Things look pretty bleak in the garden this time of year, so it's nice to see that some of the plants are still green. Very little damage to any of my hardy palms so far. Our low so far has been around 15 or 16 degrees so there's still a chance we'll have a relatively mild winter, but our coldest temperatures usually come between mid-January and mid-February so I know we're not out of the woods yet. To view full size, click on photo to get to my Flickr album, then click on "all sizes".

View of my palms showing T. fortunei (right) and Rhapidophyllum hystrix (left); and yes, that's snow left over from our big snowfall a few weeks ago, where I had to pile it to shovel our back walk; my garden is on a north-facing slope so receives no direct sun, and thus stays quite cold, all winter:

Closeup of the Trachycarpus fortunei ("Nainital"? received as "takil"); this has probably been my toughest palm and is the only one that has never shown any major damage OR spear pull:

My waggies (Trachycarpus wagnerianus) took a major hit last winter, with spear pull (for the first time ever) and considerable defoliation; nevertheless they all survived and all put out new growth so they did recover somewhat, but I'm REALLY hoping for a mild winter so they will recover even more this year; going into this winter they were about half the size they were going into the previous winter:

Here's a closer view of the Fatsia japonica that are visible in the background of the first photo; note that immature fruits are still green, and if we don't get much colder temperatures they may go on to ripen in the spring as they did a couple of years ago (after an unusually mild winter with a low of 18 degrees):

Elsewhere in the garden, another T. fortunei, this one a Bulgarian "polar palm"; it had spear pull last year, but recovered and put out quite a few new leaves:

Sabal minor, looking pretty ratty:

And finally my hardy cycad, Cycas panzhihuansis; note that the leaves are fried after a low in the teens. But the leaf bases are still firm and green under the leaf mulch, and I know that it can take much colder temperatures and still come back: