Our windmill palm looks b... - Ask Extension
Our windmill palm looks bad after this severe winter. It is 7 feet tall and we have had it for 8 years and it has never looked like this before. We ha...
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Our windmill palm looks b... #167695
Asked February 22, 2014, 9:39 AM EST
Our windmill palm looks bad after this severe winter. It is 7 feet tall and we have had it for 8 years and it has never looked like this before. We have two questions : 1. Should we cut the dead ends off ? , 2. Can you use hydrogen peroxide on the tree...read somwhere that you could pour it down the center to help.
thanks ,
John & Nancy Grunewald
741 Ocean Parkway
Ocean Pines, Md 21811
Worcester County Maryland
Expert Response
This has been the hardest
winter since 1976 when the Chesapeake Bay froze! First we had a very unusual early winter with
the temperatures swinging from 60 or 70 degrees F to 10 or 20 degrees F,
stressing the plants severely. Then in the later part of the winter the temperatures
went down to -2 degrees with a strong wind which did two things to plants. First, the plants had to deal with the unusually
low temperatures and frozen ground and second, as the soil was frozen it could
not replace the water the wind pulled out of the leaves of evergreen plants,
stressing them even more. This is classic winter burn for evergreen
plants. Even though the the Windmill palm is
the most cold hardy, it is not equipped to deal with the winter we just
had! Some of the information I found was
that it is hardy to 10 degrees F or grows best in USDA zone 8-11. In Ocean Pines you have the Assawoman Bay and
the canals helping keep the temperatures from fluctuation severely, but this
cold winter has been cold everywhere! My suggestion is to wait till the temperatures
warm up in March and then trim off the dead foliage and the tattered ends. I don’t
see how hydrogen peroxide would help the tree in any way, your palm doesn’t have
a disease, just cold damage.