Why you should call your sago palm a cycad

-

If you have a plant that looks like the photo here, and you're still calling it a sago palm, you're missing out on a lot. That's because you're calling it by the wrong name.

No, I won't correct you just for the sake of it, and I know that a rose by any other name will smell as sweet! But if you want to take the best care of this plant, being able to Google the word "cycad" will be very helpful to you.

And that's because (and you may have had a suspicion about this!), sago palms aren't palms at all. They aren't related to palms, and their requirements are different from palms. They're in a category called cycads. And they do some unusual stuff that palms don't do.

Once you start calling your sago palm a cycad, a whole world will open up for you. There will be web pages about the care of cycads, there will be Facebook groups, there will be books. There will be a LOT of great information out there. And (here's the best part!) you will find that "sago palms" are just one kind of cycad. Look at the photo again - those are all cycads (except for the one in the back, which is a palm). They come in different sizes, different shades of color (I like the bluish ones best), and different leaf texture.

Now that you're a cycad person, let's talk about flushing, which is what's happening in the photo. Unlike palm trees, which grow continuously, cycads only grow in spurts, called flushes, usually only once a year. Yeah, it makes them kinda dull to watch most of the year, but at least you know that they're healthy! And in summertime (it's August 16th today), they flush. And it's a lot of fun to watch as the leaves grow so fast it's amazing.

Oh yeah, and cycads produce cones. Yes, like pine trees. Palms don't do that. So don't freak out if you see something that looks like a cone on your cycad - it's supposed to do that. Google "cycad cones" and you'll see a lot of them.

Welcome to the world of cycads! You can call me Cycad Brad!

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