Since you've had it outdoors for six years, I'll assume we're talking about Cordyline australis. It's usually sold as 'Blue Dracaena Palm', one of my favorite common names since it's neither blue, nor a Dracaena, nor a palm. Anyway, if you have drooping brown foliage in the crown, it's probably going to die back to ground level and come back from the roots. Occasionally though they can make a recovery from just below the dieback point, though this is rare. You could wait and see if this happens, or else cut it to the ground.

What region are you in? These growing up for some years and then dying back to the roots over and over again is the normal routine in the Seattle area, where most places it gets below their 15-20 degrees F. cutoff often enough to produce this effect.

Last time some of these died, a few years ago a tendency for purple ones to be less hardy than the green appeared. In some nearby plantings purple ones apparently died completely with green ones in the same groupings not even dying back.

AKA spike plant. I have a drooping oldie. I'm not going to touch it until the snowbirds arrive from sunny Arizona. Global warming isn't happening here. Darn.

Surely you must know that global warming isn't like walking into a room and turning up the thermostat.

I believe it is cordyline australis. I had another much smaller one a couple of years ago which I though died and dug it up but there must have been some root left because it sprouted back up again a year later. I am just bummed to loose all that growth on the oldest one. Thanks for the help. I am kinda new at these forums. This is such a great website.

By the way I am in Vancouver, WA.

Willamette Valley climate, same as Portland. Hotter in summer than here, but apt to be colder in winter. See Sunset WESTERN GARDEN BOOK.

Yesterday I drove by one in Seattle that had an elevated, forking crown and comparatively thick trunk indicating a relatively high degree of success and longevity. It had the same collapsed, discolored growing points as mine.

Surely you must know that global warming isn't like walking into a room and turning up the thermostat.

I don't know about the person in this thread but many people that I know do believe that it is like turning up the thermostat! They don't understand that our unusual cold/snow is part of it. I try to explain the melting polar ice caps and glaciers and that while the actual planet may survive that people might not but they don't get it.

Only spring will tell. Or maybe summer. If they die, they grow so fast and are worth replacing. Global warming advice, do you're own part in leaving the earth as clean as you came, and keep out of my low cash pocket.

Small inexpensive starts of Cordyline australis raised from seed available where annual bedding plants sold. Named purple and variegated forms much more expensive.