Dumb Planting Questions

[JohnAndSancho]

Ok, I haven't planted anything in the ground since I was in Cub Scouts. We did a project for Monsanto and planted tons of cedar trees, and there was some leftovers that I planted here on my grandparents land. 

I want to plant out at least a couple of my Sabal babies and my hybrid cycad - it's a Revoluta x Diannanesis. I've got a spot picked out, they'll be protected from the wind and close to the house. 

 

Here's my plan, I'd love feedback. I need to kill off the grass and weeds, so I can lay cardboard down, and I found some old landscaping timbers for a border. It's sloped a little, and I'd set them far back enough to where the rain from the roof won't pound everything but still plenty of water. I'd like to cut holes in the cardboard for the plants and leave it in place to prevent grass and weeds from coming back. At some point I'll throw some gravel or some mulch over the top of it to make it look less trashy. 

 

Thoughts? Potential issues? John might actually dig a hole and put a plant where it belongs. 

[amh]

The cardboard and gravel/leaves/mulch layer will need to be fairly thick to keep the grass and weeds at bay, but your biggest issue will be keeping the hybrid cycad from becoming waterlogged and rotting. I would avoid using cardboard around the Revoluta x Diannanesis and plant it slightly above ground in a fast draining medium.

[JohnAndSancho]

12 minutes ago, amh said:

The cardboard and gravel/leaves/mulch layer will need to be fairly thick to keep the grass and weeds at bay, but your biggest issue will be keeping the hybrid cycad from becoming waterlogged and rotting. I would avoid using cardboard around the Revoluta x Diannanesis and plant it slightly above ground in a fast draining medium.

So what you're saying is, just plant more Sabals there instead. 

[amh]

1 minute ago, JohnAndSancho said:

So what you're saying is, just plant more Sabals there instead. 

No, the cycad will look good near the house and the house will help protect the cycad from bad weather.

I'm just cautioning you that wet cardboard and compacted soil can cause rot, not just from rainfall, dew will be dripping from the roof daily.  Just amend the dirt with some cheap raised bed soil.

After a few years of growing, the roots will be extensive enough to breakup the surrounding soil.

[Rivera]

I killed the last owner's lawn and weeds similarly. 

I pulled as much as I could bear, then I laid down about 6 "fluffy" inches of doug fir and shredded redwood mulch, which eventually compressed down to about half that thickness. In the weediest area, I laid down a couple layers of cardboard before distributing the mulch over top.

It was effective and weeding has been manageable since. 

But I would take note of amh's advice above. Though I had few issues, I always pushed the mulch back from new plantings that needed better drainage and surrounded them with more of an inorganic pebble and sand mix. Note that I'm on fast draining tan dune sand to begin with (fine, but loose; gopher heaven).

Less picky plants were planted directly into the mulch along with some compost and sand. However, I ran into trouble trying to establish Dymondia margaretae as a ground cover for paths and open area later. Normally this shallow-rooted plant grows very well in our native sand, but it needs excellent drainage and didn't care for the now dense and moisture-retentive upper 3" of top soil made of the decomposing bark I'd laid over the sand. 

So go for it, but consider the drainage needs of cultivated plants you're putting in and adjust accordingly. 

For me, it was especially the foot traffic compacting the bark compost that made the soil least suitable for shallow rooted plants that also require sharp drainage (like Dudleya, for instance). Native herbaceous plants were not adversely affected, as a lot of their root was down in the sand and whatever was in the mulch seemed to like being there. Palms in proximity (but not with mulch piled up to their stems) weren't bothered. 

[happypalms]

A $2 planting hole for a $200 dollar plant, or a $200 dollar planting hole for a $2 dollar plan,  Sometimes it doesn’t matter whatever you feel is best. I not a fan of gravel for mulch it’s not really going to break down in a hurry and it doesn’t feed the soil also later on if you want to do something else there your left with a up clean Job. 

[JohnAndSancho]

35 minutes ago, amh said:

No, the cycad will look good near the house and the house will help protect the cycad from bad weather.

