Sago Palm
Cycas revoluta
Through the year 🗓️
☀️ Summer now
Water deeply in the heat and inspect frond undersides for scale every time you water.
🍂 Fall
Taper watering and stop feeding once the new fronds have hardened off.
❄️ Winter
Water only when the pot is mostly dry and keep it bright and cool; no fertilizer.
🌱 Spring
Expect the year's single flush of new fronds. Keep light strong and don't move the plant mid-flush.
The details
Light & placement
- Light
- Bright light with some direct sun; tolerates bright indirect
- Ideal PPFD
- 300–600 µmol·m⁻²·s⁻¹
- Grow-light distance
- 12–18 in below LED
Water & feed
- Watering method
- Soak-and-dry: water thoroughly, let it drain, then let the top half of the pot dry out. Keep water off the crown; the trunk stores reserves like a succulent.
- Fertilizer
- Balanced or palm feed at ½ strength, every 4–6 wks in spring–summer; none in winter.
Home & habit
- Soil
- Gritty, fast-draining mix (cactus mix + bark); pH 5.5–6.5
- Humidity
- Low–average (30–50%)
- Temperature
- 60–80 °F (tolerates brief cool spells)
- Mature size
- 2–3 ft indoors after many years
- Repotting
- Every 3+ yrs; it likes being snug and resents disturbance
- Propagation
- Basal offsets ("pups") twisted off, callused for a week, then potted; seed is very slow.
When something looks wrong
- Overwatering signs
- Yellowing fronds all over, soft spongy trunk, crown rot
- Underwatering signs
- Fronds folding and browning at the tips; a wrinkled, lightweight trunk
- Common pests
- Scale (especially cycad aulacaspis scale, which is aggressive), mealybugs, spider mites
Common problems 🩺
The usual suspects when Sago Palm looks unhappy. Most houseplant trouble is watering or light, not disease — see all plant problems if you are not sure which plant is the culprit.
Older fronds turning yellow
Likely cause
Usually a manganese or magnesium shortfall; sometimes overwatering.
What to do
Feed a palm or cycad fertilizer with micronutrients. Old yellow fronds never re-green — trim them.
Soft base and collapsing crown
Likely cause
Overwatering. Sagos are cycads and store water in the trunk.
What to do
Let the soil dry well between waterings and use a gritty, free-draining mix.
White crusty coating on the fronds
Likely cause
Cycad scale, which spreads fast and can kill a sago.
What to do
Isolate it immediately, wash the fronds, and treat with horticultural oil repeatedly until every trace is gone.
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