit trees on the you tube and they seem to be able to flower and produce some fruit. It would make a lot of sense for people like us to consider having bonsai trees if we cannot be sure that we can keep these tropical plants alive in the ground. You sure are a lot closer to the equator than where I am. You're over 800 miles and I'm around 2,500 miles off the equator. It's nice that you have the warm enough temperature to keep these beautiful trees there. So, do you have to manually irrigate your your landscape, or do you have an auto irrigation? It would be a lot of land to irrigate as you seem to have a huge place there. So, what do you do when your trees produce all the fruit there .. lol? Do you eat them? Do you know that coconut is known as the miracle fruit? There have been many articles and books written on it. A few years back, I started changing my cooking oil to coconut oil and include coconut milk and flour into my diet. It has brought tremendous improvement to my health situation. I've heard that coconut water is also a super nutrient drink, but I have to read more about it to find out if it contains a high sugar content which I'm trying to avoid. There's even someone on the internet selling fresh coconut water online.

Engadye, Sorry to see your coconut tree struggling. For the past few years, I've been stringing Christmas lights around mine. I also used a vinyl table cloth with flannel back to wrap around it whenever the temperature dropped further down. Your idea of wrapping it around with a comforter might have worked for you in the past. Don't give up on it too quickly yet. Mine is also looking not too good now ... Hope the weather will warm up for us soon and our coconut trees will all survive.

Also, try not to get too heavy of a blanet. Just a light blanket that keeps the air flowing, but some extra heat in, is good enough! My meditteranean fan palms didnt have a scratch on them after this past winter low of 7F with just christmas lights and a garbage bin (no frost cloth like some of my other palms). Mediterranean fan palms are really only hardy to about 15F or so before damage begins so Im sure that it was pretty comfortable in there for the palm. Windmill palms are even more cold tolerant so even no blanket should work in your new zone 6, if your worried about the fire hazard (and the thermocube is a great idea!). I dont think Coconut palms are pushing it in a zone 9b, because usually, they do really well (I've seen coconuts with fruit on them in Orlando before). The past 2 winters in Florida have been way below usual and thats why tropicals are dying off fast! The city of Orlando is probably more of a zone 10. Even with these past 2 record breaking winters, Orlando only went down to about 28F which is just shy of a zone 10. With Protection during the worst of winter, maybe 2 out of 20 years, coconuts would do great in Orlando, but fruiting isnt likely so they are definitely a marginal palm in a zone 9 and really need zone 10b and up to do there best (Miami/Fort Lauderdale area and south to the keys is safe for coconut palms) And you wont regret getting a remote thermometer! I had one in my pindo palm shelter for the 1st year and it was really helpful in determining when it was too hot or too cold in there (fortunately it never did get too cold). You dont want your palms going above 65F in the winter because then it will start growing again and new growth is always very tender to things like cold (that goes for most plants, but palms only have one growing point!) -Alex