I'm just cautioning you that wet cardboard and compacted soil can cause rot, not just from rainfall, dew will be dripping from the roof daily.  Just amend the dirt with some cheap raised bed soil.

I was trying to be funny there. But this is good advice. My other concern is piles of dirt with all of the feral cats running around, but the cycad has thorns and I don't think it's healthy for them so hopefully that'll be a deterrent and I won't have to build a cage. 

 

 

[TropicsEnjoyer]

30 minutes ago, JohnAndSancho said:

I was trying to be funny there. But this is good advice. My other concern is piles of dirt with all of the feral cats running around, but the cycad has thorns and I don't think it's healthy for them so hopefully that'll be a deterrent and I won't have to build a cage. 

 

 

Cycas ingestion is uhhh… quite lethal to animals of any kind. 

[JohnAndSancho]

58 minutes ago, TropicsEnjoyer said:

Cycas ingestion is uhhh… quite lethal to animals of any kind. 

I wanna be clear, I was not encouraging or condoning animal consumption of this or any other of my plants. 

[TropicsEnjoyer]

2 hours ago, JohnAndSancho said:

I wanna be clear, I was not encouraging or condoning animal consumption of this or any other of my plants. 

Yeah I just wanted to put that out there. I don’t really think feral cats or any other animal would even try to be honest. I’m pretty sure the big seeds look appealing to dogs for some reason and they end up being their final meals. 

My cat likes to mess with some of my indoor plants , but she does mostly to be annoying. She bites stuff sometimes so I avoid anything super toxic. Had to evict my zz plant one time bc the cat started throwing up after biting the leaves, but my cat learned her lesson and I brought the plant back in lol.

[JohnAndSancho]

32 minutes ago, TropicsEnjoyer said:

Yeah I just wanted to put that out there. I don’t really think feral cats or any other animal would even try to be honest. I’m pretty sure the big seeds look appealing to dogs for some reason and they end up being their final meals. 

My cat likes to mess with some of my indoor plants , but she does mostly to be annoying. She bites stuff sometimes so I avoid anything super toxic. Had to evict my zz plant one time bc the cat started throwing up after biting the leaves, but my cat learned her lesson and I brought the plant back in lol.

We have A LOT of cats running around. I had to bring almost all of my plants into my bedroom because they'd knock them out of windowsills and use them as toilets. They've killed as many plants as I have. My dog, meanwhile, is indifferent to them. 

[Merlyn]

@JohnAndSancho keep in mind that Rev x Diannan is a fairly big plant.  Diannanensis gets ~8 foot long fronds and is one of the hardier Cycas.  It's one of my favorite hybrids, I have 6 in the ground from @Scott W.  My biggest isn't quite mature sized yet, but I'm guessing it'll get into the ~12' diameter range.

Mine have been fairly tolerant of water, living fine in the wet SE corner or in the drier NE and NW corners of my lot.  I'd avoid putting the caudex under the dripline of the roof from either rainstorms or the morning dew drops.  Fronds under the dripline are probably just fine.  You just don't want water pouring directly onto the caudex every time it rains and every morning.

[Foggy Paul]

19 hours ago, Rivera said:

However, I ran into trouble trying to establish Dymondia margaretae as a ground cover for paths and open area later. Normally this shallow-rooted plant grows very well in our native sand

We have been pulling our Dymondia as it appears to be irresistible to gophers. They fight through the mesh we have over the entire front and back gardens to get to it. The Dymondia also outcompetes a lot of neighboring plants, and the rats dig into it to get the grubs that live there. Other than that it is great 🤣 Too bad as it is a reliable ground cover here and the flowers are attractive.

[Darold Petty]

 John,  Feral cats ?  You need coyotes !

[JohnAndSancho]

4 hours ago, Merlyn said:

@JohnAndSancho keep in mind that Rev x Diannan is a fairly big plant.  Diannanensis gets ~8 foot long fronds and is one of the hardier Cycas.  It's one of my favorite hybrids, I have 6 in the ground from @Scott W.  My biggest isn't quite mature sized yet, but I'm guessing it'll get into the ~12' diameter range.

