Posted by Walt 27 degrees F with frost shouldn't have caused foliage damage, at least not a one-time event. Because you had several days (nights) with 27 degree low, maybe that's the difference. In south central Florida, where I live, I generally only get one night, not consecutive nights with damaging frost/freezes, so I can't speak totally to your experiences. What I will say is this. On January 5, 2001 I had my coldest freeze in the past ten years. My low was 22 degrees with heavy frost. At that time I had queen palms in the ground ranging from 8 feet high overall (untrunked) to trunked palms 25 feet high. Some of the smaller queens were actually killed. Mid sized queens had minor to medium leaf damage. The largest of the queens had no leaf damage. This was a radiational freeze (no wind), so frost developed on the leaves. Possibly, if your freeze was windy, cold dry air can dessicate palm leaves and make them appear to be frost damaged when in fact they are wind damaged. Unless the growth bud was completely killed by cold, your palms should survive and return to normal, although the first new several fronds will probably be shorter and possibly damaged from bud rot (lower leaves on new fronds will probably be rotted and stubby). It's good practice to drench the growth bud (where the new spear fronds emerge) with a copper sulfate fungicide (as per directions), so that your palm doesn't get a bacterial bud rot infection (or pour some hydrogen peroxide on the bud), which can be induced when a palm gets cold damaged. At this point, look for growth length on the new spears (unopened fronds). Mark a spear (line) at its base, where it emerges from the palm stem/trunk and observe it over a period of days. If the spear is making growth and moving up, then your palm(s) should be okay, in time.
on 2/21/2007, 4:46 am, in reply to "frostdamage to queenpalm"
68.56.111.196
From my experience with frost/freeze with respect to queen palms is, the larger they are, the more cold/frost they can take.
--Previous Message--
: I live in the Sacramento area in
: California. I planted 3 Queenpalms last
: summer. They did good until we had
: severe cold for our region. It was down
: to about 27 F several times whithin a
: week. California had its dryest january
: in decades. I think that I did not
: water enough during the coldspell. If I
: am the source of them vilting down, is
: there a way for me to bring them back
: by pruning. These Queens have been my
: pride, and I would like them to
: continue to be.
:
:
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