Cardboard Palm

bummer! I forgot to cover my palm to protect from a 1 day freeze and now all leaves are brown. I know the brown ones will fall off but will new leaves grow in their place or will I have to wait for totally new branches. This is a very attractive palm but oh so slow. On the plus side, it is a no maintenance from me (other than to cover it and I couldn't even do that--bad mommy!).

mine is slightly bigger than the one to the right of the rock. this is a PF pic

http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/19791/

If I'm understanding you correctly, and "branch" is the part of the leaf that all the brown "leaves" are attached to, then the news isn't great. The leaflets (leaves) will drop and the branches will soon turn brown and die also. Provided the bud wasn't damaged, in a couple of months you should have some very nice fuzzy new leaves. I wish you and your cardboard palm the best!

Chris

Yes, all the leaves are goners. But unless you start getting a torrent of clear goo coming from the caudex, or it's not going soft on you, it should be fine... will just need to start over again (happens a lot here in California too.. pretty wimpy species when it comes to cold... but haven't ever lost one to cold... just tend to go 'deciduous' in winters).

thank you both. One of my neighbors has one that is 5' x 5' and she covers hers. however, one time when we had an unexpected freeze she didn't and the top leaves turned brown. Lucky for her, her plant is so big that the top leaves protected the lower leaves, so when she cut the brown ones she still had a decent plant left.

Mine is small, so after the brown leaves fall, I won't have much of a plant. If I don't take better care of it I will never have anything bigger than a 1' x 1'. ugh!

Fortunately losing leaves off a cycad rarely slows its growth down much. In fact, many species seem to take that event as a hint to grow another set of leaves, and sometimes cutting the leaves off can actually make them grow faster (there's a limit of course of how often you can do that).