PATSP Learning Moment: Cycas

About a month ago, I took the Cycas revoluta off the shelf to water and it was doing this:


My guess is that it's a nutrient deficiency, probably of iron, magnesium, or nitrogen. I did spray it with an iron-containing trace-nutrient spray, and the parts that were still green appeared to have gotten greener. That doesn't necessarily mean that the iron fixed the problem (it's at least as likely that I misremembered how pale it had been before the iron), but that's my guess. I'm looking for 1) confirmation on the diagnosis, and 2) someone to tell me whether or not the yellowed parts will turn green again, ever (I'm assuming not).

This kind of nutrient deficiency is, of course, made more likely to happen by the way I water my plants. I flush with fairly large amounts of water at each watering, because that keeps salts from building up in the soil. A lot of my plants are sensitive to such salts, and this keeps them happy. Happier. Unfortunately, flushing out the soil to remove unwanted minerals winds up being the same thing as flushing out the soil to remove necessary trace nutrients too. This yellowing is a fairly rare phenomenon for me, because usually I repot things before mineral depletion becomes an issue, and also I add fertilizers to replace the minerals I leach out. But it's still happened a few times (Strelitzia nicolai and I have been through this more than once, for example). Usually I have more advance warning, though: the Cycas bleached out pretty much overnight.

The plant appears to be growing another set of leaves, though it's happening so slowly that I'm not positive, and it's maybe not getting enough light, too, in which case the leaves (should they actually come in) will be grotesque, big, pale things anyway. I didn't really mind until it changed colors on me, but if I'm honest with myself, this whole Cycas attempt really hasn't been going that well.

Meanwhile, I spent part of yesterday fixing up and publishing two posts, one about guest posts and product reviews (because I am occasionally asked), and the other a master list of every plant I've attempted to grow indoors in the last four or five years, and how that's been going, as of May 24, 2010. The latter is pretty dull, but it's there if anyone is curious. Links to both pages are located directly under the Caladium-themed header above. They will be joined by the Infrequently Asked Questions, as soon as I get around to doing that.

Also, I want to wish my Canadian readers a merry and festive Canada Day. May Celine Dion come down your chimney and bring you all the Nanaimo bars, Atom Egoyan DVDs (I really like The Sweet Hereafter, actually), and hockey sticks you asked for.