Washingtonia - Not so Robust - a

[Andy P]

After weeks and weeks of night freezes and daytime temps barely rising above 4c , my Washie ( despite being protected by a cover and rope lights) was totally defoliated. The 2 spears in the crown looked ok though. Yesterday, being the first time this year that i could actually spend a good few hours in the garden and remove a lot of the protection, i decided to give the spears a bit of a tug. And yes - out they came. So now i have a totally bare trunk with a huge hole in the centre of it. I sprayed some anti-fungal spray into the hole and have put a plastic propagator over it to keep the water out but its`s not looking good. I`ve been trying tonight to upload a few pics of it but for some reason my Samsung Kies programme isn`t recognising my phone
I`m gonna check on it in a day or so and if it`s looking worse i`ll maybe tip some H2o2 down there and for a last drastic measure i`ll maybe saw the top few inches off it but i`m leaving such drastic measures for last resort.
Just wondering what it`s chances are.

[Dave Brown]

They don't like being covered and having restricted airflow particularly if damp. W robusta is actually not as cold tolerant as filifera. It is more damp tolerant, but only to a degree,

[Andy P]

I`m really frustrated because my pc isn`t allowing me to upload the pics i`ve taken, but this is how i protected it. These are the pics from last winter and i protected it the same this Winter. There`s no restricted airflow as i`ve read so many times before on here that wrapping can cause rot and more problems than it solves.

[derrick]

Mine has no leaves i removed them the start of the winter but spear wont pull looks green .I had one before i pulled the spear to hard and snapped the top off later it pushed up a new leaf with some damage .

[phatplants]

Have chopped all the leaves off the one I bought a couple of months ago. Seems to be in decline and I haven't a clue why. Seemed fine on delivery, but has really slumped since. Has two new spears pushing up, but the first appears a bit limp. Really love these palms, but never seem to thrive without hard graft i.e. Dave's winter protection.

[Dave Brown]

Really love these palms, but never seem to thrive without hard graft i.e. Dave's winter protection.

Mine had just rope lights around the trunk into the crown. It suffered extensive leaf damage as a result of being open to radiation freezes and desiccating winds with windchill to -12.2C. The most important area is around the base of the spears and the upper trunk. This has the most coils of rope light. The aim is to stop any rain or snow accumulating and freezing in that area.

Andy, your structure looks fine, did you have any rope lights to add warmth ?

I had low temps day and night for weeks on end, but it was very windy with it, so no dampness could have accumulated in the crown.

[Andy P]

Yes it had rope lights on it Dave. I got caught out one night though when we had the first frost of the year and i didn`t switch the lights on. I think it was probably that night that caused the most damage. It got down to minus 4. I kept the lights on probably every night after that but endless endless frosts for months didn`t help any

[Dave Brown]

Yes it had rope lights on it Dave. I got caught out one night though when we had the first frost of the year and i didn`t switch the lights on. I think it was probably that night that caused the most damage. It got down to minus 4. I kept the lights on probably every night after that but endless endless frosts for months didn`t help any

It was the same for me, the first hard frost was -7.2C and was only forecast to be -2 or -3C. Then have had 51 frosts since then, when average is 29.

[eddie]

Try to close your shelter completely with the plastic foil, allowing no frosty air to come inside the shelter during freezes. Your shelter looks pretty much the same as mine, with the difference that I had the shelter completely sealed during winter. When the temperature rises, I open up a the shelter a little bit, to allow fresh air in. The inside really smells like a tropical greenhouse when you open it up a little bit on mild days. Rope lights are ok to warm up the closed shelter, I leave them on day and night to give the palm some warmth during the day. Temperature rarely drops below 0 C inside the shelter when closed, only at really cold nights.

[Troppoz]

Yes it had rope lights on it Dave. I got caught out one night though when we had the first frost of the year and i didn`t switch the lights on. I think it was probably that night that caused the most damage. It got down to minus 4. I kept the lights on probably every night after that but endless endless frosts for months didn`t help any

It was the same for me, the first hard frost was -7.2C and was only forecast to be -2 or -3C. Then have had 51 frosts since then, when average is 29.

Dave Im surprised that your average frosty nights figure is so low Canberra records 99 frosts a year, 3 times as many as your location! They grow washys there quite successfully, obviously due to the higher daytime maximums and the sunny warm summer.

http://www.bom.gov.au/nsw/canberra/climate.shtml

[Dave Brown]

Dave Im surprised that your average frosty nights figure is so low Canberra records 99 frosts a year, 3 times as many as your location! They grow washys there quite successfully, obviously due to the higher daytime maximums and the sunny warm summer.

http://www.bom.gov.au/nsw/canberra/climate.shtml

mmmm....

Major differences are that Canberra is 16.2 degrees closer to the equator,that is closer than any part of Europe or put another way the sun is lower here than Canberra's winter solstice from 14th Oct to 1st Mar (4 1/2 months) It has a mainly sunny winter and the sun on the solstice is at 31 degrees above the horizon. Here we have virtually no sun in winter

Canberra Jul 11.2C Max -0.2C Min

2012/13 here saw :
Mth Max Min
Dec 7.7C 2.2C
Jan 5.9C 1.6C
Feb 5.8C 0.5C
Mar 6.5C -0.1C

[Troppoz]

Yep like I said higher daytime maximums and sunnier climate. I just find it interesting that Canberra is frostier than London, and not just by a little bit, but 3 times more frosts!

[billdango]

The small [3 foot] Washingtonia that I planted out in the front garden of the palm house in St Denys has come through the last winter with no problems except one wind damaged leaf.

This palm was not wrapped at any stage from November to April and still looks good.

The only time the leaves were pulled up together was on some of the very windiest nights to lessen damage.

The coldest night that I recorded in the front garden was -2.8c on 3 nights in March this year so it will be very interesting to see how this palm fares in coming years.

I will put a picture of this palm on the forum later when I do an update of the Phoenix canariensis_CIDP which is right next to it.

billdango