Dioon spinulosum cycad in Phoenix, Arizona

-
If you're wondering if you can grow Dioon spinulosums in the Phoenix, Arizona area, you can. I have several here at The Tropical Paradise, and with a few tricks, they do fine.

First, and foremost, these plants need shade. Even too much morning sun can sunburn the leaves and cause stunted growth. This plant is in "prime real estate" as it gets the shade from the olive tree in the morning, and the shade from the house in the afternoon. It gets a little bit of dappled sunlight, which appears to be just perfect.

Even though this particular species gets tall in the wild, it takes over 100 years to get to the size of a small palm tree. Like all cycads, it's a miniature.  It's just a big miniature (I guess like jumbo shrimp). Mostly I just treat it like a fern.

In spite of the illusion of looking fern-like, it's spiny. So be sure to plant it well away from where people will walk. This is essentially true of all cycads, including "sago palms". They really don't need a lot of vertical space, but they need horizontal space.

Like all cycads, too much water can kill a dioon spinulosum, but it tends to like a little bit more water than your average cycad. It's planted in free-draining, sandy soil, which I have amended with coffee grounds and plenty of slow-release dry plant food.

Since cycads only grow once a year, in sudden flushes, this is the time to do foliar feeding. That is, fill a nice big watering can with water and a water-soluble plant food (like Miracle Grow), and pour it on the leaves and at the base. Be as generous as you want during this growing period. It will take a few weeks for the new flush to finish up. The leaves will darken a bit, and they will harden. Be sure not to touch them while they are young, as any damage you do to the leaves now will be permanent.

If you can find these plants at a nursery in the Phoenix area, they are very expensive. But they really aren't all that rare. You can find them at any Home Depot or Lowe's in the Los Angeles or San Diego area, where they are very common. That's where this one came from.

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