Dioon spinulosum cycad flushing

-
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).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to tell if your cycad (sago palm) is alive or dead

-
Image
Cycads are strange plants. They're beautiful, and look like small palm trees, or large ferns. They grow very slowly, and can be very expensive, even common ones like "sago palms". But sago palms, in spite of their common name, aren't palms at all. They belong to a group of plants called cycads. They are wonderfully weird, and grow in strange ways. And sometimes they lose all of their leaves. Of course, if it were a palm tree that lost all of its leaves, you would know that the plant was dead. But it's not true of cycads. So don't dig that cycad up and throw it away! Not yet. If you've recently transplanted a cycad, and the leaves have all faded away, hang on. Take a look at the top center of the plant, at what I call "the pucker". There you will see some stubby, soft fronds, no more than an half-inch or so. At least that's what you should see. That means that the plant is still alive, and has dropped its leaves to focus on building r...
Read more

Rooting sago palm pups for more plants

-
Image
Once a sago palm ( cycas revoluta ) reaches a certain level of maturity, it starts to create pups. Like agaves, these are little plants that are exactly the same as the parent plant, only smaller. And yes, you can trim them off and grow them into new plants. This is how to do it. Cut them off from the parent plant with a sharp knife. If there are any roots at the bottom, try to save them, but chances are there won't be any. That's not a problem. The next step is rooting them. Douse the cut part and the bottom of the plant with some garden sulfur and some rooting hormone powder. Rooting hormone powder is pretty easy to find at your local Home Depot. I had to go to a real nursery to get garden sulfur. Anyway, the idea is to keep the little plant from rotting while giving it time to grow its own roots. Sago palm pups being rooted Bury them fairly deep in some free-draining mix. It should include volcanic pumice, if you can find it, and if not, you can use perlite. I ...
Read more

Growing sunflowers from Pennsylvania in Arizona

-
Image
It's October 21st, and I just received some sunflower seeds from a friend in Pennsylvania. Their season is ending and the season for planting here in Arizona is just beginning, and I'm kinda wondering if the seeds are wondering what's going on? It's spring again already? If you're new to the Phoenix, Arizona area, and are from back east it must seem kinda strange that fall and winter is our flower season, but it is. By springtime it will start to get so hot here that the flowers will die, and of course back east the season is just beginning.  Sunflowers growing in Peoria, Arizona, about a mile from where I live I've seen sunflowers blooming around my neighborhood of Glendale, which is a suburb of Phoenix, in the winter, and although I've never grown them I understand that they're easy to grow. I guess I'll find out - I learn best by doing! The seeds arrived safely, and it's my understanding that they were still connected to the spent flower (I do...
Read more