 

Mine came from Scott, too. Not too long after it arrived, it put out some absolutely massive fronds on one side. I reported it about a month ago and was kinda surprised it didn't have more of a rootball yet. I just really think this one needs to be in the yard and not a houseplant. 

 

43 minutes ago, Darold Petty said:

 John,  Feral cats ?  You need coyotes !

My mom has been feeding them for years now. Honestly, we go through 200 pounds of cat food a month. About half of them become indoor/outdoor cats. Right now there's probably about 30, and there's no animal control or rescues out here. I guess the positive is we don't have rats, mice, or snakes. So there's that. 

[Merlyn]

@JohnAndSancho a lot of Cycas will grow 1 or 2 big taproots and not a whole lot in the way of side roots or small roots.  I'm not really sure how Rev x Diannan will turn out underground:

• Revoluta doesn't grow a "bulb" shape underground, the trunk just tapers down a bit and grows some big taproots.
• Diannanensis grows a monster bigger-than-basketball-sized "bulb" underground even when the above-ground caudex may only be 5 or 6 inches in diameter. 

I transplanted a Rev x Diannan a couple of months ago and didn't notice an unusually large underground bulb shape.  But it was still a fairly young plant.  Here it is just before I trimmed it to move it.  In the upper left is a Diannanensis, the smallest of the bunch I got from @edbrown_III and @Scott W at a CFPACS meeting ~4 years ago.

[JohnAndSancho]

9 minutes ago, Merlyn said:

@JohnAndSancho a lot of Cycas will grow 1 or 2 big taproots and not a whole lot in the way of side roots or small roots.  I'm not really sure how Rev x Diannan will turn out underground:

• Revoluta doesn't grow a "bulb" shape underground, the trunk just tapers down a bit and grows some big taproots.
• Diannanensis grows a monster bigger-than-basketball-sized "bulb" underground even when the above-ground caudex may only be 5 or 6 inches in diameter. 

I transplanted a Rev x Diannan a couple of months ago and didn't notice an unusually large underground bulb shape.  But it was still a fairly young plant.  Here it is just before I trimmed it to move it.  In the upper left is a Diannanensis, the smallest of the bunch I got from @edbrown_III and @Scott W at a CFPACS meeting ~4 years ago.

Here's how mine looks now in its very fancy planter. I haven't moved it since I repotted it until just now to take this pic, but my very scientific method of "it feels heavier than before" tells me it's rooting. It's kinda lopsided but I think it'll grow out of it. Those 3 monster fronds on the left all showed up almost overnight. 

[Rivera]

3 hours ago, Foggy Paul said:

We have been pulling our Dymondia as it appears to be irresistible to gophers. They fight through the mesh we have over the entire front and back gardens to get to it. The Dymondia also outcompetes a lot of neighboring plants, and the rats dig into it to get the grubs that live there. Other than that it is great 🤣 Too bad as it is a reliable ground cover here and the flowers are attractive.

They love those tuberous roots. I'm a vermin sympathizer at heart, but there's no mercy available for the enemy. 💀💀💀

[JohnAndSancho]

I don't think we have gophers, but are armadillos a concern? 

[amh]

On 6/3/2025 at 4:59 PM, JohnAndSancho said:

I was trying to be funny there. But this is good advice. My other concern is piles of dirt with all of the feral cats running around, but the cycad has thorns and I don't think it's healthy for them so hopefully that'll be a deterrent and I won't have to build a cage. 

 

 

I mean, you should plant more sabals. I would still mulch the area around the cycad, but It will be best to have it growing slightly elevated.

Cats are not big fans of cycads.

[JohnAndSancho]

55 minutes ago, amh said:

I mean, you should plant more sabals. I would still mulch the area around the cycad, but It will be best to have it growing slightly elevated.

Cats are not big fans of cycads.

I've got 3 varieties on the heat mat and a native I'm going to harvest when it seeds, and I've been debating back and forth between planting out the Bermudana or throwing them in community pots and giving them another year. This is the rootiest one. 

