Transplanting a cycad (sago palm) bare root

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Unlike most plants, cycads are easy to transplant. If you need to move one, or, as in my case, rescue one, you can. Here's how you do it.

• First, cut off all of the leaves. Well, leave a couple for looks. I left three. Dig around and under the trunk as much as you can and then cleanly cut the plant at the roots. The deeper you can go, and more roots you can get, the better, but you don't need to get them all, and you don't need any of the dirt.

By the way, the little "bulbs" that you see on the sides, if the cycad is fairly big, like the one I dug out yesterday, are "pups", so save them. Each one of them will make another plant.

• Place the plant in a cool, dry place. It's January, and it's in my garage right now, which is perfect. The ends of the roots will heal better if you put a little rooting hormone powder on them, but it isn't absolutely necessary. If you're worried about water, don't be. This plant can live like this, using the energy stored up in the trunk, for years. The worst thing you could do right now would be to plant it in a cold, wet place. Don't water it. At all.

• Prepare a very large pot with perlite, volcanic pumice, and sand. Here in the Phoenix area, you can get volcanic pumice at Baker Nursery, but if you can't find it, perlite and sand will do, which you can get at any Home Depot. You can add some potting soil made for cactus, too. Whatever you do, don't plant it in ordinary potting soil, or in the ground, the plant will rot. Yes, the pot should be in a very shady place, but no, not in the garage. I have a courtyard which has a nice olive tree which gives good shade.

• Allow time for the plant to re-develop roots. It will take a year or two. You can pull the plant up out of the pot and check for roots, but the best sign of roots is a flush of leaves, which will happen in late spring or early summer.

Once the plant has flushed, it's ready to go out into the garden. If you don't feel like going to this much trouble, call me, I will.

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