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Cloudy this morning. A few showers developing during the afternoon. High around 75F. Winds E at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 30%..
Cloudy with occasional rain showers. Low around 65F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
Japanese King Sago, Cycas revoluta, is a popular evergreen ornamental garden plant in warm climates globally. It is an ancient cycad species of cone-bearing gymnosperm plants, as are pines, spruces, cypress and juniper cedars. It is not a flowering plant like a palm, nor is it a fern. If overpruned annually by removing all green leaves needed for photosynthesis, new leaf flushes may be stunted by lack of nutrition. Apply systemic scale insecticide spray before leaves flush to prevent scales from spreading to new leaves.
A row of potted cycads in Jane’s Garden in Marion County borderline zone 8b–9a. Mexican Cardboard plant has wide, thick pinnate leaves and is frost-tender, so suited as a protected patio plant brought indoors for the winter. Popular Japanese King Sago, Cycas revoluta, produces a new row of stiff pinnate leaves in spring as the summer rainy season begins in June in Central Florida.
Pups cut off a female Japanese King Sago were infested with Asian cycad scale, as was their parent. Pups are identical to the parent in appearance and sex. The scale insects can be killed with insecticide such as synthetic bifenthrin. Follow label instructions and mix only as much as needed for immediate and imminent application. Check your neighbor’s cycads and treat them as well to prevent spread and repeated infestations.
Jane grows thousands of coonties, sagos and cardboard cycads, so she mixes bifenthrin in a 2-gallon sprayer. Asian cycad scale can infest different species of cycads as well as Asian shrubs like camellias and native magnolia trees. Nurseries constantly look for any sign of scale on their plants and treat problems promptly.
Bifenthrin concentrated insecticide is readily available at retail outlets, farm stores and agricultural supply outlets. It takes only a quarter ounce of the powerful concentrate in a gallon of water to be effective. Always follow the label directions. Insects can be killed on contact, but bifenthrin lasts for weeks to poison sucking insects. Respray within four weeks to kill crawlers before they become breeding adults.
Jane harvested these King Sago pups from a scale-infested female King Sago. She immediately doused the mother and babies with bifenthrin insecticide spray. Seven days later, after any eggs should have hatched, the pups were sprayed again. Two days later, the pups and leaves were soaked in a sink full of cool tap water and dish detergent to help remove the waxy protective shells where females lay eggs. The leaves were rinsed, scrubbed with a nail brush to dislodge dead debris of adult bodies, eggs and crawlers then re-rinsed.
Damaged leaves and individual leaflets were removed from the cleaned Sago pups. After drying and a thorough inspection, the pups got another insecticide spray before being planted in a well-drained sandy potting mix made of two parts backyard sand to one part finely milled humus.
Although damaged and deformed, the remaining leaves will still photosynthesize and feed the newly severed Sago pups. Removing all the leaves would prevent plants, including sagos and coonties, from making food using sunlight energy and slow the growing new roots and leaves. Gardeners should never remove efficiently photosynthesizing leaves as then the plant cannot feed itself and grow properly.
This female King Sago has a few pups growing around its trunk base and seeds still attached below the current year’s flush of new leaves. The owners spray annually and as needed to kill any Asian cycad scale that drifts in on the wind. The frost-tender cycad is tucked into a corner between the home and garage where the radiant heat in winter creates a warmer microclimate to ward off winter frosts.
Freshly severed and rootless King Sago pups that Jane had cleaned of Asian scale will be left to grow roots and sprout new leaves for about a year in 6-inch diameter carbon-black reused nursery pots. The King Sago in the larger 10-inch diameter pot was harvested a year before and kept its first three leaves to photosynthesize. Now it has a new flush of leaves so the old leaves are dying, being shed and can be snipped off for a tidy look.
Seedling Mexican Cardboard Cycads sprouted underneath a female parent. They need to be removed to their own pot or garden location before they crowd out the mother plant. This species rarely gets infested with Asian Cycad scale. Frost-tender north of cold zone 9a, Cardboard Cycad makes a good potted plant that can be moved indoors for the winter.
