I left a tricolor(? pink, creme and green stripe) Dracaena in the ground. I had two overcrowded in a pot last year and thought I would give it a try. Would be great if it did come back.

Rebecca

Rebecca, did your dracena come back? I also have two that have overwintered in the garage 2 years and now they are almost too big for their pots. I may try planting them in the ground in my tropical bed if others of you have had success, even though I live in zone 6b.

Ann

Farmerbell, I'm in zone 6 as well what other tropicals do you have outside?
Donna

Theres no sign of the Dracena yet, and I doubt its coming back. Oh well, it was an interesting little plant, but not one we were really trying to overwinter. Just decided to stick it in the ground for the heck of it.

Doug,
I3

I had another dracena overwinter 2 winters ago with heavy mulch. last winter without mulch it did not survive.

Donna, I have musa basjoo (hardy banana), several types of elephant ears, pineapple lily, ginger, palms, angel trumpets, amaryllis, and cannas. All of these are together in one tropical bed. I do mulch with several inches of pine straw every winter. The banana is supposedly hardy to zone 5. The angel trumpets have grown back from the roots every year, but it takes SO long to get blooms. It is better to root cuttings and plant these in the ground in spring.

Ann

I planted one 4 years ago and it has came back every year. It has been more of a novelty though and would probably be better to buy new ones every year. It is late summer before it gets any real size on it so new ones would probably get bigger earlier. Spider plants will also live through the winter under a lot of pine needles. I have seen a shrimp plant make it though a winter before as well as a philodendron.

Was just reading about Dracaena fragrans, otherwise known as Corn Plant. Boy did I learn something! I'm basically killing my indoor corn plant by letting it dry out (always thought this was good for these types of plants) AND by watering it with tap water! Apparently they are sensitive to Fluoride. Fluoride in the water will cause the tips of the leaves to die... I guess I need to use the water filter to water it from now on. As for planting it outside - I think I will propogate a cane of it from one of its "heads" and try it outside, dug deeply into my new tropical bed and mulched heavily. Apparently mature specimens will FLOWER if they are exposed to about two weeks of 45 degrees temperatures. It sends up spikes of lavender flowers that are fragrant. This causes the main cane to die, though, if I'm understanding it right, but the little "heads" will fall off and root if conditions are right. Correct me if I've gotten it wrong - tropicals are new to me!

This is a pic of my dracena spike on July 15th. It is about 30" tall with 5 heads. it probably won't get much larger as it won't have time to build a trunk before frost.
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My corn plant did come back finally. I saw these little sprouts last week. This is in the trees at the back of the property. In full sun they may have come back earlier due to the thermal units.
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It looks like this year the dracena's are not even going to freeze to the ground. I put 3 more clumps out last year around my little pond, and all of them are still in good shape. The large clump is doing great too. the low temp in Jackson this winter so far has been 11F.