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olreader

is this plant supposed to be so floppy

olreader
10 years ago

Anything I should be doing?

I hope photo is right side up now.

This post was edited by olreader on Wed, Jan 1, 14 at 17:46

Comments (14)

  • greenman28 NorCal 7b/8a
    10 years ago

    Please flip the photo, indeed.

    The plant would seem to be Dracaena marginata. A very easy plant to grow.

    Yours needs more light. And, due to how it has been grown, it will benefit greatly from a pruning this Summer. It will need a re-potting, as well.

    Josh

  • teengardener1888
    10 years ago

    That plant(Dracaena marginata) is very old and they do tend to bend as they age. If you don't like it have you tried air layering with a plant before. Or you can root a stem in water to, they are related to Draceans sanderiana' the lucky bamboo that can grow in water

  • plantomaniac08
    10 years ago

    Sorry to be "hijacking" your post. The least I can do is flip your photo for you.

    Hi Teen, haven't seen you in a long time, glad to see you back. :)

    Planto

  • teengardener1888
    10 years ago

    Thank you planto i made a mistake and payed for it, i miss gardenweb too.

  • paul_
    10 years ago

    I would agree with Josh -- more light and a pruning come late spring/early summer. I would add ... a SEVERE pruning. You have the potential to wind up with quite a few plants here.

    Feel free to chime in with your opinions everybody, but personally I would:

    1st Make sure I had plenty of fresh potting mix made up and extra pots or a larger pot(s) available.

    2nd Chop the "trunks" down to about 1.5 ft above the soil line. Rinse all the old dirt off the roots. Break up the rootball (assuming that plant has been in that pot for a long time, the roots have likely become a "solid" tangled mess).

    3rd Chop the rest of the pieces into sections roughly 1-2ft in length. Plant the sections in lightly moist (not wet) media. Keep in a warm brightly light area -- but NO direct sun and lightly moist until the sections have rooted.

    How many pieces per pot and of what heights will depend not only on the size of the pot(s) but also what "look" appeals to you.

  • greenman28 NorCal 7b/8a
    10 years ago

    I agree, Paul :-)
    I was going to say a "hard pruning" in my first post, but didn't want to freak anyone out. These plants tolerate a good whack, they respond well, and they propagate so easily.

    Josh

  • Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
    10 years ago

    To answer the question of the subject line theoretically, yes and no. Yes if it's been not been outside at all AND never turned to lean the opposite way toward the light. The no part is that this leaning is avoidable. Turning can keep trunks more upright, but trees that never go outside so that wind causes them to become stronger, can get floppy/weak. Trimming the tops when they get tall/heavy enough to lean the trunk is what is usually needed for these since at some point, even perfectly-timed turning can't prevent that.

    Generally, I agree with the trimming advice, but would do the work in stages for trunks that have more than 1 growth tip, cutting off the tallest one first. Waiting until mid summer to do this would be best, with the suggested repot, when the most vigorous growth is possible.

    They are easy in that, like Josh said, the stumps left after trimming are just shy of guaranteed to grow new tips, and the removed pieces are only slightly less likely than that to form roots and become new little trees. It's such a sure thing that it's surprising when they don't, but there's no reason to involve unnecessary risk by doing this in the short, dreary days of winter. CO probably has plenty of great sunshine for winter, but there are just so many less hours of it than during summer, as well as likely more dry air from running the heat, which could cause cuttings to dehydrate too quickly.

    The only part I disagree with is about the exposure, though I'm sure Paul was speaking from his own experience. I've never put Drac cuttings in less light than the mama plant was growing in. So it sounds like they are less picky than he or I think.

    You can stick cuttings in the same pot with the mama plant to take the guesswork out of watering.

  • olreader
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Thanks everyone for all the great information. My original question "is it supposed to be floppy" was a little bit serious, the longest trunk is about 8 feet I think and maybe it could support itself at that height if it had been grown correctly. But once it got to 12 feet etc, hard to imagine it still being a straight trunk, floppy seems more normal.

    Good to know that the plant is forgiving, I will wait until spring/summer to do anything.

    Edited to add: I have two other plants that I have been calling "corn plants" and I guess they are some kind of Dracaena too? I wouldn't have guessed that but now I can see the similarity. One of them is over 8 feet tall and very straight but it has much thicker leaves, thicker stem, leaves on most of the trunk, obviously a different kind of Dracaena.,

    This post was edited by olreader on Thu, Jan 2, 14 at 10:47

  • paul_
    10 years ago

    Yo Tiffany!

    When rooting rootless cuttings in soil, I always aim for bright but indirect sunlight ... unless the plant is a shade lover, of course. Particularly with cuttings that have leaves, I find that placing them in direct sun seems to overly stress the cuttings as the leaves wind up trying to undergo normal transpiration rates but without having the necessary water uptake such rates require.

