Question of Sago trimming.....

A lot of our Sagos got some cold damage recently. Should we be trimming all that dead stuff off now? Or wait until spring?

And on ones that look like this......should we trim the entire frond off....or just the dead part?

I am going to start soon and will cut all fronds off. Cutting only damaged ones will make plants look awkward or unbalanced.

Mine is in a pot and I am a bit worried about the roots after those teen temps.
I am going to leave mine looking ugly and wait till it puts on new growth. Then, I'll remove all of the dead foliage.

I'd leave them and just call them variegated until they get new fronds. Besides, you can't be sure there won't be another bout of this weather again. Seems that the top fronds sheltered the plant below. Take them off and what's below has less protection.

On that I will agree although I hope you are wrong on the "another bout of this weather" LOL!

Interestingly enough recently there was talk amongst some weather people that the jetstream in the northern hemisphere might "kink" again. That's what would force tropical air up into the arctic regions displacing a mass of cold air southwards, as had recently happened. The thing is to always be prepared and then be pleasantly surprised and count your blessings if it doesn't happen. Better than being unpleasantly surprised. On that jetstream matter, there were also a lot of weather people who thought it wouldn't develop to that extent.

You mean the Weather Guessers?

They are the only folks I know who are wrong more than 50% of the time....and still have a job.

Weather is one of my 'hobbies'. But my interest is more in tropical weather. There are so many variables involved it's interesting trying to second guess how patterns are going to evolve. In the end it does come down to guessing, but a calculated guess.

We had a Texas freeze earlier in December that did a decent amount of damage
before "the big one." I waited right up until the last minute to examine 5 and 10
day forecasts before I left for 8 days/7 nights in Vegas then California.

There was no prediction or indication from any weather source, and I read them
all, that there would be such an occurrence while I was gone. I had to prepare plants,
animals, wells, pools, etc.

On the 5th day it set in for two days...nearby it got to 17.8F when the 1962 record
here had been 23.

Is this the other "kink"? This is the Austin forecast Th-Sa
upcoming. Mine's not much better. My favorite is looking
at the forecast (low 22F) as it's actually already 18F right
outside your window, and they update the forecast online to 18.

We're only supposed to get to 29F here...right...

Time to cover everything again. Maybe we should just get one big tent to cover the entire yard. Might save time in set up.

Hey, the forecast just improved decently!
I think there has to be a market for a "personal biosphere"...like
some big bubble for the whole yard.

Around here just a tarp over a lemon tree can end
up in Oz without at least a dozen concrete blocks.

Years ago I was in Northern Italy and saw where they turned on water sprinklers in orchards when they expected a freeze in the spring time. Water froze around the tree blossoms. Ice is a good insulator (ask any Eskimo living in an igloo) and inside the temperature wouldn't go below 0C (freezing point). This was in predominantly apple and peach growing areas. I wouldn't recommend it for tropical fruits ;O)

Interesting point.

We had an actual ice storm here about three years
ago and I only lost a single very small queen palm.
The fan palms were "splayed": crowns straight up
and all other fronds straight down. They weren't even
burned after the melt. Scary sight at first.

Nature's gigantic sprinkler.

Since my last post here the forecast got hideous
and now it's decent for the second time.

They were just showing the sprinkler thing on the news last week down in Florida to protect the citrus crop during that nasty cold spell they had.

Another snippet of trivia, well actually there is relevance. Humid air doesn't chill (or heat) as much as dry air. That's why in the tropics despite the intensity of the sun the temperatures don't get so high. Mind you, the heat index makes up for it. Not unusual for the heat index here being up around 50C while the actual temperature is in the low to mid 30's celcius.

I remember that ice storm......for four days everything was covered with ice. But the plants came through that pretty well.

I've been watching the temps drop all afternoon. Supposed to get to 29 tonite and tomorrow night will be even colder. Can't imagine what February will bring. It's usually a colder month than January. What a strange winter!!

BTW, I'm not trimming any sagos or anything until the end of February. I figure the dead leaves will just protect any new growth that might appear during warmer days. My yard really looks ugly, but then so does the whole neighborhood. Wonder how everything will turn out this spring. Maybe a lot of our plants will come back. We can only hope.

Keep warm, everybody............

This message was edited Jan 29, 2010 6:46 PM

My place used to be an oasis of beauty out here.
It is now hands down the ugliest thing in miles.

