When to fertilize your cycads

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The time to apply fertilizer to your cycads is when you see new growth. It's late April here in Glendale so this is the time. If you are wondering what fertilizer to use, go ahead and buy the expensive stuff at Home Depot made especially for palms and cycads. But if you can't get around to it, just use ordinary plant fertilizer. I just applied a bag of "bulb booster" dry fertilizer. It's better to apply some type of fertilizer now than to miss this window of opportunity for the next few weeks.

This cycad, a Dioon spinulosum, lost all of its leaves after transplanting and living through the big freeze of this last winter. But it is a survivor!

When the leaves appear, give them a nice watering with Miracle Grow through a hose-end sprayer. You can also pop in those little plant food spikes that you use for indoor plants around the base of the plant. As with all dry fertilizer, water in well.

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