Dioon spinulosum cycad flushing

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It's been terribly hot this summer here in the Phoenix, Arizona area. Even in this protected area, you can see plenty of leaf burn. Look at the elephant ears, and at the cannas. This is my *prime real estate* area here at The Tropical Paradise, which is east-facing and gets afternoon shade. But even a few hours of sun in the summer here is brutal.

The star of the show is a dioon spinulosum cycad. I'm a big fan of cycads, and I have several here. The most common one, and one that you see a lot of here in Phoenix is the *sago palm* (cycas revoluta). Cycads aren't palms botanically, but it doesn't matter to me. They aren't ferns either, but they give the illusion of a small palm or fern. This cycad is a little bit rarer than an ordinary sago palm, but they are available at ordinary nurseries and Home Depots in Los Angeles. They take more care than most people in Phoenix are willing to give, that's all.

Getting rid of the palo brea in September of 2010
This one has been living here at The Tropical Paradise for well over a decade. It moved to this spot two seasons ago when I had the big palo brea tree removed. Some young idiot (me!) had planted the tree way too close to the neighbor's wall and it was on the verge of falling down with the next big storm, so I got rid of it. Unfortunately, I lost a lot of shade when I did that, and I wasn't sure how happy the spinulosum was going to be in its new home. It has the finest accommodations, it sits on a bed of volcanic pumice, coffee grounds, sand, and free-draining potting soil. As you can see, it's surrounded by plenty of friends to give it shade and added humidity, and to protect it when it gets cold.

Still, by mid-summer it was looking terrible. On August 12th, I noticed the tiniest bit of new growth and in a few days there was enough of a flush to make be feel brave enough to cut off the old leaves. The new leaves haven't completely finished forming, but this is the size that they will be. In a few days they will harden off and turn a deeper blue-green color.

The long-range plan is to give it more shade from the palm tree at left, which is a cross of a Phoenix rupicola (India Date Palm) and a Phoenix roebellini (Dwarf Date Palm). Right now they are about the same height, but the palm will grow faster and get bigger, and eventually create a nice canopy for this area.

By the way, if you look just to the right of the trunk of the palm (not the cycad), you can see one of my caladiums growing well. I planted them as bulbs and they have been growing, then burning up. Hopefully the weather will start to cool off a bit and they will stay around a while. And just to the right of the trunk of the cycad, you see the blooms of a little Haworthia, which is so small that you can't see it behind the portulaca (moss rose).

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