2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The name of the plant, translated from Latin, means "female dragon". It is difficult to find similarities with this fantastic creature in a houseplant. However, in its homeland, in hot tropical countries, dracaena reaches such gigantic proportions that, seeing it from afar, it becomes clear where this analogy came from. Of course, it will be inconvenient to keep such a giant at home. Therefore, you need to know how and when to transplant the top and propagate the flower with the stem remaining in the pot
Is it a flower or is it a tree?
Dracaena is a very unpretentious plant, and caring for it is not as difficult as for many other natives of the tropics. In the wild, without any care, it becomes a powerful shrub or a tall tree with a spreading crown. And if you pay a little attention to it at home, then this decorative leafy plant will become a real decoration of the interior.
By the way, despite the fact that dracaena belongs to decorative leafy pets, it can also form and dissolve buds. Moreover, some varieties have such fragrant flowers that during the flowering period it is better not to keep them in the room where the homeowners spend most of their leisure time or go on a night's rest.
Varieties of dracaena and features of their reproduction
There are dracaena with both completely green foliage and variegated forms. The latter are distinguished by a wide variety of colors. Their leaf plates can be decorated with white, light green, yellow, dark green and pale green stripes of varying thickness. But this is not the only difference between them. Dracaena, which has green leaves, is more often propagated by seeds. And their variegated relatives are recommended to be grown from non-lignified stems and cuttings.
To divide an elongated plant, you will need a sharp instrument and a special pot for rooting the stem with a longitudinal cut from the sides to the center of the bottom, through which it can be freely put on the dracaena trunk. It can also be replaced with a plastic bag filled with nutrient medium. Or build with your own hands from the conical upper part of a liter plastic bottle by simply cutting off the lower half of it.
On the stem, about 10 cm from the beginning of leaf growth, an incision is made at an acute angle from the bottom up. Its depth should be about half the thickness of the stem. A small chip or a piece of a match is placed in this incision so that the wound does not close and grow together during the rooting process. Then this area is packed in a pre-prepared pot with a loose nutrient mixture. The substrate will need to be kept moist.
When the top gets its own roots, it is separated and planted in another pot. The stem that remains in the old pot is not removed from the ground. This stump can still serve as the basis for a new plant. To do this, you need to help the buds wake up, from which new sultans of greenery will develop.
To make the buds swell, the top of the trunk is wrapped with a narrow strip of damp cloth, about 3 cm wide, without touching the cut itself. And on top they put on a plastic cap and tie it with a rope. The stem is kept in such isolation for 2 weeks, regularly ventilating the cut so that it does not rot. Soon it will be possible to observe the awakened kidneys.
In addition, the long stem of dracaena can be used for propagation by cuttings. To do this, it is cut into pieces 7-10 cm long and rooted in a nutritious substrate or wet sand. Rather, it will go to the indoor greenhouse.
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