Hello
You sagos sound beautiful let me first say.. As for moving them it can be done without killing hem as long as you are careful when you remove them from the ground. Thr roots are much like a palm in almost a ball but they can go kinda deep depending on how big they are.

Questions that may help...
1 are there babies all the way around the bottom or are they tall stalks with the fronds on the top?
How tall are they?Do you want to move them to another area or are you wanting rid of them?
Where in zn9 are you we are in jax maybe we can help..

Happy Gardening
Donna & Max

We transplants 2 massive sagos from one of my co-workers house to my parents house 33 miles away. We weren't all that careful when digging them up but they took just fine at their new home. They did go into shock for awhile but recovered well. Just make sure to give them plenty of water after you move them.

Kara

So how tall are the main stems themselves? If the stems are 3 feet or shorter, they shouldn't be too hard to move. Even if they were so large that you couldn't lift them out of the holes, if all that really is needed is that these plants need to be moved about 4 feet farther than they are now, I have dug a hole and a trench in between and just slid them over to the new location. They are easy to move as far as stress goes, it really comes down to how much are you, or you and your friends able to physically move. I wrote an article telling people how to transplant cycads, but they don't allow links like this on the forum, so, I'm sorry everyone, but I will copy it below (might be a little long)

What is the best procedure to transplant my King Sago?

Transplanting cycads in general is very easy and fairly risk free as long as you do the proper things. I prefer to remove the all the leaves before I start to move the plant. This makes it easy to work on the plant. If the root system is damaged a great deal when dig up, the leaves will not get as much water pumped into them, and the leaves can collapse and pull the apex apart, which could kill the plant. This doesn't always happen, and the plant can be moved without removing the leaves, but I feel it is the best way, just to make sure. The more leaves there are, and the more the roots are cut will determine how much there is a need for this. If you move the plant during any of the warm months, new leaves are usually produced within a month or two. Even though you can move a cycad any time during the year, the warm months are best.

I try to dig at least 8 to 12 inches away from the trunk in all directions, and at least 12 to 18 inches below the ground, but it never hurts to keep as much of the root system as possible. It is not necessary to treat the roots that have been cut, but if any large roots that are more than an inch or two in diameter are cut, it can't hurt to apply a fungicide or sulfur powder to the cut area, or to seal the cut area with black tree paint. The most important thing to remember when moving a large cycad is to not damage the stem. Any cut area, or gouge caused by wrapping a chain around the stem can kill the plant. Damage may not be obvious at first and can take as long as 3 years for the plant to die. When moving a plant with a stem that exceeds 4 feet, the weight of the stem can cause it to bend, even though it may not be noticeable. It is advisable to use a splint when moving plants with stems that exceed 6 feet in length. By placing two boards on either side of the stem and tying them together, this can keep the stem from bending when being moved.

Once you plant the cycad, you should not over water it, especially if you have removed the leaves. If the plant does not have leaves, it can't respirate, and does not lose very much moisture. This is why I remove the leaves to reduce shock. It is good to water in the plant at first, mainly to fill any air pockets in the soil. After that, only water lightly a couple of times a week until the new leaves are produced. Over watering cycads in general, and certainly when there are damaged roots, is the best way to cause rot that can kill the plant.

It will not hurt to add a time release, or water soluble fertilizer when planting, but it is not recommended to add a strong granular fertilizer until the damaged roots heal.

Transplanting a cycad is very easy, and I have made it sound more difficult than it really is, but it never hurts to cover any possible problems to ensure a successful transplant.

There is a disease that is slowing wiping out the Sago Palms anyway so just chop it down dig out some root if you choose but a new young one will no doubt sprout, they are nice for as long as they last with this yellowing disease killing them, it was in our local paper and it is worse on the east coast, but we've got it over here to, my friend up the street lost her's to it..

Thanks cycadjungle, really appreciate the detailed information. Guess I won't try to do anything to them until after this winter, but feel better prepared now. Never thought to remove the leaves, was really trying to figure out how to get close to it with those pokey things all over.

