Hard to believe the plant would appreciate that. Aren't these pretty slow growing?

Excruciatingly slow but mine do produce 1-2 flushes of new fronds per year. I'm feeling daring today, ha

Go bossy!, go bossy!, go bossy! :D I plan to do the same with my Canary Islands palms because most of the leaves are burnt.

Omar

Something I had never noticed b4 are these little bulblets growing in the trunk. I took them off.

before I took them off the trunk

Hmmm, gonna' go look and see if I can find any 'bulblets' on mine.

This spring I removed all the fronds from two of the three oldest Sago palms because of hail damage and they look great now. They grew several rows of shorter fronds. Unfortunately, I will be removing a few of those because of spotty freeze damage scattered around on the leaves.

I've never fertilized them, but I think a little palm fertilizer might be in order next spring. Sagos have a special need for manganese or their new leaves curl around and die. Even with the high pH of my soil I've only had that happen on one Sago in a pot. Manganese sulfate fixed it.

I am north of both of you. The fronds go all mulatto on me after a big freeze and I always end up having to chop them off in the spring. I now do that before the big freeze and pile up all the fronds around the trunk to act as insulation.Mine looks like a slightly shorter version of yours right now. I had three flushes last year. I think last year was the first year that I didn't have to trim them off. I try to pry those babies off to keep the form neat. I used to neaten up my mother in laws old palm, the mother of mine. Mine is still too young for them.

Hmmmm. I'm surprised with NO leaves at all left, that it would be able to do its photosynthesis for food. Seeing yours is encouraging. I have one I inherited that was quite small when we bought this place. It froze severely, but 7 fronds survived our frigid temps recently. I think I'll cut all the browned off fronds off soon, as well as the two that tend to lay nearly on the ground and get stepped on regularly anyway. That will leave 5 surviving, more upright green fronds. Mine's trunk is only 1-1½' tall I would guess.

Evidently they store a lot of energy in their trunk and/or roots. I've cut all the fronds off some of my small Sagos and they recovered just fine. Also have done the same to my two "Card board" palms, which are also in cycad family. They renewed their leaves quickly with no problem.

That's good to know. Mine put on about 8 fronds this past spring/summer. It looked so sick when we bought the house a year ago I thought it was dying. Don't think it had been watered in ages. With heavy watering it came back for me. I hope it will again this spring.

Roselee, did you keep your "card board" (Zamia furfuracea) palm outside?

Omar

Omar, no I don't. They are in pots and I drag them into the green house. I don't think they are as hardy as Sagos and have never tried leaving them out.

In ft bend co my cardboard dies to the ground but returns. Mine is getting bigger slowly but surely. Brown foliage is ugly and looks messy. On my cleanup list for today.

After

Please be sure no bulblets or seeds are left laying around so your pets can get them. All parts of sago palms are highly poisonous to pets.

True! When I saw my pup Alfie mouthing some new leaves coming out of the mounding offshoots on my large male Sagos I covered those offshoots with black plastic and heaped mulch on them. Interestingly, my female Sago doesn't produce offshoots, but the two males do.

That's interesting. Those sagos have such wicked thorns, I can't imagine dog or cat messing w/them. I thank you both for the warning.

I've read mostly about them being poisoned by the Sago seeds so I was very careful to harvest all the seeds that my female produced before they fell to the ground. And as mentioned above puppies especially will mess with the tender new leaves that sometimes come from around the bottom of a mature Sago palm as it starts to spread, or 'pup'.

Funny thing: I never noticed those long thorns coming out of the Sago trunks! LOL I just went out, looked and found them. The old fronds have never been cut close to the trunk so they were somewhat hidden.

My sago is a male and no females in a 100' radius. I don't guess I need to worry about seeds.

I never trimmed to close to the trunk. It looks more like a fat hedgehog right now.

I'm prune crazy

I am the opposite.