Palm Trees in Virginia Beach During the Winter

Cabbage Palm

• Planted alongside ornamental grasses and day lilies on the 3-mile long oceanfront in Virginia Beach are cabbage palms (Sabal palmetto). Bombarded by salt spray and winds in winter, their frond tips frequently brown from the drying cold. According to lists in the book "Hardy Palms for the Southeast," cabbage palm performs best in USDA zone 7b if planted in a sheltered, warm microclimate. The fan-shaped fronds have a gray-green color and are deeply segmented to create thin tips. Cross-hatched frond bases persist on the trunk just below the crown of fronds. Plant cabbage palm in a full sun exposure in a fertile, well-drained soil.

Windmill Palm

• Easily handling winter cold temperatures to 0 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit is the windmill palm (Trachycarpus fortunei). A thicket of black thatch covers the trunk and the stiff dark green fan-shaped fronds look great during the winter as long as strong winds or salt spray don't try them out. If it is a female plant, long branched stalks carrying dark blue-black fruits dangle heavily from the crown of fronds. Windmill palm grows very slowly and grows best in a full sun location in fertile soil that never remains soggy or floods after rains.

Pindo Palm

• The most cold-hardy feather-fronded palm, pindo palm (Butia capitata) grows in Virginia Beach gardens if sited out of cold winter winds and in a warm microclimate, such as on the south side of a building or evergreen hedge. Excessive cold causes the frond leaflet tips to turn brown, and temperatures below 10 degrees Fahrenheit can fully kill all fronds atop the trunk. As long as prolonged cold doesn't freeze the growing tip on the trunk's top, new fronds emerge in the heat of late spring to replace any killed and browned the previous winter. Also slow-growing, the palm might flower in summer when it's quite old and produce a cluster of golden yellow fruits that you can make into jelly preserves.