Sago Palm Cycas revoluta

Not a palm, despite the name. Cycas revoluta is a cycad, an ancient lineage that predates flowering plants, holding stiff, dark, glossy leaves in a rigid whorl above a stout woody trunk. The habit is what makes it useful: new fronds arrive in a single flush, a whole crown pushing out together, usually once a year, so it keeps an even, almost machine cut symmetry between flushes. It is a formal plant, used in matched pairs at an entry, in large pots, and repeated through Mediterranean and coastal gardens.

Drainage first, then the caterpillars

It comes from southern Japan and takes part shade through to full sun, with low to moderate water and slow, steady growth. Drainage comes before everything else. Wet feet in heavy soil rot the trunk from the base, and there is no fixing a rotted trunk, so plant into raised, gritty, free draining ground or into a pot with a coarse mix. It handles salt wind and cool nights better than most things sold beside it. Give it room to open the crown fully as well, because a plant jammed against a wall grows lopsided and never recovers the symmetry that made it worth buying. The real failure, though, is an insect. Cycad blue butterfly caterpillars will strip a soft new flush within days along the eastern seaboard, and because the plant flushes only once a year, losing that flush costs a whole season of growth. Inspect the emerging fronds daily while they are soft and act early rather than after the damage shows. One more thing to weigh before buying: the seed and trunk tissue are seriously toxic to dogs, which rules the plant out of some yards.

Sago palm, ponytail and gymea lily

Ponytail palm is the alternative when you want the same slow, sculptural, low water character without the formality, since it is irregular and soft in the leaf, better as a one off, and safe around dogs. The cycad is the one to buy when the design needs symmetry and repetition, a pair either side of a door or a row down a terrace. For something at a larger scale with a native reference, Doryanthes excelsa gives coarse, arching, sword shaped leaves and eventually a spike, but it needs far more room than a cycad in a pot. Related feature plants sit in tropical plants.

Handling each new flush

Remove the oldest ring of fronds only when they yellow or hang below horizontal, cutting close to the trunk, and time that just before the new flush so the plant looks full afterwards. Do not strip the crown back to bare trunk. Suckers, or pups, at the base can be cut away with a sharp knife once they are a decent size and grown on, or left in place to build a multi headed clump. Feed in early spring with a slow release fertiliser and a trace element supplement, since yellowing between the veins on older fronds is usually magnesium or manganese rather than a watering problem.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 12 sizes, from 140mm up to 400L, priced from $30.95 to $5499.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. The smaller pots hold younger plants that cost less each and establish quickly, which suits hedges, screens and mass planting where the plant count adds up. The larger sizes carry several more years of growth on the farm and give height and presence straight away, which is what you want for a single feature position or a screen that cannot wait. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to when to plant in Australia.