I'm worried about my small Cycad palms, thay are only about 6 inches tall and in pots in doors, they have 3 fronds on each plant, but recently the smallest fronds on both plants have started turning a greeny yellow and I'm worried that i'll lose them. I'm very careful not to over water and have only fed them the once with miracle grow following the instructions that was about a month ago, is this normal in Cycads or am I doing something wrong? If anybody could advise me i would appreciate the help. Nath
Nath, I'm just wondering, what sort of light do they get? What is the temperature where they are placed? You should get new growth in Spring, if they can hang out till then... Ed
Oh, I hate when that happens! Once I placed mine where it was cool in the winter months (heated garage) in a north window, the straw color that some of the little "leaves" would always get doesn't happen anymore, it's now a nice green color.... It just didn't do well indoors in the winter. I suspect because of the low humidity. Sometimes whole fronds would turn that sickly straw color and had to be cut off. One time ALL the fronds had to be cut off:>( It took months & months for new ones to grow back. In the spring it will go back outside into bright shade and some sun.
I'm not sure about Cycas (the east Asian cycads), but most American cycads seem very well able to cope with dryness, and some put up well with low humidity. Japanese gardeners tie up Cycas revoluta leaves and bundle them in straw for the winter, so the leaves must be able to survive at least a couple of months of darkness. On the other hand, how about giving your little one some more light?
They are in full sunlight in the window in th bathroom, when its warm during the day I have been putting them in the conservatory, in recent days the tempaerture has been between 13 to 15 degrees outside so its been very warm in the conservatory. I can't see any signs of new growth coming from the main bowl of the plants. The lagest frond is still a normal colour though. Deos anyone reckon they need a bit of fresh air outside or should I wait until the real spring arrives?
Cycads grow in flushes--for a small plant, that flush may be only one leaf, but for a mature one, it'll be a whole new set. Between flushes, the plants just sit there...
Deos that mean that on small plants its natural for the old fronds to yellow and die off and then develop a whole new set of fronds(I guess thats what you mean by flushes). If so maybe they will be OK. Its weird how its only the smallest what i would have presumed to have been the youngest frond is affected and the large central frond is fine and unaffected as yet. I gave them a wee bit of water today as they had all but dried out as I do know that Cycads are susceptible to their roots rotting if given too much water. I'll keep checking how they go over the next week.
Normally, leaves will be green when the new flush happens. Of course they eventually die. So I'm not happy to see your plant with yellow leaves. But the lack of new leaves is normal.
Its eird, its only the one leaf on both plants thats gone yellow, the other two on each plant are fine and it also seems to have had a spurt of growth in the last week as we have had some unusually warm Febuary weather with temps hitting 18 degrees. Good old global warming! I'm tempted to chop off the yellow frond what do you think?
Nath, I would chop them off because they'll never go back back to green again and it will look a whole lot better to the eyes. Just cut it back as flush as you can. Since moving mine two or three years ago into a cool room when winter starts to comes around, I haven't had any yellowing.
No reason not to cut the leaves--Cycas is very, very tolerant of that. Temperature should not be an issue. These plants grew very well in southern Florida, at least until the southeastern Asian scale epidemic killed most of them.
I'm certainly open to anyone's opinion. Why do you think my sago no longer get those straw colored fronds, or straw color on many of the leaves since putting it in a cool room that has more humidity? I don't know what else to think... It's been in mostly (55) degree temperatures all winter (for two seasons without so far any problems (knock on wood) The two to three years before that I was always cutting, or plucking something off.
