Landscaping with Sago Palm and Coffee Pests Control

The Sago palm makes for a handsome yet rugged plant in the landscape. In reality it is not a palm at all but a cycad.

The Sago can be used indoors as well. Over the last few years the Asian cycad scale has wiped out a very large percentage of the old established plants in the Florida landscape. Chemical pest control has not worked very well.

With the “green push” being made on everything from solar lighting, water use, building materials it’s sad plants do not seem to fall into the overall “green boom” or discussion.

I recently read an article in one of the ag magazines with intrigued me very much - plus it’s all natural.

Tom Broome in Lakeland, Florida the owner of The Cycad Jungle could not sit still and watch all these cycads decades old find their demise from the Asian scale. As all good growers do he tested and played.

After some observation and reading he decided to try a favorite morning beverage to battle the scale and it wasn’t milk! Tom used coffee grounds! Coffee is organic and has been used in gardens for decades.

He first tried controlling some scale and mealy bugs. Within days the results were in - death to the mealy’s and scale.

The problem is when you get on a larger scale drinking that much coffee to get enough coffee grounds is impossible. However, he found the local Starbucks as the perfect place for excess coffee supply.

Basically he mulched large Sago’s with coffee and the plants recovered.

I like the idea so much I decided to try it out on some neighbor’s cycads to see what happens. Maybe you should give coffee a look as a natural pest control option like neem oil.

One thing you may want to try is to make yourself a “coffee tea” by letting the coffee cook in the sun just like sun tea is made but do it for a few days… then try spraying some outdoor plants with it.

Great more ways to enjoy Java!