The palm trees many North Shore area residents and businesses planted to reinforce the sunny, watery joy of living by the lake have been looking a little sad as of late. But according to Marble Falls nursery owner and horticulturist Ben Robertson, it is too early to call a time of death.
“You don’t really know that it’s dead,” he said. “You hope to see new, green, fresh growth out of the crown in mid spring, late spring.”
There are several species of palm trees available to Central Texas landowners. Some of the more popular species of trees are sago palms, windmill palms, California fan palms, pindo palms, sabal palms, Mexican fan palms and Mediterranean fan palms.
Robertson prefers the sabal palm, the pindo palm and the Mediterranean fan palm because they are a bit hardier and fare better during the occasional cold snaps the area experiences.
“None of those have any damage in the Hill Country, but when you look at the Mexican fan and the sago they’re yellow,” Robertson said.
Robertson added he doesn’t have a problem with the trees, but he prefers the other species because they tend to look better aesthetically year-round. He said many people are drawn to the Mexican fan palm because they’re abundant and cheap.
“They grow really fast so people plant them because of that,” Robertson said. “The Mexican fan palm in our area turns yellow every year and I don’t like to use them because of that … I don’t like to see them turn yellow. I like a nice, green tree.”
Palm tree owners have several options when it comes to protecting their trees from cold weather. While uncharacteristically cold weather may have already tolled a bell for some area palms, there’s hope for next year for the others if property owners take a couple of precautions.
Palm owners should wrap their trees in some fashion to protect them from freezing temperatures. Robertson recommended heat tape for more sensitive trees. Some more creative and aesthetically minded palm owners use Christmas lights up at the crown, where new growth sprouts, to keep the trees safe.
“The crown where the leaves come out of the top of the tree is the most susceptible to cold. That’s where all the tender new growth is you can wrap it and it can help for a few degrees,” Robertson said.
But, for those palm owners afraid their tree might have already fallen prey to winter conditions, Robertson advises against trimming. He said some experts discourage trimming because they believe the trees must have some weight on top to trigger new growth.
“My advice to everybody is to wait. There’s really not a lot that you can do. There’s a lot more preventative that you could have done rather than curative. So you really just need to wait and let Mother Nature take its course.”
It is hard to tell exactly how long a tree can survive freezing temperatures, but there are general guidelines that have been laid out by the Arbor Day Foundation. The organization divided the country into Hardiness zones ranging from one to 10. The organization’s Web site has a feature allowing visitors to find their hardiness zone, and the site also offers suggestions for which types of trees to plant in each zone. Visit arborday.org for more information.