Female Mexican Cardboard cycad with three seed cones. Each cone will open its scaly plates to shed the seed about eight months after pollination by beetles. Note the young newly sprouted leaves on baby cardboards growing beneath the mother plant. They will soon need relocating to their own space.
The Emperor Cycad evolved on the island called Taiwan, 160 kilometers across the Taiwan Strait off mainland China in Southeast Asia. It can grow 10 feet tall and have stiff dark green leaves up to 5 feet long. It needs a 10 foot diameter space to grow uncrowded to maturity.
This rare dwarf coontie, Zamia integrifolia, is an evergreen Florida native cycad that will never grow any taller in its limited garden space beside Jane’s garage door. Coonties have limited frost tolerance in zone 8b: heat radiating from the concrete and building wards off winter frosts. Each green leaf can last up to three years while photosynthesizing and converting sunlight energy to chemical energy for growth. Old inefficient leaves die and are shed naturally. Persnickety gardeners can remove old dying leaves for tidiness.
In Jane’s front garden, a pair of Florida coonties, Zamia integrifolia, grow well in the part shade beneath a trio of 23-year-old seed grown Sabal Palms (Sabal palmetto) Florida’s State “tree.” The coonties sprouted in 1998 and have a life expectancy of about 120 years. Each coontie leaf can last three years before it becomes inefficient at photosynthesis and is shed naturally by the Jurassic Period cycad plant. Pinnate, feathery leaves on a mature coontie can be 4 feet long. The coonties will eventually need 6 to 8 feet diameter space to grow in as they become older. They will tolerate full sun as the palms grow taller and provide less shade. Starting at about 10 years of age, the underground stem called a caudex will develop multiple growth points, or crowns.
Florida’s native Coontie is best called Zamia integrifolia. For education purposes, Jane added an explanation in a text box to the range map she adapted from the University of South Florida plant atlas. Readers can get up-to-date information at florida.plantatlas.ufs.edu. This coontie species ranges throughout much of Florida in cold zones 8-11 and on the nearby Bahama Islands. The closely related but distinct species that evolved in the northeastern Caribbean Islands is now identified as Zamia pumila.
Japanese King Sago, Cycas revoluta, is a popular evergreen ornamental garden plant in warm climates globally. It is an ancient cycad species of cone-bearing gymnosperm plants, as are pines, spruces, cypress and juniper cedars. It is not a flowering plant like a palm, nor is it a fern. If overpruned annually by removing all green leaves needed for photosynthesis, new leaf flushes may be stunted by lack of nutrition. Apply systemic scale insecticide spray before leaves flush to prevent scales from spreading to new leaves.
A row of potted cycads in Jane’s Garden in Marion County borderline zone 8b–9a. Mexican Cardboard plant has wide, thick pinnate leaves and is frost-tender, so suited as a protected patio plant brought indoors for the winter. Popular Japanese King Sago, Cycas revoluta, produces a new row of stiff pinnate leaves in spring as the summer rainy season begins in June in Central Florida.
Pups cut off a female Japanese King Sago were infested with Asian cycad scale, as was their parent. Pups are identical to the parent in appearance and sex. The scale insects can be killed with insecticide such as synthetic bifenthrin. Follow label instructions and mix only as much as needed for immediate and imminent application. Check your neighbor’s cycads and treat them as well to prevent spread and repeated infestations.
Jane grows thousands of coonties, sagos and cardboard cycads, so she mixes bifenthrin in a 2-gallon sprayer. Asian cycad scale can infest different species of cycads as well as Asian shrubs like camellias and native magnolia trees. Nurseries constantly look for any sign of scale on their plants and treat problems promptly.
Bifenthrin concentrated insecticide is readily available at retail outlets, farm stores and agricultural supply outlets. It takes only a quarter ounce of the powerful concentrate in a gallon of water to be effective. Always follow the label directions. Insects can be killed on contact, but bifenthrin lasts for weeks to poison sucking insects. Respray within four weeks to kill crawlers before they become breeding adults.
