Queen Palms grow great here, not as fast as Florida, but fast enough. They'll take temps in the low to mid-20s for short periods and survive. They don't look good but they recover by mid-summer.

Low to mid 20's doesn't touch them here.

And that's why they grow so fast. They just never stop.

hope you feel better soon, Gina!

So odd about the Rhapis. I had read about it from palmbob and thought I'd keep my eye open for one, but no way I'm paying that. Maybe Costa will get inspired to carry it, like when they sent a boatload of Birkin to Lowe's here a year or two ago.

The only other palm I have that I planted is a pygmy palm, this one is geez maybe a couple decades old, there is actually several in the clump now. They're slow growers, so good for pool enclosures, not real cold tolerant either, out in the open they will burn, but most come back, mine is protected by the house heat and overhead tree.

I love Pygmy dates. I have 2. Both got burned this winter but will come back

It must be that the fall is so warm that they don't get hardened off and ready for cold. Here they do fine into the upper 20s without burning.

They do fine in the upper 20's here too but the Christmas Arctic event had lows of around 22-23 for 3-4 nights that the freezing temps stayed down there for hours. Not just a quick dip to 28-29 like usual. Our fall was extremely warm this year until this freeze event at Christmas

In the past week we had both a record high and a record low for January in NE Florida. That is really schizophrenic weather.

This weather is really sucky. Rainy grey cold yesterday, high only about 63. Warm front coming up from the south today, high will be 77. Then a cool front comes in tonight. Lows in the 40's again. It changes daily here right now

I've lived my first 20 years in Calif. and my last 45 in FL and winter is a totally different thing here, not unusual to have record high and cold in the same week in Dec. through Feb. Plants do have to tolerate a lot of crazy weather here, so do we.

I prefer that over the steady, seemingly never-ending winters of central OH. Winter here comes in erratic spurts, with a lot of beautiful days sprinkled in.

Here's some of our more interesting palms.

First, the quite noble Bismarkia nobilis.

And a Triangle Palm, Neodypsis decaryi.


Neither of these is particularly common here, but when they're happy they're really nice. Both of these get very little water and for a couple of years only rain.

And here's one of our more common 'weeds', the Mexican Fan palm, Washingtonia robusta.


The ones around the Kellogg Stables were planted intentionally; the shadow one wasn't.

We have a lot of Bismarkias here. There are a few very large very old Silver Bismarks in town. My area of FL is a little too cold for triangle palm though

The trunk of my Watermelon Flamethrower Palm (Chambeyronia macrocarpa)

That is cool and it does look like a watermelon rind.

Now I am hungry for watermelon.

I got lucky when I got this one. There are 2 types, watermelon and plain green. Plain green will be green in shade, and tan in sun. But watermelon is some sort of genetic mutation. You can't tell until your palm gets some size if it will be a watermelon or not. I have another smaller Flamethrower in the back that has not distinguished itself as of yet

Just from the name, who wouldn't want a watermelon flamethrower palm?! That trunk is very cool, lives up to the watermelon part of the name.

This pretty palm is @ my SIL's house in Naples, FL, area.


And this cute little thing, which I'm not 100% sure is a palm.