WoW looks good Mike! I still have to stop by.

Are all of your palms hardy to your zone? Or do you dig them up in the winer. I'm in southeast MO, 6b, but most zone 7 things are perennial here, as well as some zone 8 (with hope and several prayers)!

Liza, are you sure you are zone 5 in Chicago proper, I find it hard to believe that all those palms are hardy in our zone?

It's just amazing to see relatively large, trunking sabal palmettos in the ground in Chicago! How do you plan to protect those in the winter, especially the ground around them which no doubt freezes?

I'm wondering if the chlorinated water from the pool will harm them. Those of us in Florida don't usually plant them close to pools due to this problem. Of course maybe your grandkids don't try to drown you by splashing the bejesus out of you.

Mike here and the trachys and butia have been in the ground through there first winter this year I do cover everything thats not hardy, which is almost everything. Everything does get splashed but nothing has ever died from the water. The palmettos are an experiment in progress. I brought them up from alabama in the middle of winter and left them outdoors covered with a cold frame geen house with no heat lieing on there sides to see how fragile these guys are. As you can see one is pushing out leaves and the other is fried. If the one that survied could survive being out of the ground and exposed to freezing temps, I am hoping it will do better in ground and protected. The Trachys also get plastic covers but are not heated and have never had any damage at all and even flowered this year. The butia is the only palm that showed signs of damage , as this years leaves pushed up some are twisted and misshaped but the center growth has no damage and it has new leaves with no damage. If the butia could survive my sabal minors and needles have nothing to worry about. I have a a T. wagnerianus that will be spending its first winter this year. And it is supposed to be hardier than the fortunei so there again I doubt I will have any problems with it.
There is some method to my madness.

Mike
we all have methods to our madness and mine is sand hasn't let me down yet !

**Needle palm update**

I got luck very lucky, there are 4 main trunks all completely leafless and there are 5 smaller trunks around the main ones. I thought all the trunks were dead except for 2. I noticed today all of the trunks I thought where dead are each pushing out a fresh green leaf. I am soooooo happy.

That's awesome I like to hear the northern success stories

cheers

Hi Mike. I was wondering about how much a sabal palmetto of that size would cost me?

There real cheap around 100 to 150 dollars

Sorry I should've asked before but how far do you think I would have to drive from S.Central Pennsylvania to pick one of those bad boys up? Where can I get one besides Alabama? All of the sites you can order them from charge $250 and up and the cheaper ones are way to small.

Well if your in florida ever for anything you can get one. They are the cheapest in florida.

Great job Mike, obviously your successes far outweigh your failures.