Jane harvested these King Sago pups from a scale-infested female King Sago. She immediately doused the mother and babies with bifenthrin insecticide spray. Seven days later, after any eggs should have hatched, the pups were sprayed again. Two days later, the pups and leaves were soaked in a sink full of cool tap water and dish detergent to help remove the waxy protective shells where females lay eggs. The leaves were rinsed, scrubbed with a nail brush to dislodge dead debris of adult bodies, eggs and crawlers then re-rinsed.
Damaged leaves and individual leaflets were removed from the cleaned Sago pups. After drying and a thorough inspection, the pups got another insecticide spray before being planted in a well-drained sandy potting mix made of two parts backyard sand to one part finely milled humus.
Although damaged and deformed, the remaining leaves will still photosynthesize and feed the newly severed Sago pups. Removing all the leaves would prevent plants, including sagos and coonties, from making food using sunlight energy and slow the growing new roots and leaves. Gardeners should never remove efficiently photosynthesizing leaves as then the plant cannot feed itself and grow properly.
This female King Sago has a few pups growing around its trunk base and seeds still attached below the current year’s flush of new leaves. The owners spray annually and as needed to kill any Asian cycad scale that drifts in on the wind. The frost-tender cycad is tucked into a corner between the home and garage where the radiant heat in winter creates a warmer microclimate to ward off winter frosts.
Freshly severed and rootless King Sago pups that Jane had cleaned of Asian scale will be left to grow roots and sprout new leaves for about a year in 6-inch diameter carbon-black reused nursery pots. The King Sago in the larger 10-inch diameter pot was harvested a year before and kept its first three leaves to photosynthesize. Now it has a new flush of leaves so the old leaves are dying, being shed and can be snipped off for a tidy look.
Seedling Mexican Cardboard Cycads sprouted underneath a female parent. They need to be removed to their own pot or garden location before they crowd out the mother plant. This species rarely gets infested with Asian Cycad scale. Frost-tender north of cold zone 9a, Cardboard Cycad makes a good potted plant that can be moved indoors for the winter.
Female Mexican Cardboard cycad with three seed cones. Each cone will open its scaly plates to shed the seed about eight months after pollination by beetles. Note the young newly sprouted leaves on baby cardboards growing beneath the mother plant. They will soon need relocating to their own space.
The Emperor Cycad evolved on the island called Taiwan, 160 kilometers across the Taiwan Strait off mainland China in Southeast Asia. It can grow 10 feet tall and have stiff dark green leaves up to 5 feet long. It needs a 10 foot diameter space to grow uncrowded to maturity.
This rare dwarf coontie, Zamia integrifolia, is an evergreen Florida native cycad that will never grow any taller in its limited garden space beside Jane’s garage door. Coonties have limited frost tolerance in zone 8b: heat radiating from the concrete and building wards off winter frosts. Each green leaf can last up to three years while photosynthesizing and converting sunlight energy to chemical energy for growth. Old inefficient leaves die and are shed naturally. Persnickety gardeners can remove old dying leaves for tidiness.
In Jane’s front garden, a pair of Florida coonties, Zamia integrifolia, grow well in the part shade beneath a trio of 23-year-old seed grown Sabal Palms (Sabal palmetto) Florida’s State “tree.” The coonties sprouted in 1998 and have a life expectancy of about 120 years. Each coontie leaf can last three years before it becomes inefficient at photosynthesis and is shed naturally by the Jurassic Period cycad plant. Pinnate, feathery leaves on a mature coontie can be 4 feet long. The coonties will eventually need 6 to 8 feet diameter space to grow in as they become older. They will tolerate full sun as the palms grow taller and provide less shade. Starting at about 10 years of age, the underground stem called a caudex will develop multiple growth points, or crowns.
Florida’s native Coontie is best called Zamia integrifolia. For education purposes, Jane added an explanation in a text box to the range map she adapted from the University of South Florida plant atlas. Readers can get up-to-date information at florida.plantatlas.ufs.edu. This coontie species ranges throughout much of Florida in cold zones 8-11 and on the nearby Bahama Islands. The closely related but distinct species that evolved in the northeastern Caribbean Islands is now identified as Zamia pumila.
