-
carindewet
- Newly Registered
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Fri Apr 23, 2010 1:02 pm
- Location: Cape Town SA
sick cycads
I have several cycads in my garden. Some are doing well but three have been in terrible shape for five years. Every year they seem about to die. All the leaves turn yellow and dry up and the entire plant seems dead. at the beginning of the sping new leaves comdes out but are short lived and the same process repeats itself. The central stem on the plan keeps growing though. The rest of the cycads remain green all year around and grow uniformely without the stem shooting out. I have tried fertilizing and not fertilizing, watering more and wsatering less, and almost everything. can someone help? Please see pictures [/img] [c:]/Users/carinambrosini/Pictures/HOUSE/IMG00009-20100421-1102.jpg[/img]
-
thanrose
- Greener Thumb
- Posts: 716
- Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2009 10:01 am
- Location: Jacksonville, FLZone 9A
Carindewet,
I can't see your photos.
Cycads in my area have been very hard hit with scale insects the last five years or so. I think I had fifteen sago palms and maybe thirty coontie when I moved back here seven years ago, but only two sagos survive and maybe twenty coontie. The new growth was stunted, and yellow, shriveled, then brown.
Scale isn't the only enemy of course. If your cycads are planted too deep, a common problem for people not familiar with cycads, they can rot in the caudex or center. If you transplant them and don't prune all the leaves off, you deplete the energy in the caudex by forcing it to maintain leaves while growing new roots, and you can kill them that way, too.
Cycads don't tolerate soggy conditions either.
I can't see your photos.
Cycads in my area have been very hard hit with scale insects the last five years or so. I think I had fifteen sago palms and maybe thirty coontie when I moved back here seven years ago, but only two sagos survive and maybe twenty coontie. The new growth was stunted, and yellow, shriveled, then brown.
Scale isn't the only enemy of course. If your cycads are planted too deep, a common problem for people not familiar with cycads, they can rot in the caudex or center. If you transplant them and don't prune all the leaves off, you deplete the energy in the caudex by forcing it to maintain leaves while growing new roots, and you can kill them that way, too.
Cycads don't tolerate soggy conditions either.