Okay so I read through some old threads and have gotten the idea that sago palms don't do well as bonsai. Should I remove it from the pot and plant it normally? Could anyone help me out here? ;)

Okay here we go. While Sago's make a great potted plant they are not considered as Bonsai. The one you have looks borderline healthy. I say this because the ferns have a kind of twisting motion (particularly the ones on the left)and do not extend in a smoothly arched form from the 'bulb' potion of the plant. allot of the needles themselves have the same characteristics. The foliage should look more like the middle most visible one on the right on the first picture.

Now that we have gotten that out of the way we can get to the next issue. This definitely looks like a Malsi (department store knock off bonsai) which I have had many people such as yourself bring to me in question. Malsi are poorly taken care of, by people who know little or nothing about plants in general, and are usually horribly pruned and disfigured. In addition Malsi are not produced or ment to live long and are arrange to be bought and then die soon after.

If you plan on keeping this palm ,the glued on rocks should be removed. This is due to the fact that it impedes the need of watering since the water will not be able to be evenly absorbed seeing as the water will simply run off the rocks. This will leave dry spots in the soil which will obviously then cause the roots in that dry zone to dry up and die. It is also detrimental to the soil being able to dry once wet as it can not evaporate correctly seeing as the actual soil surface is not exposed which will then cause the soil to stay wet too long causing 'root rot' (as well as many other problems) which over time will also kill the Palm. As for the Sphagnum moss, the same can be said that it holds too much moisture and will not allow the surrounding soil to dry adequately and therefore should be removed. Again as I said before, these two features are meant to look nice and pull the potential buyer into purchasing the plant, and they do not care about it living after they have made their buck and the plant is taken home.

Hope this helped shed some light on a few things, and good luck.

-Mike

Thank you mike that helped a lot!! The fronds were like that, because they had the fronds wired to the trunk (making them curve). That picture was taken shortly after, but now it seems that they have straightened out. (I think they did that, to protect it when shipping) That was the reason my mother bought it, because she thought the fronds stayed curved like that!! haha Do you mean that it won't like long with the rocks and moss, or just doesn't live long in general? I had already decided to remove the rocks, because I thought it looked cheesy and the moss came with them. Now, there is and absence of soil and 1 or 2 roots are exposed. Do you think I should repot it into a bigger pot? Or add soil? I was reading about bonsai soils and it seems pretty tricky. It doesn't matter to me if it gets bigger in a larger pot, as I wasn't planning on getting in to bonsai at the moment (14 other hobbies!!!).

Thanks again for the help.
Zach

You should be fine, I didn't mean that your plant in general wont live long, just that with how most retailer plants are cared for they are usually sick or weak. I meant I wouldn't live long if the rocks and moss was kept on for the reasons mentioned before. As long as the soil doesn't stay wet for too long and there inst a root-mass consuming the whole interior of the pot than you shouldn't need to repot. The whole reasoning behind Bonsai soil is to make it free draining so there are adequate pockets for air to get to the roots and so the soil doesn't stay wet for longer than three days, or you could have a moisture problem with symptoms similar to what I mentioned in the last response.

If you do decide on a larger pot keep in mind that if it is bigger than it should be it will cause the roots to rot (too much soil not enough roots) as there will be no roots to absorb the water. I not sure the specific watering guidelines of this plant as I don't have one but I think they do just fine with minimal water. I know my mother has a huge Sago and in winter she only waters it once a month (potted and indoors) and it is happy as can be.