[amh]

22 hours ago, JohnAndSancho said:

I've got 3 varieties on the heat mat and a native I'm going to harvest when it seeds, and I've been debating back and forth between planting out the Bermudana or throwing them in community pots and giving them another year. This is the rootiest one. 

Time to transplant into a bigger pot or into the ground. 

[JohnAndSancho]

25 minutes ago, amh said:

Time to transplant into a bigger pot or into the ground. 

I might do both. I've got some in a bathroom window and I've been acclimating some to bright light under a grow bulb. I've been talking about making little dividers for community pots and digging holes, I just haven't been able to make myself do anything. 

[amh]

I've mentioned this before, but I start everything in 16 to 20 oz. cups because the next size up is a 1 gallon nursery pot.

[JohnAndSancho]

I've got a pile of nursery pots and empty soda bottles are in endless supply. I've also re-read some old posts on here about people cutting up gallon jugs and putting it over seedlings in the ground - I think someone called it a hillbilly hothouse or something like that. We're not short on sun or humidity here, I'm just scared of the cats and these freak winters that seem to be the new normal. 

[amh]

5 minutes ago, JohnAndSancho said:

I've got a pile of nursery pots and empty soda bottles are in endless supply. I've also re-read some old posts on here about people cutting up gallon jugs and putting it over seedlings in the ground - I think someone called it a hillbilly hothouse or something like that. We're not short on sun or humidity here, I'm just scared of the cats and these freak winters that seem to be the new normal. 

I'm not a hoarder, I'm a gardener!

From my experience, the cats will leave the in-ground palms alone, and a couple gallon water jugs and a tarp will protect your plants in the freak winter storms.

[JohnAndSancho]

30 minutes ago, amh said:

I'm not a hoarder, I'm a gardener!

From my experience, the cats will leave the in-ground palms alone, and a couple gallon water jugs and a tarp will protect your plants in the freak winter storms.

There's a couple old Styrofoam coolers in the woods. I can squeeze a few pots or bottles into those and keep them from falling over/being knocked over. Send up a prayer to the Palm Gods for me that some of these seeds start popping though. I'm going mental looking at what everyone else has got going on. 

[JohnAndSancho]

Welp, here's the spot I want to clear out for the cycad and some sabals and whatever else. You can't really tell, but it's sloped down - I don't remember what my grandmother had planted here, but there's bits of gravel and what I think is some weed barrier visible in the corner. There's also a very overgrown French drain somewhere under all the grass and weeds. I just threw an old landscape timber in there for spatial reference. It's 6 ft. 

 

Now for the fun part. I guess a couple years ago the shower backed up and before we even tried any chemicals or a plunger, my brother went and dug up a Wisteria my mom planted here - and instead of digging to get more of the rootball, he just took a hatchet to it. I didn't think much, but there's something growing out of that hole - it doesn't look like wisteria, but would those old roots be a concern for my cycad? My bad, I took these pics at dusk and have the mosquito bites to prove it. 

 

I need to have a good day and get out there with the heavy rake and maybe a hoe and see how deep all the grass and weeds really are on top of everything else. Eventually I want to get some edging and mulch and make it pretty, but in the meantime I'll border it with some.repurposed cinder blocks because we are all about class and style in East Mississippi. 

[Merlyn]

@JohnAndSancho I don't think the old roots are a problem.  The only issue would be just getting enough of that shrub thingy out of there enough that it doesn't grow back.

Are there gutters on the house?  If not, does the rain collect in any specific spot?

[JohnAndSancho]

36 minutes ago, Merlyn said:

@JohnAndSancho I don't think the old roots are a problem.  The only issue would be just getting enough of that shrub thingy out of there enough that it doesn't grow back.

Are there gutters on the house?  If not, does the rain collect in any specific spot?

