Cold Protection For Palm Tree

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Manual Protection
Be careful when selecting some larger plants and palms as they will not be as easy to protect when they get large. Also keep in mind that most protection designs only offer up to about 10F in protection and only work well for growing plants one zone higher.

When covering your palm/plants make sure that none of the blanket or plastic touches the leaves. I use a large steak to prop the covering up. Seal the bottom the cover to the ground with bricks, rocks or anything heavy you have in your yard. This helps seal in the heat being released from the ground. Christmas lights strung around your enclose plant also helps to increase the temp, I use the small ones.

Plants growing in the open with no over head protection are most vulnerable on the coldest of nights. Any area open to the sky will cool faster at night, that's one reason frost may form on the hood and trunk of your car before the doors. Large rocks, cement slabs, and bodies of water will also slowly release heat at night. Place borderline plants under larger trees, or near a pond for a natural degree of protection.

The north side of your house will be the coldest, while the south side will be the warmest. Plant cold sensitive plants open to a southern exposure to help keep them warmer at night. Stay clear of low spots where cold air drains.

Chemical cold protection by using anti-transpirants, and fertilization is getting good reviews by some.

Anti-transpirants can help raise cold hardiness as much as 4-5F by providing a coating on the plant. Wilt-Pruf is a very popular brand.

Fertilization Using copper or potassium will increase the salt content in the leaves & lower the freezing point, helping to increase hardiness. The application times before the expected freeze for these chemicals vary:
Copper---------------------------------------------2-3 weeks, 2-3 applications
Potassium nitrate-------------------------------1-2 days
Liquid urea ----------------------------------------1 day
Granular potassium ----------------------------45 days
Potassium silicate ------------------------------1-2 days

Moisture can be both helpful & terrible during cold weather. Wet soil will hold heat better than dry soil, but moisture on the hardier palms that natively inhabit dry regions rot easily during cool weather. My advice would be to thoroughly water your palms the morning before the freeze is expected to occur and prevent any water from getting onto the leaves and especially the growth bud.

Remove all frost burnt foliage before as soon as possible to prevent the fungus that will form from spreading to non damaged tissue. Apply a copper-based fungicide completely to the remaining foliage, and with palms spray into the growth center.

Many palms can be planted in the ground in zones 7-10. Some can even grow in zone 6! The most common things that will determine how low they can go are:

Species-Depending on their native habitat, and variety
Age-Older well-established palms are hardier
Health-The better their health the better their hardiness.
Protection-Planting in a good microclimate, and covering

The Cold Rating Data Base (CRDB) lists the minimum temperatures that a large number of species has endured, in different situations, the link is on the bottom of this page.

If you live where it's to cold to even protect a palm outdoors, you can always grow one in a container on a deck, patio, or even in the ground like in the picture.

The thickness of material you are using to cover with also makes a difference. Make sure to remove, or vent plastic before the sun gets to hot the following day.