repotting cycads

Discussion in 'Indoor and Greenhouse Plants' started by Sunset Cycads, Mar 2, 2011.

  1. Sunset Cycads

    Sunset Cycads Active Member 10 Years

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    Location:
    Sunshine Coast, British Columbia, Canada
    Does anyone have any cycads that need repotting? I have a potting mix on my web site (see "cycad care") that you can mix up yourself. Cycads that are thriving in my house for over four years are: Dioon spinulosum, Macrozamia communis, Cycas sexseminifera, Dioon edule, Bowenia serrulata, Zamia furfuracea, among others.
     
  2. thanrose

    thanrose Active Member 10 Years

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    Location:
    Jacksonville, FL USA USDA Zone 9
    I've read somewhere online recently that coontie, Zamia pumila, is an excellent plant for improving air quality indoors. I'd never have thought to grow it indoors. Like all my cycads, it's outdoors here. I must have over a hundred individual plants, although it often grows in clusters. Just transplanted a football sized caudex last month from an area where there were too many to that rare place with none...

    I've been toying with the idea of trying to grow one or three indoors, probably with a pot rotation of indoors for a month, out for two or somesuch.

    Sorry for the lack of source credibility on the air purifying aspects. I know I have it somewhere...
     
  3. Sunset Cycads

    Sunset Cycads Active Member 10 Years

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    Cycads for air quality, that sounds very interesting, especially for us up north here who spend a lot of time indoors (i.e., all winter). If you come across that citation please share it. Thank you.
     
  4. thanrose

    thanrose Active Member 10 Years

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    http://www.garden.org/regional/report/national/3621

    It was from garden.org, a regional report for the southeast US, the National Gardening Association. They quoted a bit from Hortideas, which was publishing an abstract from the American Society for Horticultural Science, specifically about formaldehyde remediation. That abstract is here:

    http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/45/10/1489

    Took me a few mins to back track it. I mostly had clipped text that was relevant to me for a very general plant stuff document I keep.
     
  5. Tom Hulse

    Tom Hulse Active Member 10 Years

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    Lori I am curious which mix you use, and how long on average between waterings for you in that mix?
     
  6. Sunset Cycads

    Sunset Cycads Active Member 10 Years

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    I am currently using a mix of equal parts compost, perlite, pumice, fir bark and sand. To that I add some complete organic fertilizer, about a cup per wheelbarrow. In the summer I water in the house about once a week, in the greenhouse every day (it gets much hotter in there). What do you use, Tom?
     
  7. Tom Hulse

    Tom Hulse Active Member 10 Years

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    I have a standard container tropicals mix that I make with equal parts TBK long-fiber peat, coir, perlite, pumice, & semi-sterilized bagged yard-waste compost. So thats basically 2 parts water retention, 2 parts drainage, and 1 part friable compost. To that I add a little of 3 kinds of lime, some slow-release fertilizer, a little kelp meal, and a little alfalfa meal. That's for thirstier tropicals.
    For anything that likes more drainage, like palms or cycads, depending on the plant, I'll add 2 parts of this total mix to 1 or 2 parts pumice.
     

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