No gutters, but there's - I don't know the technical term, but there's a corner piece where the rain runs off into what used to be the French drain. And it's a metal roof so there's condensation every morning but this spot is mostly protected. If that's not the wisteria growing back I don't think it's coming back. I wasn't sad to see it go - it had gotten so out of control and it made the house look haunted. 

[amh]

Dead, old roots wont be a problem, but you will likely need to use herbicide on the wisteria.  If you do have to use a herbicide, you will need to wait a few months before you plant any palms or the cycad in that spot.

[JohnAndSancho]

2 hours ago, amh said:

Dead, old roots wont be a problem, but you will likely need to use herbicide on the wisteria.  If you do have to use a herbicide, you will need to wait a few months before you plant any palms or the cycad in that spot.

How long do their roots live? He dug it up a couple years ago. I kinda wish he would have consulted me so we coulda got more of the rootball. Mom really liked it and it's now very dead. It was probably 5ft tall, a few feet wide, and he got like a handful of roots. 

[amh]

1 hour ago, JohnAndSancho said:

How long do their roots live? He dug it up a couple years ago. I kinda wish he would have consulted me so we coulda got more of the rootball. Mom really liked it and it's now very dead. It was probably 5ft tall, a few feet wide, and he got like a handful of roots. 

If the plant has been dead for years, the roots are dead too, but it appears that the wisteria is still alive in the pictures.

[JohnAndSancho]

32 minutes ago, amh said:

If the plant has been dead for years, the roots are dead too, but it appears that the wisteria is still alive in the pictures.

Yeah I wasn't sure if that was wisteria coming back or just some other random weed or sprout. Our yard is kind of a hot mess and there's weeds and saplings everywhere. 

[JohnAndSancho]

This question is only serious if it'll work and if it won't work it's a dumb question - but if I were to put a splash of gas in this hole and burn the roots, will that kill it or do I need to get serious and dig it all out? I have no idea how deep it went or how far it spread or how long it was there and I'm in no shape to do serious digging. 

[ZPalms]

you could get up in there and start ripping the roots up the best you can in the spots that you plan to plant so then if anything comes up in other areas you can spot destroy them, currently doing this to bradford pear, removing sprouts as they come up and roots. 😂

[JohnAndSancho]

38 minutes ago, ZPalms said:

you could get up in there and start ripping the roots up the best you can in the spots that you plan to plant so then if anything comes up in other areas you can spot destroy them, currently doing this to bradford pear, removing sprouts as they come up and roots. 😂

These roots are tough like a $5 steak. I'd end up having to dig a way bigger hole than I want, too. I just threw a bunch of cardboard down on top of it after seeing how expensive grass and weed killers are now. 

 

Back in the day before we knew it also killed people, my granny would pay me to spray Round Up along all the ditches and fire breaks in the yard, and like $20 bought enough concentrate to nuke half the county. 

[ZPalms]

1 hour ago, JohnAndSancho said:

These roots are tough like a $5 steak. I'd end up having to dig a way bigger hole than I want, too. I just threw a bunch of cardboard down on top of it after seeing how expensive grass and weed killers are now. 

 

Back in the day before we knew it also killed people, my granny would pay me to spray Round Up along all the ditches and fire breaks in the yard, and like $20 bought enough concentrate to nuke half the county. 

Oh, the cardboard will do wonders, I hope. I normally take a pickaxe and break it all up, or use a Sawzall if it's a large roots that won't come up. everytime I look at my flower beds, I always thinking of chemical control sprays for the grass coming up through the pine straw, but I'm against them overall for the health of the soil and myself. It's bad enough my family put rubber mulch down in a small square in the front of the house and we have well water... I'll convince them eventually to trash it and I'll even remove it myself  

[JohnAndSancho]

Yeah I don't want to use glysophate either. The damage it does to the environment and the food chain is pure evil. I saw a commercial for some new people safe/pet safe stuff called Spruce but don't know anything about it. 

 

After laying down all that cardboard, it's pouring down rain 😂

[JohnAndSancho]

I might have to find a cheap chemical solution for the wisteria. If it wasn't right against the house I'd just go Beavis and Butthead and set it on fire.