I had a garden with over 200 cycads in it (all toxic similarly) and I know of at least a dozen other cycad growers with far larger collections... all have dogs in their yards (I have dogs, too). Not a poisoning case among the lot. Yes they are poisonous (though not nearly as poisonous as something like an Oleander, Azaleas, Yew, Castor Bean, China Berry or even a Coral Tree). Problem with cycads is they don't taste that bad so are sometimes ingested by manic dogs. However, unless you have a manic dog that munches plastic-like foliage all the time (eats, not just chews on), or you have fruiting cycads (this is the real danger most often, and my friends with dogs do keep them away from maturing female cones) there is not necessarily too much to fear. I have never heard of a Yorkie eating a toxic plant, but it can obviously happen. Usually when I see cycad toxicities in practice, it's a large dog like a lab as they are the ones that like to sample foliage most often. The cycad fruits taste pretty good to dogs which is the main concern with them, though a Yorkie couldn't reach a cone. So if you ever end up with another cycad, and it cones, just chop the cone off and there will be no risk of fruits falling to the ground. As for the leaves, a yorkie would actually have to eat one of the leaves to get a toxic dose. So if you have a plant that is old and large enough with leaves that start higher up than a foot, you might be safe there anyway. My dogs ignore my thousands of toxic plants- most hold no interest and most of those are bad tasting.. cycads are sharp and plastic-like, so my dogs are very uninterested in them.. but I have no labs or large dogs that might chew on something like that out of boredom. But if i had a Castor bean or coral tree in the back yard, I would probably have to move it, since seed of those fall to the ground and are extremely toxic. Seed may not be interesting, either, but they are small and super easy to eat, so I don't feel comfortable with that situation. Oleander is just too horrible tasting for dogs to even nibble on it, and frankly not heard of a toxicity in dogs with that one...

I'm so glad to have found this old thread on Sago Palms. There was one in the garden when we bought this place 4 years ago. I had never grown or been around these plants before. Original trunk was maybe 3" out of the ground with only 3-4 fronds struggling to stay alive in Texas full-blown August heat. The house flipper apparently didn't do anything to the yard for 9 months he worked on the interior of this place and when we bought the house, the Sago was on its last leg (the lawn as well). Fast forward...........with regular watering I revived this dying plant over our first year here, making sure it got water every 2-3 days. The 2nd year here, it finally put on some healthy fronds all the way around the main trunk. I was beginning to be hopeful. Those froze off the next winter and the new pup last year has done well and come through its first winter just fine. Original mother trunk has not put on any new fronds since those in year 2. In year 3 it put on its first pup, and since the main trunk quit leafing, I was pleased! Then this month, a new pup appeared! It's huge!! Almost bigger than the mother trunk was 4 years ago. I just went outside and found there is yet another pup with emerging 5" fronds coming out on the opposite side of the mother trunk, it appears. Looks like it is already turning into a 3-4 trunk Sago now. It's in a wide open garden space so I have the luxury of letting it grow naturally rather than try to cut off pups at all. I was worried leaving it to grow naturally was not good for Sagos, but this discussion proves that to be an incorrect. @ Roselee, I will take your suggestion above and cut off criss-crossing fronds competing for elbow room. That just makes good sense. I've decided I like Sago Palms. :)

I have 3 very large Sagos, one is about 8 ft tall. They all stopped growing about 5 years ago at the same time. They are about 20 ft from each other. I just cut one down. The interior looks good, not rotten, wet, a little sticky / sappy, seems OK. But I assume they all caught some disease and will not grow again. Anyone have any insight? I have fertilized them etc. They are probably 40+ years old. I really liked them and cannot replace them, way too large.

Updating today. Hubby has worked on the third Sago all day. He's got a lot more to do. When we bought this house in 2013 it was a mess. Got it on a short sale and nobody did much for it for a long time. It was a foreclosure prior to that and neglected for years also. @Yardvaark is right. 20-30 years of maintenance in 3 days. Turning out to be 4-5 days. THEN we have to get rid of all the sago fronds. We'll probably hire the gardeners to come back clean up all the babies and haul the fronds to the dump. It's so hot today! I asked hubby if he wanted me to turn on the waterfall so he could stick his feet in it, but he declined. You can clearly see my fig tree between Sago 1 & 2. Don't know what variety it is, but it rocks my world. Those figs are dark outside, red inside and delicious. It's a prolific tree. Between 2 & 3 is the rocky waterfall filled with dead fronds. Can't wait to show you how beautiful it looks when it's done! He's done trimming and now we have one more dilemma. There are 4 pups and we can't figure out which is the mom. We need to decide which one to keep. We would like uniformity. They are all smaller that the other two. We'll figure it out.