Friday, August 18, 2017

The Importance Of Fertilizing When Growing Cycads

By Ann Evans


Interesting plants such as cycads will certainly enrich any garden. They resemble palms, but are actually just very distant relatives. In fact, these nice looking plants were here on Earth long before people, back in Jurassic Age. Today, they are rare and endangered, and if you are interested in growing cycads, there is a whole new market for them.

As with most plants, the soil is really important, as well as good quality fertilizers. Some people think that palm fertilizers will be adequate, because cycads look quite alike. This is actually very wrong, because plant fertilizers contain low nitrogen levels, and cycads need at least 18 percent nitrogen for successful growth. If you already have palm fertilizer, try to improve the nitrogen level first.

When it comes to the best type of fertilizers, besides appropriate level of nitrogen, another important thing is to choose those that will fertilizer constantly, during prolonged period of time. Plastic coated pellets are especially successful, because this form is highly resistible to excessive watering, and they will not release higher amount of fertilizers even in this case.

Cycads grow best in warm climate zones and are quite sensitive when it comes to cold weather. Their leaves will probably be ruined by frost, and you will have to cut them off. The best thing you can do if something like that happen is to give your plant some fertilizers first, and to cut the leaves off several days after that. Within a few weeks, the new leaves should grow.

If the weather is still not warm enough, these new leaves should be protected from morning cold. Wrap them during nights, to make sure they won't get cold burns again. Although they are sensitive to cold, you can still successfully grow them in colder climate zones, if you take a really good care of them.

If your primary goal is the seed production, your plants should get strong enough to be able to hold those seeds first. This means slower growth but stronger plants. Depending on the species, you should apply special types of fertilizers approximately two months before the expecting cones. If you are not sure when to expect them exactly, it would be better to start earlier than too late. The plants might be too fragile for the cones.

If your only goal is to grow plants for your garden, or you are more interested in selling leafy plants, you will be interested in fast-growing plants. It requires different fertilizing regimes. Give them rich soil from the beginning, and you will soon have luxuriously green plants, ready for sale. Of course, different species have slightly different needs.

It would probably take some time and a certain level of experimenting before finding the perfect fertilizers mixture for each species. This will depend on several factors, including the soil type in your area, climate, different types of fertilizers, the amount of watering and, of course, of the particular species that you have chosen to grow.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment