Young cycads and palm trees need protection from frost. The most effective protection is the natural canopy. Here are some useful tips to help you make the right choice.

In addition to protecting your young cycads, canopy plants are very attractive to any garden. However, it is important to determine which plants already exist in your garden that may be destined to become canopy plants.

If you have trees as understory plants, then your choice of plants as protective canopies may be a blessing or a curse. I have experience. My main understory plants are cycads, so I prefer to use larger cold-tolerant palm trees (such as Jubia pepper, poinciana, Brahea, Trachycarpus, etc.) as my main canopy plants. For some reasons, the palm is preferred.

-I control when the dry leaves should be removed

-This prevents larger leaves from falling from above and damaging smaller plants

-The palm will not drop tiny leaves, which will mess up the cycad canopy.

There are plane trees, pepper trees and oak canopies in my garden. They do mess up the cycad crown on the leaves, but I can tolerate them because they are attractive in their own way.

It is important to choose the correct location of the understory plants in relation to the canopy plants. This is as important as choosing the right canopy plant. The root system of many large palms is just below the soil level. If you choose to use palm as the canopy, it is important not to plant cycads or other plants too close to the base of the large palm. Otherwise, the palm’s roots will compete with smaller, less aggressive understory plants and may kill them.

Due to seasonal extreme temperature sensitivity, certain understory plants may benefit from being closer to the canopy. I have a lot of cycads, which can be protected from the cold in autumn, winter and spring. From July to September, they will also benefit from sun protection. By positioning these underground plants under the canopy plants ranging from southeast to southwest, my underground plants will get the best annual income. Winter is the sun at noon, the sky is low, and tends to shine from under the tree canopy to the south, while in summer, the sun shines directly on the top of the head and shines for a longer time. In this way, they will benefit from more sunshine in the coolest weather of the year, less sunshine in the hotter days, and benefit from cold protection from December to February.

You can optimize the success of your garden based on the use of the canopy and the location of understory plants.



Source by Keith Huber

Protect cycads from frost

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