Hardiness of encephalartos inopinus

[Meangreen94z]

Not a whole lot of information out there on this cycad. Any real world experience ?

[cycadjungle]

In my area in Florida, the leaves burn at 23f and possible stem damage at 15f.

[Palm Tree Jim]

Does well for me here in Southern California. 

Although, not the lows and highs of Houston.

[Tracy]

1 hour ago, Palm Tree Jim said:

Does well for me here in Southern California. 

Although, not the lows and highs of Houston.

Jim and I have the same climate which doesn't really test the highs and lows.  I'll state one of the other obvious things though, which is that they do like good drainage.  If you can plant it in an elevated bed so that it doesn't sit in pooling water when you do get rain, that would be a good thing.  I have fast draining sandy soil, but in that they aren't the least expensive cycad, I took the precaution of planting mine high in the planter with rocks around to support the little elevation even as soil might otherwise erode away over time.  Do you plan to put yours in the ground or keep it in a pot? 

One other observation is that mine seems to be a very vigorous pup producer.  I don't think mine is too much of an outlier although it may be pupping a bit younger than some.  The main caudex is about softball size, and I have about 5 offsets currently coming off to the sides, varying from one leafers to three leafers, so you may want to give it extra room if you put it in the ground.

[Meangreen94z]

Thanks for all of the responses. Yes, I plan on it eventually going into the ground. I’m in 9a, we usually don’t see much below 25*F. January 2018 it did drop to 18*-19* F with ice, a once in every 10-20 year event. So it sounds like this cycad would survive in my climate. I own a lot of cactus and succulents, so pretty everything gets elevated in a mixture of haydite/soil anyway.

thanks again 

-Daniel 

Edited March 18, 2019 by Meangreen94z

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

I've tested a lot of stuff but not chancing an inopinus yet.

[Tracy]

10 hours ago, TexasColdHardyPalms said:

I've tested a lot of stuff but not chancing an inopinus yet.

You were the one person I thought would be most likely to have done the real field test for this.  It is definitely placing a higher stakes bet with E. inopinus than with most of the other cycad genus and/or species.  I guess in a few years Daniel ( Meangreen94z ) will be sharing his experience in some highs and lows with us on this species.  Good luck and keep us posted if you pull the trigger Daniel!

[Meangreen94z]

Thank you. I’m pretty sure I will purchase this but as a seedling. So it may be a couple years before it makes it into the ground. I will make sure to update the results.

[Tracy]

On 3/19/2019 at 1:11 PM, Meangreen94z said:

Thank you. I’m pretty sure I will purchase this but as a seedling. So it may be a couple years before it makes it into the ground. I will make sure to update the results.

The plant pictured was a good size seedling (1.25" or 1.5" caudex) when I got it (pictured below in 2012).  I kept it in a tall tree pot until planting it in early 2015.  So you can see 7 years growth between this photo and the one below for perspective on speed of growth from a seedling.

[Palm Tree Jim]

25 minutes ago, Tracy said:

The plant pictured was a good size seedling (1.25" or 1.5" caudex) when I got it (pictured below in 2012).  I kept it in a tall tree pot until planting it in early 2015.  So you can see 7 years growth between this photo and the one below for perspective on speed of growth from a seedling.

Surprisingly good growth rate Tracy.

Does it flush annually for you?

[Tracy]

1 hour ago, Palm Tree Jim said:

Does it flush annually for you?

The main caudex is often twice but each is a small flush of 3 leaves still.  I'm sure as it gets bigger and has larger flushes it will go down to once a year.  The offsets are all mostly still pushing one leaf at a time, but a couple of times over the summer as well.  I think the largest offset pushed two simultaneously.  It's pretty consistent with other small Encephalartos in that when small they can have more than one flush per year, because they are only pushing 1, 2 or 3 leaves at a time, but once they got to pushing anymore leaves, it went down to one flush per year.  I take that back, the giant green ones can go on an 8-9 month cycle, such as E lauentianus...it doesn't care what the season is.

[Meangreen94z]

Thanks, I appreciate you sharing that. Good information.

[Palm Tree Jim]

Here’s a picture of mine.

Caudex is around 12 inches. I purchased it last year so no idea on age. As for growth, it flushed for me late summer last year. It will be interesting to see how it does this year.

 

 

[yeye]

Beautiful IP Jim 

You use drip system ? 

If so what is your frequency and quantity of water during summer ?

Olivier

 

[Palm Tree Jim]

1 hour ago, yeye said:

Beautiful IP Jim 

You use drip system ? 

If so what is your frequency and quantity of water during summer ?

Olivier

 

Yes to the drip system.

Frequency of water in the summer is once a week and I also hand water maybe every other week. It's a good opportunity for me to see and check on my garden.

If I recall, each of my cycads has 1 gallon per hour emitters.  So they get half a gallon per week plus the hand watering as well.

[Tracy]

4 hours ago, Palm Tree Jim said:

 

If I recall, each of my cycads has 1 gallon per hour emitters.  So they get half a gallon per week plus the hand watering as well.

How many emitters to each of your cycads Jim?  I'm using 2 emitters on most of the larger cycads, but I have extremely fast draining sandy soil.  Not only does the water filter through quickly, but it also wants to go straight down with little peripheral filtering.  Great for drainage, but not so great for water demand.