    To the OP, with regards to your query as to whether they're supposed to flop, well the link below takes you to photos of ones grow outside in the ground.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Dracena grown

  • Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
    10 years ago

    It's quite the stunner, BTW. My hesitation to cut it down more than necessary comes from the size of the room, which causes the plant to look a lot smaller than 12 feet. I had no idea it was that big from that angle, that pic. You probably like having a larger plant in that spot.

    When you disturb the roots, to repot, you might as well give them a trim. This old tree almost surely has a pancake of solid, circling roots at the bottom that should be removed, to have the healthiest possible tree.

    Another thought about having the tallest, most upright possible specimen from this is that the lean begins at the soil level. If the trunks were repositioned in the pot so they start even slightly leaning the other way from the tops, the whole thing would instantly be more upright overall. The weight of the tops is going to make that impossible to maintain without a 2nd set of hands, and probably some large rocks or bricks placed around the surface to hold the root ball in position so it can't revert back to its' old ways as soon as you let go of it.

    After thinking more about what I said above... you might find that cutting off the tallest tip allows that branch to spring back to a more upright position. Removing the ties holding them together first would probably be a good idea. They might spring to different positions. Hard to predict/gauge that from a pic, but theoretically possible. That could cause another difficulty if the secondary tip is then sticking sideways.

    Rolling that into one, I would do the repot/root trim/reposition in the pot, with someone holding the top part from falling back out of the pot, get the rocks around it, then start removing the tipp'iest growth until branches stopped leaning ridiculously and your helper can let go without the whole thing falling over. When what is left is pleasing to your eye, you're finished. You can always cut more off later. Any branches that aren't in a pleasing position without removing all of their foliage, I would trim to a level of where you would like to see a new 'poof' of foliage from a new tip. That almost always happens at the tip of the stump, so fairly easy to future-shape.

    Corn plant is usually used to refer to D. fragrans. Do pics of that match your other plant?

    Here is a link that might be useful: Image search of Dracaena fragrans

  • tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
    10 years ago

    Growers who provide too little light or grown them under rootbound conditions can expect the plant to be unable to support itself. It's not normal for the plant to lay over, but neither is growing any plant indoors 'normal', so that fact needs some consideration.

    I would get the plant outdoors as soon as temps allow in late spring/early summer. I would then do a full repot in June, and about 2 weeks after new growth resumes I would cut it back as hard as you want - no need to worry about its viability. If you leave an inch of stem or 4 feet of stem, it will backbud. Cutting it back shorter allows you to grow it out into a plant that's more compact and full, if that's what you want.

    You can even keep light-starved plants from getting floppy/leggy if you cut them back regularly. A 6" stem the same diameter as a 6 foot stem won't be nearly as flexible, so it won't lay over.

    There is nothing wrong with growing for the simple sake of watching something grow, but a small step forward might find us evolving to the point where we are growing for the sake of beauty. There's a transitional step in growing where the grower takes a greater amount of control by way of a plan that gives consideration to both health and appearance over the long term. There really isn't much to be done that will transform the plants pictured into something pleasing to the eye w/o the hand of the grower playing the primary role. That's not a critique of the plant, it's just an observation. The planting isn't pretty now, but it can be in the future because it has potential. While there are technically was to make your plant look good down the road w/o pruning, the amount of effort and knowledge it would take probably makes that pretty impractical. I think that before 6 months has ended, you should have repotted into an appropriate soil and pruned. If you're looking to do something in the meanwhile, you could flush the soil very well & get the plant started on a good nutritional supplementation program.

    Al

  • olreader
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    My plant in the first photo is only eight feet tall from the dirt to the tallest green tip when I straighten it out.

    This photo is one of my corn plant, also almost eight feet. My other smaller corn plant has the stems growing in corkscrews. Anyway, now that I know that my D. marginata is related to the corn plant, I can see that it will respond well to cutting etc. just like the corn plants were cut at the nursery and resprouted new stems and then sold.

    This post was edited by olreader on Thu, Jan 2, 14 at 19:44

  • ronalawn82
    10 years ago

    olreader, there is a side shoot (or two?) from the uppermost stalk in the photograph. I would cut that stalk just above the shoot(s). I expect the shortened stalk to assume a more upright position and the shoot(s), a more horizontal orientation. You can modify both by judiciously staking them.
    The advantage is that there will be some "greenery" present while you train the stalk. The decapitated stalks of this plant always 'hurt my eyes' a bit. You can plant the cut off head directly into the pot. You will have to decide how much of the curve to cut off in order to obtain an upright cutting with some green at the top.

  • Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
    10 years ago

    Paul, I didn't see your last entry last time I posted, TY for the info. Interesting to hear how other folks do things, and that it works just as well as what I do! D. marginata is a blast to play with.

    Olreader, I think you'll have fun 'Edward Scissorhand'ing' your plants back into shape! Wouldn't we all love to have such high ceilings?! I'm going to have to shorten my tallest Drac this year because the sun isn't getting to the tallest tip, so high under the front porch roof.

    The corn plant looks great!

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