Wish I could just move them a couple feet but they are in a raised bed surrounded by a wood border so I will have to physically move them to another area of the yard.

Thanks everyone for your quick responses

Removing the leaves helps reduce the stress. If you don't want to get poked doing that, go to Home Depot and get a Fiskar's Pruning Stik. (I know the spelling is wrong but that is how they spell it) You can turn the head to any angle and cut the leaves off from 5 feet away and never get jabbed. The "disease" that susie is talking about is actually an insect called "Asian scale". It IS killing cycas speies all over Florida and now even nurseries are throwing them away by the 100s. Little do they know that the scale is easy to take care of and can be warded off by using something as simple as applying an organic mulch, a couple of times a year. I have saved many large plants in the Lakeland area already for materials that are free. I am finally going to write my article on the subject for the December Cycad Society newsletter, so after that comes out, I have promised the Orlando Sentinal that they can use my information for an article. Last time they wrote an article about me in their paper, just about every paper in Florida carried it, so they will probably do the same, because this is way more important than the subject of the last article.

cycadjungle has the best, professional advice. BUT, if you don't want to remove the leaves, for aesthtic purpose, I learned this trick when I worked in landscaping. Wrap those leaves up tight with a bungee cord (or 2.) And we always moved them with a hand-truck.

I'd be very interested to learn more, Cycadjungle. I lost all my sagos, a big beautiful king and queen, after going nuts treating it with hundreds of dollars worth of horrible poisons like Cygon...after a while I just couldn't do it anymore because it was a losing battle and I hated using such strong chemicals.

Does this only work for healthy plants or will it work for diseased ones? Because once the scale is in the roots it seems that it's only a matter of time.

If anyone has the scale and you go into winter, you already have the scale in the roots. They go down when it gets cooler and come back up when it gets warm. Just because they are in the roots does not mean it is too late. Even if you didn't want to use harsh chemicals, I remember what an old citrus farmer told me, they had scales in the roots, so they pushed a ring of dirt around the tree and kept drenching the entire area with a mix of water and horticultural oil until the mixture had gone down to the bottom of the root area, and cured the trees. That was a lot of material, but it worked. You could spray the top of the sago with the oil mixture and then drench the roots as well, and you could kill every scale without using a bad pesticide. I have found that if you take a bag of the used coffee grounds you get free from Starbucks and spread it around the root area and take the bottom 3 inches of the bag and put some water in it just enough to make it a thick mud, and pour that all over the apex, it kills all the scales, makes your plant totally immune to predation for about 3 to 4 months, and kept some plants clean for 10 months, even when there was a totally white plant only 50 feet away. All you have to do is spray everything above ground with the oil, wait a day, and then use the coffee and then you are good. If you want to keep a plant perfect, I would just use the grounds twice a eyar, whether you have a problem or not, and you will have beautiful sagos, and it is free.

cycadjungle,
The Belleview post office has two sago palms at the entrance and they have taken all the leaves off one of them.
Many of the sago in the Villages also have no leaves at all.
Could that be a way to treat the plants of the scales?

Felix

They are treating them by removing as much of the problem they can, but unless they are treating them with a chemical, or something, it will just come back quickly, and by doing that this time of year, they are really causing the plants hardm by taking away their energy at a time that they may not produce more leaves till next spring if they don't watch out. That normally is the lazy way to do it when you don't really know what to do.
What they need to do is fertilize the plants at the same time so they will flush quickly, spray everything above ground with the horticultural oil to kill everything hiding in the leaf bases and then surround the ground with a bag of the Starbucks grounds, and those plants won't even think about getting scales till about May to July of next year.

We have been very successful here in DeLand, Florida eradicating the Asian Scale. You can visit our site at SaveOurSagos.com or read about our product in The Cycad Society Quarterly Newsletter this month. The product is inexpensive and very effective. We have had a 100% success rate.