Monday, June 1, 2009
I am sorry for the delay in posting. It has been an extremely busy winter for me, both professionally and personally. And a not so good winter for the trees. Our efforts to keep them warm were overly successful, and we overheated them. They did not have sufficient time to recover from the shock of transplanting before a very harsh Iowa winter hit them. The gentleman that sold them to us is a man of integrity and is honoring his one year warranty on the trees, so they are being replaced this week. We have decided that the palms on the west side of the building will be replaced with deciduous trees, rather than palms, as they take the severest weather. Your support and interest is very appreciated.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
4 comments:
"Our efforts to keep them warm were overly successful, and we overheated them."
Ok. This is just wrong.
If you want to grow a zone 8 tree in zone 5, you HAVE to heat them. Trachycarpus is a genus well suited to extremes of both heat and cold, but any exposure to temperatures below 5f are going damage them (if the 5f is a prolonged cold it will KILL them). The only way I can see you overheating them is if you have them completely enclosed in an airtight material AND you then heated them to well over 100f for the entire winter.
I am glad that you are getting the palms replaced, but you need to realize that they will be killed again next winter unless you protect them more thoroughly. The trunk wrap with heat was good (I assume you're using the heating cables that switch on at 37f and off at 45f, which is ideal), but the crown needs to be covered as well. Ideally you would build mini-greenhouses over each of the palms. This is easily accomplished. You can then use you heating cables along with some xmas style lights to keep the temperature around the plams above 20f. This will avoid exposure to damaging cold, be moderately attractive, and maintain the palms for years.
Good luck, but be smart about this please. You've invested a lot of money and I'd hate to see it wasted.
I hated to hear about the palms, but I did want to leave my 2 cents worth of advice. Windmill palm trees often undergo complete defoliation under stress, and it is very possible that your trees are not entirely "dead". One method that has been researched is to cut the trunk down, inch by inch, with a saw until you see green inside the trunk. Often, you won't see this until about a foot or so from the ground. I guess it doesn't really matter, since the salesman is replacing them, (very impressed by this! Not typical...) But just for future advice. Also, you asked the question earlier of what to do with the fronds. From what I know, the easiest and most tried-and-true way to protect these palms is to build a mulch enclosure over the entire tree, utilizing some sort of caged enclosure to hold the mulch. This would certainly be an inconvenience with such large trees, but once again, this is what I have been led to believe as the best way to overwinter these palms. Wonderful idea, and I hope it works out well for you! And as far as my suggestion for a name for one of the trees... I'd like to suggest "petualang", which is Indonesian for "adventurous" Due to the adventurous sense of landscaping you have taken on:) Best of luck!
You should come post on the gardenweb forums, there are people who have successfully overwintered palms in your zone. They may have some valuable advice regarding your plants. Here's the URL:
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/palms/
Good luck with the palms, I'd love to see them all pull through this winter.
Have you any new pictures of the palms after that winter?
Everyone was pulling for you--and the palms--and hopefully some survived.
We go through much the same thing as you--pushing zones with a prayer and fingers crossed.
We'd love to have you visit a great zone-pushing website called PalmsNorth.com.
http://www.palmsnorth.com/forum/index.php
From Barb
Post a Comment