I have rooted some Sago Palm pups and I am now wondering how old / developed I need to let them get before moving them to ground or final pots... As can be seen in the photo, I rooted some of them in small pots, so don't want to leave them there too long and stunt their growth or anything... also don't want to move them to quickly and hurt / kill the new plant...
I would appreciate any advice on this.
Donald
Donald, how did you remove them from the mother plant? How old were they when you did it? I have quite a few that came up this spring from my sago and wondered if they had to mature longer before removing?
Not sure what your soils are like, but if rooted well, recommend planting, (as soon as leaves fully developed and hard, if going through a flush- sometimes screws up the new leaves if messing with the roots in the middle of a flush).
Thanks palmbob - I have six in-ground ones now and similar soil throughout the area, so I am hopeful that these will thrive... I will await full / hard frond development and will then move them to final ground / pot locations...
tigerlily123 - I have six very old / developed Sago Palms and the previous owner never bothered with dealing with pups alongside... so, there were everything from this season's pups the size of a golf ball, to the one on the left in the photo - just a bit larger than a big pineapple (someone said it was probably 7 or 8 years old)... I actually crawled around under the "mother" plant with a sharp knife (a very spidery ordeal in my area!) and gently dug and cut until I uncovered or removed each one... the older / larger ones I had to do the final cut with a narrow gardening spade... the only thing I stayed very careful about was making sure I didn't cut into the trunk of the "mother" plants... you have to get a bit of a concave cut to get the pup off well, but I always tried to minimize that depth - and the "mother" plants are fine... I then put all of the pups in my garage for a couple of weeks and let them dry / wound heal... this appears to have been fine for the larger ones, but the very small ones are very black and have shown no signs of rooting / fronds / etc. so, the dry out period may have been too long for them... you will have to let me know how it works out for yours...
palmbob - please correct anything that is out of whack in my explanation above - I would HATE to give someone advice that cost them a plant!
Thanks -
Donald
Sounds good to me... but that also points out why taking small pups off is troublesome... the larger the better.. you want the pup to be able to support itself without the benefit of roots for some time, which it can't do if it's too small. Some cycads are better at rooting than others, and some can take many many months to root (Cycas revoluta tends to be pretty fast about rooting)... and can die while waiting. Most cycad growers root in perlite or pumice- not anything that contains material that looks like soil, as the dramatically increases the chance of fungal growth and rot. Some large pups are kept in this rooting perlite/pumice for a few years until a very healthy root system is established before planting in a soil mix.
Thanks to both spicerd and palmbob. Very helpful info. Seeing as how these babies just emerged this year, I should wait a few years.
palmbob, I have never really tried straight perlite...I can't get a read on how dry the perlite is, or when to water because it always seem dry to me. How do you know when to water?
Hard to over water if in perlite, which makes it easy if you have a lot of plants in a greenhouse with water on a timer. But otherwise weekly usually plenty (unless your plants are outdoors and it's hot and dry... then daily to every other day).