Japanese King Sago, Cycas revoluta, is a popular evergreen ornamental garden plant in warm climates globally. It dates from the “Age of Cycads and Dinosaurs,” the mid-Mesozoic and Jurassic periods, some 280 million years ago. Ancient cycad species are cone-bearing (gymnosperm) plants, as are pines, spruces and juniper cedars. They are not flowering plants like palms nor spore-bearing ferns.
Besides being frost-tender and needing winter protection in USDA cold hardiness zone 9a and colder zones further north, this attractive cycad is susceptible to Asian Cycad Scale, Aulacaspis yasumatsui. The stiff, prickly, evergreen leaves may become covered in thousands of tiny, white-covered sucking scale insects.
Aulacaspis scales live about 75 days. Females lay about 100 eggs under their armor that hatch after seven days. From egg to adult scale insect is about 35 days. For some 30 days, hatched nymphs, called crawlers, move up before becoming adults that anchor to feed on plant sap. Blown by wind and flushed by rain, the buoyant, lightweight nymphs land on the ground, among the cycad roots and on the lower trunk.
Female adults are orange but covered in a hard, oval, shell-like waxy white armor that is difficult for topical insecticides to penetrate. adult males are smaller than females, have wings and can fly.
When scales suck sap, the plant cannot photosynthesize, so leaves turn yellow and die over a few months. Prune off only severely infested lower leaves. Cycads usually produce a single set of new leaves per year in May or June in Central Florida. Removing all the cycad leaves will stunt the growth of new leaves as the plant cannot photosynthesize to feed itself. In my garden, I spray insecticide in March after the last winter frost and then again in late May or early June when I notice new leaves emerging. This helps prevent the spread of scale to emerging leaves. Once the summer rainy season arrives, I check the weather forecast before choosing a dry early morning to respray within 30 days before crawlers become adult scale.
A tiny black lady beetle, Rhyzobius lophanthae, that preys on cycad scale can be a biological control strategy. For information on control of Asian Aulacapis scale by two introduced ladybug beetles, Rhyzobius lophanthae and Cryptolaemus montrouzieri, see the University of Florida digital collections, at https://tinyurl.com/2eh2ean2.
Homeowners can use the systemic insecticide bifenthrin to kill scale and all other insects. The concentrated creamy chemical is readily available at retail outlets, farm stores and agricultural supply outlets. It takes only a quarter ounce of the powerful concentrate in a gallon of water to be effective. Always follow the label directions. Insects can be killed on contact, but bifenthrin is primarily a systemic insecticide, entering green growing leaves and staying there for weeks to poison sucking insects. Respray within four weeks as needed.
Cycads are either male or female. Seedlings growing together may be of different sex and may appear to be one plant. In Florida, native Coontie, Zamia integrifolia, is the only primordial ancient cycad left. It can be planted in cold zones 8b to 11. Hard freezes will kill leaves to the ground, but it grows a flush of new leaves in spring. It has a Mexican relative, the Cardboard plant or Cycad, Zamia furfuracea, that is not as frost-tolerant.
Related to King Sago, the more tropical, tree-like Queen Sago, Cycas circinalis, evolved in southern India and Sri Lanka so can be grown in South Florida. Central American Dioon cycads grown in Florida include Chestnut Dioon, Dioon edule, cold-tolerant in zones 8–11 and the large Giant Dioon, Dioon spinulosum, zones 9b–11. Giant Dioon can develop several trunks and reach 8 feet tall. These four cycads have stiff, prickly, feathery (pinnate) leaves with sharp leaflet tips. Baby pup offsets with the same sex as the parent may grow on the trunk or around the trunk base.
If Asian scale is controlled, ancient cycads are easy to grow. Cycads are attractive evergreen perennials in mild-climate Florida gardens. In colder climates, cycads are used as potted houseplants and in indoor malls and conservatories.
Jane Weber is a professional gardener and consultant. Semi-retired, she grows thousands of native plants. Contact her at jweber12385@gmail.com or phone 352-249-6899.
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