Nice pic of the frozen Sago...makes me want to dig out
my old one of my pool palms. We only got that ice
for one morning...I saw people
out walking to see if any of my palms survived...the ones that
had told me to "stick to pecans and live oaks".

They don't have to tell me anymore.

I wonder if anyone has calculated a "cold index"
(not just "wind chill", but similar)?
My friends from dry climates wilt in my summers, but
also freeze in my winters (when it is much colder...but drier..
where they live). I've seen some strange moisture here...like it
rained ice pellets at 45F (6C ?), or boomed thunder while it
snowed.

These are deep fronts that are pushing South and out over the
GOM. Austin and Montgomery have identical forecasts to mine.

Well, we will replace the palms if need be. I love the tropic look. Besides, I say our property is in this magical wedge. Most of the time it does not get the brunt of any bad weather. Right now weather.com is saying our zip code temp is 34 degrees. On our acre and a half we have two thermometers....one says 36 and the other 40 degrees. The one at 40 is nearest to the back porch and the house blocks a lot of the wind. But both are still higher than what the officials say it is.

I am looking forward to spring though :-)

Have you ever looked at www.wunderground.com? I find it closer to our actual temps here.

We are 39° with sleet lightly coming down. I agree... c'mon springtime!

I use "wunderground" because I am in the sticks and there are
a couple volunteer weather stations nearby....both say "37F" as
I write this. Hard to complain when there are places in the State
reading 12 right now. Used to keep an electronic
log but my huge destructive new puppy chewed off all my sensors.

The killer temps here are coming around 6-7AM. I noticed my largest
Med Fan Palm started to flower in the last week of warm weather.
Things are a little confused here...like we had our wildflowers in
October this year.

I, too, use the "wunderground" because our TV stations give the weather for Houston and its always warmer than we are here. We're about an hour north of Houston. There's a volunteer weather station less than a mile from our home so I figure its pretty accurate.

I've always been told that we're in Zone 9a, but went out on a site yesterday that had you enter your zip code and it came back that we're 8b. We must be pretty much on the edge of the two zones. However, as many of you have said, its apparent that there are different zones in my yard. We have a pool in our courtyard which may raise the temps a little. However, not enough to save my smaller palms. The queens I'm still hopeful will survive.

I don't think we'll replace our palm trees if they don't make it. My plan was a beautiful tropical paradise; but with the way the weather is changing and so unpredictable, freezes like we're having this year may not wait another 20-30 years to come. Just keeping my fingers crossed that the Queens come back.

Was 32F for almost two hours here last night...no lower.
It is 35F as I write and it is expected to be about like last night.
Hope this is the end of it.

Kinda deja vu in a way...seemed like last winter went directly into summer.
No Spring. That'd be fine with me.

Hey, I found the pic of the icestorm.
1-17-07.
Hard to believe they looked better then.

That picture does look dramatic.

That's really a sad picture, Chief, and still they did come back. Green is always prettier than brown; even if it is a frozen green. It seems my whole neighborhood is getting browner by the day. Waiting for spring to come to see if any of the palms will come back. With all of us keeping our finger and toes crossed maybe it'll happen. I am an eternal optimist!!!!!
Jan

I am optimistic as well. Nature has a way of working things out. All I can do is love my plants and care for them the best I know how.....the rest is up to them.

Anticipating Spring!

What I forgot about my Washies around the pool (above)
was that in the morning when I saw this (in a state of near
cardiac arrest) I went out with a hose and melted the ice off
every inch of every frond...including my queens on the other
side of my house, which all survived except one small one.

The lesson I learned was to not cover/use my pool in the winter.
Absolutely nothing turned brown after that ice storm, nor did any
of my palms (except a Roebellini) after our December snow. I'm seeing
green start to emerge in the midst of brown from a distance now,
except for queens which are still cracking apart.
If it ceases to hard freeze the next few weeks I'd say we have a
chance. In fact, all the dead fronds may droop and form a needed
petticoat even faster...not the look I was after but better than firewood.

We're all thinking warm thoughts!!

There is an article on the internet about a grower in Florida that trims all the leaves off his sago's to make them grow quicker. I did this past year but noticed no significant growth. Any rate it won't kill it.

He probably believes that to produce the new leaves/fronds the plant will also have to lengthen the caudex. But the thing is that the plant manufactures a lot of its food in the leaves. By cutting them off he's cutting off some of the plants food supply. I'd say it'd be better to give them some good fertiliser and leave them to it.