Hey Gardenbysarasota, It seems like Florida has had some unusually cold weather over the last 12 years. I lived in Coral Springs on the northwest side of Ft. Lauderdale for a couple of years (2000-2002). In January of 2001, it got down to 32F where I lived, but in Homestead an hour south, it got down to 28F and they are only 25 miles north of Key Largo! It is weird how it got so much colder further south than it did in Coral Springs. In the northern part of the Everglades, though it got down to 19F and wiped out 40,000 acres of sugarcane! I am afraid the over-development of Florida, especially South and Central Florida is drastically changing the climate there for the worst rapidly with unusually cold winters and extremely bad droughts. Our Texas coconut palms do not reach the 70ft.+ height like they do in South Florida and the Keys. We are looking if we can grow them to 20ft tall in overall height, with a few in the 30ft. height range in the Rio Grande Valley. I posted a couple of photos on another thread here of one in Brownsville that is approximately 40ft. tall to the top of the crown. That is about the maximum height we cold ever expect to grow on on the extreme lower Texas Coast. I think the palm in front of the coconut palm in the yard in South Padre Island is a Thatch Palm. I have seen a few in the area that are about 10-12ft. tall.

I saw a large O. cochenellifera growing under a tree in Dripping Springs and one in down town Austin in parking lot. They lived fine till these last awful winters. The one in Dripping Springs, west of Austin in the Hill country made it to 14' tall and hugely thick and bushy before it was killed by two bad winters. I think these made it through 19 degrees fine but 12F and 14F was too much for it. I do have a baby of the Dripping Springs plant that I drug inside during the cold front. I think that this plant would do well in S. A. but it might need to be sited right and if we get a huge cold front, you might need to cut it back to the size that one can protect. I managed to keep a O. indica-fera alive by cutting it down to the second rank of pads and padding it with a blanket and a garbage bag.

Trane, in my opinion. I think most brands have a saltwater kit where the coils can be coated to help further inhibit corrosion. But I like Trane's aluminum coils for these environments.

Hmmm, How about we just take them to you and then you can decide which ones you want. I'm not real good on plant names. The ones I do know are purple salvia, milkweed, shrimp plant, thornless passion plant, root beer (invasive), confederate rose... just an assortment, etc.