Hi Guys,

I was wondering if someone could give me some advice on how to take better care of my cardboard palm. I bought it about a month ago from a local plant store. When I purchased it, it had a thick coat of green pesticide on the leaves. The assistant at the store told me the plant came from Mexico and had to be sprayed before it entered the U.S. When I got it home I took a damp paper towel and did my best to remove it. I placed it in direct sunlight and water it about once a week. The leaves on the lower branches started to turn yellow, got very dry and then began falling off after the first week. Now the second tier of branches on the bottom is doing the same thing. What should I do? Am I watering wrong or have it in too much light? I attached a few photos if that helps. Thank you!

@robertduval14 might have some insight. I didn't think it was possible to kill a Cardboard Palm....

Hello pcarlson1115

I also have a cardboard palm, it is outdoors, but right now I am not watering it a lot. I am thinking you might be overwatering the plant if you are watering it every week. This plant is quite drought tolerant, so it does not need that frequent watering. To be honest the only watering it got from me this winter is during the rains last Dec and this Feb. The temps are cold so it is not in that active growth period that will demand it to require frequent watering.

Whereabouts are you located? Just to get a fair idea of your planting zone.

Thanks for your help! I am in Dallas, Texas.

Thanks for your location info. So just slow down the watering, keep it in bright light or some direct sun. It becomes more actively growing again during the hotter months, and that is the time I try to water once a week especially when we are hitting the triple digits here. But during the colder months, I try to keep it dry and in the most light it can get. It will bounce back eventually just give it time to dry out.
Watering once a month during winter will be enough for it.

tarev makes a good point. Also make sure your planting mix is well-draining and doesn't hold water.

So right on the drainage! Down here those Cardboard Palms often take a drenching every day in the hot weather. They do fine, despite what might seem like overwatering because our sandy soil drains and dries quickly.

I'd slip the plant out of the pot and take a look at the roots, to see if something's going on in there. If it is potted in soil that is too moisture-retentive, (like one of those so-called "Moisture Control" potting mixes) that might be a cause for your yellowing leaves. You might give it a new pot with fresh potting soil and add some extra Perlite or other airy, drainage promoting stuff.

I'd also try misting the leaves with a spray bottle, and maybe add a tiny pinch of soluble fertilizer to the spray. They thrive in the high humidity here, and do absorb some nutrients through the leaves as well. Palms like a little bit of Epsom Salts in their fertilizer as well. That would be about 1/4 tsp. added to a quart spray bottle. Doesnt' need much, as it is winter and the plant should be dormant or at least growing very slowly - well, they always grow fairly slowly.

Increase watering, and give light fertilizer once the weather warms up enough for it to go outside.

I pretty much agree with with everyone else regarding watering your Cardboard Palm (Zamia furfuracea) I'd also remove it from its current pot and take a look at the roots. The Cardboard Palm is a slow grower but I wonder if perhaps your plant might be root-bound and need a bit larger container?

I would wait for Spring to do your repot, for now keep it dry. When your overnight temps are no longer going below 50F, that would be a good time to repot.

Thanks everybody! I will stop watering it immediately, try spraying the leaves with the Epsom salt solution and repot it as soon as the weather warms up. Should I remove the branches that dropped the leaves or do you think that would stress out the plant too much?

I would just leave them be. Do all the trimming of old branches later during repot, but definitely throw out any fallen leaves. Personally, I would hold back any form of spraying while it is still cold, just wait when ambient temps are more consistently warmer and your plant is outdoors to do that.

Hi Everyone,

I had a few more questions about my poor cardboard palm. It was doing well at the beginning of the month and then dropped almost all of it's leaves the past two weeks. Kind of a poor picture but it looks a lot better afterwards:



It was in the high 70s and low 80s a few days last week so I went ahead a trimmed of the dead the branches or what I presumed were dead branches because they had that dried out husky feel to them and fell right off with the slightest of pulls. The center (bulb?) looks pretty raw now though, was I wrong to remove them?




In addition, I have been noticing yellow crusty junk coming out of the bottom drainage holes.





I was going to plant it inside a shorter terracotta pot this afternoon. Do you guys think this is good plan? Oh and I also noticed there is yellow/orange film in the plants fuzz as well I hoping this is normal.






Thank you for all your help! I'm a obviously quite the novice when it comes to plants because the sales assistant assured me when I purchased it they were impossible to kill

Your plant looks okay to me Love the really neat and clean caudex. It is okay to remove those things at the caudex, I just keep mine with them just because I find it is too darn sharp to handle! I see new leaf growth already there, so give your plant some time to acclimate again, the temps are still adjusting. Their favorite growing season is at hand, so just be patient.

That crusty thing at the bottom of the pot is just accumulated salt residue, just clean it off. The leaves does have that yellowish tinge.

Your Cardboard Palm (Zamia furfuracea) looks fine to me. I'd say just keep doing what you've been doing; the warm weather is upon us so you should will see even more new growth in the next few months!

Hi there. I found this thread and now I feel even worse. I wasn't trying to save a dying cardboard palm, I HAD a thriving cardboard palm... And then I killed it. It was thriving but behind an arborvitae and hidden by a wall. Obviously I couldn't leave it there. So I moved it and divided the plant had 3 crowns. Put one into a pot and 2 separately into the ground. And then the yellowing happened and all the leaves dropped. It's over a year after it dropped all it's leaves. I haven't had the courage to throw it away, I am wishing it back to life. Or so I hope. I've moved it around to different areas of my garden and removed the one in the pot straight into the ground... To hopefully strike it lucky and grow again. Also it's just come into fashion again as I killed it and I'm not willing to cough up the hefty amount for another one just to end up being a serial cardboard killer. Any tips or tricks...

Show us a picture, please? Usually when I think I've killed something I hide it out in the garden somewhere, "the garden hospice" and come back 6 months later to find it thriving and putting up new growth. Or completely gone.

Thinking maybe the dividing was what did the damage for you. They are a plant that grows pretty slowly into a nice clump, but puts out new 'pups' at the base that you can *sometimes* propagate from. The reason they're so expensive to buy is because they're not easy to divide and propagate that way.

@Calif_Sue

Can you please split this into its own thread?