Any palms/tropical vegetation left in Texas? (Houston, Dallas: 2013, yard)

[Htown2013]

Houston area got hit really hard from the freeze. Went for a walk today and the landscape was depressing. It really looked like I was walking around in the Chicago area this time of year after the snow melted - no signs of spring, everything brown/yellow. All palms/tropicals looked gone. Heck, many non-tropicals looked damaged.

So, did anyone make it through with palms/tropicals? How did Corpus Christi fare? What about South Texas and the Valley? What about South Padre Island? Is South Padre the only place in Texas that didn't get a hard freeze?

[Texas Ag 93]

Originally Posted by Htown2013

So, did anyone make it through with palms/tropicals? How did Corpus Christi fare? What about South Texas and the Valley? What about South Padre Island? Is South Padre the only place in Texas that didn't get a hard freeze?

We are in the Clear Lake/League City area and have several palms of multiple varieties and sizes, as well as many other tropicals. We'll no doubt lose a lot, but all our large palms in the front yard, which I'm guessing are 20 feet in height, all look great with bright green fronds. We also have 2-3 Mexican palms in the back that I am cautiously optimistic about. We're going to give it a while to find out. Our landscapers were here on Saturday and cut back a ton, but I'm curious to see what makes a reappearance. We had tons of ginger and asparagus ferns, and TBH, that ginger was getting out of control and needed significant trimming anyway, so it might come back (it did before, but this freeze was not like before...)

[kemahkami]

The full extent of casualties won't be known immediately. For one, it takes time for the full extent of cold damage to reveal itself, especially as much damage can manifest on the inside even when the outside appearance looks fine - on the other end, many palms that look gone actually pull through and come back. So things won't be known until later through spring and summer.

Overall, I'd say that places in Southeast and coastal Texas like Houston, Beaumont, and Corpus will probably have much less percentages of casualties with the zone 8-9A specimen like dates and washingtonia robusta compared to places farther inland like Austin and San Antonio which saw longer duration of freeze and lower absolute temperatures. Stuff like sabal palmetto and sabal mexicana are hardy, and largely look unfazed statewide ... until you go northwards to places like Dallas and other areas of northern Texas that saw single digits, even subzero, wiping out everything but the extreme hardiest of sabal minor.

The Lower RGV, and other warmer areas of South Texas, actually had really tender zone 10 stuff in cultivation, including even some coconut palms. Those are all toast without protection. However, some of the 9B stuff like royal palms have a chance of pulling through. The zone 8-9A stuff like washingtonias should be unfazed, perhaps w/ frond burn at most there.

Some helpful factors:

1. The main storm system actually had decent timing overall for Texas - it came during the overnight hours, meaning that things were relatively clear by daybreak-afternoon. This means you had decent time of sunshine for insolation of the plant surfaces, with the strength of the low-latitude angle allowing some melt to take the edge off the plant tissue, even with subfreezing temperatures.
   
   
2. There was actually a decent cool-down period for southern Texas areas that came in the week before the deep freeze. Temperatures were cooler with highs in the 40s and 50s throughout the region, chilly enough while still being above freezing. This would have given more ample time to relax any active blooming process that would have occurred antecedent to the freeze, and minimize injury to these tender parts of the plants - this is in contrast to Dallas, which went right into subfreezing daytime temperatures from highs in the 60s the day prior, affording no time for the plants to adapt.
   
   
3. Southern Texas largely avoided the brunt of freezing rain and winter precip compared to other areas of the state. There was a brief period of icing as the storm system initially passed through Sunday night - Monday morning, but it was mostly sleet, and there was a faster changeover to snow than anticipated, which isn't as directly damaging to plants as freezing rain. There was also a secondary storm system that came in midweek around Wednesday night - Thursday, and Southern Texas largely dodged that. This creates less direct, exposure-based injury to the plants, which would minimize the effects of any opportunistic fungus, rot, etc that tries to attack the plant buds and crowns.
   
   
4. Southern Texas did not have near as long as a subfreezing duration compared to northerly areas of the state. Nor did temps bottom out as cold. As mentioned before, places in Dallas already spent days below freezing even before the main Sunday night to Monday morning timeframe, and the process continued through Feb 18. Meanwhile, many areas of Southern Texas only went below freezing starting Sunday night, continuing through Monday, before breaking the streak by Tuesday afternoon. Furthermore, ultimate low temperatures did not bottom out as cold across Southern Texas as predicted by some weather models and news forecast outlets, some of which called for temps as low as single digits (!!!) - most of the region saw no lower than teens in places like Houston, Beaumont, Corpus, and Del Rio, and no lower than 20s around Brownsville and South Padre.

By far, palms of the sabal genus would have been bullet proof everywhere in Southern Texas with this event. There is a Texas native species in the form of sabal mexicana, in the Rio Grande Valley and other river floodplains of South Texas. There is also the sabal palmetto, a Florida-based palm species that grows as far north as the barrier islands off the Carolinas, and has been known to take temperatures as low as 5-8°F. If all the landscaped palms in Southern Texas were sabals, and the evergreens and shrubs consisted of typical Deep South US species, then the landscape would largely be untouched (save for the brown grass).

[Frustratedintelligence]

Sabal minor is the only palm that fits the Texas landscape anyway, and I'm assuming they handled this cold snap just fine?

Not even Houston is tropical enough that most equatorial plants don't look out of place, especially when snow/ice is on the ground.

[turf3]

Well, I'm in Dallas and it looks like the prickly pears and agaves that my neighbors have in their yards have survived.

[DanielWayne]

I grew a dragon fruit cactus from seeds, and it appears to be a casualty. Luckily I saved a sprouting piece in the garage. I have some fruit trees that seem to have made it.

[TheOverdog]

I'm pretty sure my young windmill palms survived. No way to tell yet, though the young stalks are still green.

Well, I'm in Dallas and it looks like the prickly pears and agaves that my neighbors have in their yards have survived.

My neighbors have prickly pear that looks as sickly freezer burned as everything else, but I have a feeling they will be fine. My yuccas look completely normal.

[R1070]

A lot of the palms I’ve seen in Central Dallas seemed to have done better than I expected. Some appear to be dead though.

[elan]

I'm in northern Dallas County and my palms are dead, makes me ill. Oleander and rose bushes look dead, time will tell. Grass doesn't look so hot either, surely it didn't kill that. Big problem of the moment is trying to get someone to fix my pool, it's dead too.

[jackalope48]

Originally Posted by Frustratedintelligence

Sabal minor is the only palm that fits the Texas landscape anyway, and I'm assuming they handled this cold snap just fine?

Not even Houston is tropical enough that most equatorial plants don't look out of place, especially when snow/ice is on the ground.

Sabals did fine in Corpus. What I've generally noticed is the people who trim their palms often and starved them of nutrient recapture are going to lose most of theirs. The people who let the fronds fall or go totally brown before trimming seem to have all of theirs making it.

Generally people around here are urging wait and see. It does look like I lost my new citrus and some ground cover plant. Roses did great though.