Jack,
I usually start to protect my palms after Christmas. I protect all the palms more or less. The trachys are still too small to get through winter unprotected. Down to -10 is no problem for all of them, in exception of the butia x parajubaea, but when it comes to prolonged freezes, then I have to take the fleeces out.
last winter I protected them in the following way, and I also will do so in the future winters:
First a good amount of mulch around the palms( should be done around November), then when hard frost is coming in with several days below freezing, I tie the fronds together and put a fence around with a bit of a distance to the palm. Then I wrap it with fleece. Inside I fill it up with totally dry leaves. Me I use walnut leaves. Then I cover it with bubble plastic that I form to a cone. You can use what ever you like, just avoid any water to come in to the protection.
This kind of protection keeps the inside at least 6 - 8 degrees warmer I guess.
It is not getting to hot and to humid inside because of the fleece the air still can circulate. I tested this protection with a cycas revoluta and I did not have any frost damage after -14 and more than 2 weeks of prolonged frost!
Imagine!
Adult Trachys with a good micro clime don't need protection in "normal" winters.
I can not tell you any experience about Chamaerops humilis 'cerifera' yet. It's been in the ground for only two month.
My Jubaea is slowly getting stronger now. What you can see is not frost damage, but the old leaves that turn brown. The age is something around that. In that young age you may expect frost damage on the fronds below -10 degrees. But much more dangerous are prolonged freezes that destroys the young spear inside what causes rooting! And then in spring you can pull it out and sometimes one frond by the other!
Here you can see close up pictures of my Butia x Parajubaea
Cocoid Hybrid growth report - PalmTalk
And here what it is going to be like (hopefully)
http://www.palmtalk.org/forum/index....=post&id=62259
http://www.palmtalk.org/forum/index....=post&id=62260
Jack, there are two different Sabal minors. The old and the new one.
The old one went through three winters so far, and the last two I did'nt protect it. The last one was about two degrees colder than the one before which was no problem.
For the question no.6, no every plant needs its right soil to thrive the best.
For palms I always mix our soil with more or less sand and gravel.
My orinoco only started growing maybe a month ago. All the older leaves dried off.To the brazilian, yes that is the mama!
The Rajapuri is too small to plant out. Because of their sudden growing stops sometimes, at the moment I'm not planing to ever plant it out again. It's potted in the green house.
For me overwintering eat able bananas outside in my climate is only possible inside a heated greenhouse.
The roots inside the iron cage holds very well. My problem I have with overwintering the bananas is, that they often rot above the corm at soil level from inside out. Maybe it has something to do with the room temperature, which is not much above zero degrees.
My dalmatian fig gives very big fruits around 150 - 160 grams.
Jack, I know the Mahonia that grows like a weed, we have that one here too.
The one on the picture is a M. bealei and is very nice yellow blooming from winter to early spring. I cut it back in march because it is giving too much shade to my Jubaea.
I need a break....
Marcel