How many second chances should you give a plant? On the one hand, plants can be expensive. They can take ages to grow to any size. They can have sentimental value. When a plant is slow to get going, or begins to ail and not look so beautiful as it once did, it is only human nature to try and revive it, rather than ripping it straight out and starting again with a new (costly, tiny) specimen of no emotional importance. Sometimes this can work very well. Better watering, or feeding, or hard renewal pruning to stimulate vigorous new growth from low down, or reducing the size of other plants that are now shading or crowding the thing you want to keep, can give it a new lease of life.
And sometimes nothing makes any difference, and what do you do then? If you cast your mind over the most beautiful, peaceful, dramatic, romantic, and wonderful gardens you have visited you will find that whatever their size or style they all had at least one thing in common, which is that they were not run as hospitals for sick plants. Few things drag a garden scene down and ruin the ambiance like having a collection of the living dead lurking in the borders.
Which brings me to my cycad, which I got as a good sized specimen some time ago from B&Q, heavily reduced because they were trying to get rid of the last few, but still in remarkably good nick. I bore it home in triumph, installed it in a pot in the conservatory, and was very pleased with it for years. Every now and then it would put out a new circle of leaves, which was always fascinating to watch. They start as a small tufty ring on top of the swollen base, inside the circles of existing leaves, and for a few days you are not quite sure if the cycad is really making new leaves or if you are imagining it. Then they begin to lengthen and you can see the individual leaflets, which are curled inwards towards the midrib. As the new leaves lengthen the leaflets begin to unfurl, but they don't flatten completely until the new leaves have reached virtually their full length, which is at least as long as the old leaves. It doesn't happen very often, and if the plant isn't happy it will stop making leaves at all.
Then I upset it. I rearranged the conservatory so that the cycad ended up in a different corner, and I repotted it, and soon after the ends of the leaflets began to turn brown. I tried watering it more, thinking it was getting hotter and drier in its new place. That didn't help. I moved it back to its old place but it looked no happier. I trimmed off the dead brown ends of the leaflets to try and smarten it up, and then the entire outer ring of leaves died and I had to remove them. When I investigated the roots I discovered most of them had rotted, and almost put it on the compost heap then before giving it a fresh chance with what roots it had left in a smaller pot. It sent out a circle of new leaves, but before they were fully grown the tips of the leaflets had again gone brown. I thought maybe it had been unlucky to have put out its fresh leaves in a particularly hot spell, then it tried again and the second lot of new leaves did the same thing, then the older leaves died.
Eventually it was down to one circle of ragged leaves, and I was ready to throw in the towel. It hadn't done anything for ages except die by degrees, and the books said that once cycads had given up growing they could be very reluctant to start again. I even got to the point of taking it out of its pot to throw it away when the sight of its roots, better than they were before, persuaded me to give it one last chance. It went back in its pot that was so small it was barely bigger than the swollen base of the plant, and I was incredibly careful about watering it, checking each time that the compost was dry to the touch before giving more water. I fed it too. A few weeks ago it showed the first tantalising signs of new growth in a couple of years, and now the leaves have reached their full length and finished uncurling and they have not gone brown at the tips.
Should I have bothered? For most of the past few years it has not been an attractive addition to the conservatory. If it had been more visible I'd probably have junked it before now, and it was only because it was hidden away at the back that I was willing to overlook its hideousness while obstinately trying to nurse it back to health. Now it is beginning to look decent again I am quite chuffed. A new cycad with a base that big would cost at least fifty quid, and in any case I feel I have learned something about growing them. Do not over-pot them or let them sit wet from over-watering. The roots are thick, fleshy, and will rot. Do feed them. If they seem happy with the amount of light they are getting then try to leave them where they are. But viewing the conservatory purely as a visitor experience the cycad should have gone years ago.
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