Timettaveler,

If your Bottle Palm has one green frond..then it isn't dead yet!!! Give it some time, fertilize it and let mother nature take care of the rest. My Bottle Palm that I brought in during the winter (In pot of course) had only one frond left on it. Now it is pushing another...I hardley would give up on something with one frond!!! I'm actually happy that my Bottle made it through with just one frond left. You are down in beautiful Florida and that is the perfect medicine for your winter (survivor) palm!!!

Give it time and I'm sure you will see better results!!!

Take Care everyone!!!

Laura in VB

I would pull on the spear to make sure that your bottle palm is truly dead. If it is, there are a few palms you can chose from.

Cat palms stay pretty small and so are parlor palms. Only problem with these oalms is they like shade. Actually most of the small growing palms like shade because they naturally grow under a tree canopy. Sabal minors are definitely cold hardy in your area and stay small, but you might want something better looking. Lady palms are a nice option, they turn into nice hedges when planted in groups, but are usually very expensive. Spindle palms are related to bottle palms, but might be a little more cold tolerant.

You can also try other tropical bushes like hibiscus (Which can grow tall, or can be pruned to stay smaller, crotons (a bit sensitive to frosty weather though), hawaiian ti plant (also can be pruned to stay smaller), and lots of others.

Good luck!

Like my Ft.Lauderdale advise-if it grew fine for years and you enjoyed it-plant another. Your climate gets things to size so fast,and nothing looks like a bottle palm to me.

Thank you all for your suggestions. I'll try to save this bottle palm, but when I look inside, I can't see any green and my other one has already put out a new frond. So I'm afraid there's little hope. I'll keep your ideas for when it gives up.

Like tropicalzone stated, a spindle would make a fine replacement.