Need to perform surgery - help

11 years ago

I have a Dracaena deremensis 'Lemon Lime' that has outgrown its attractiveness. It has developed into long stalks with a ruff of foliage clustered at the top......like other dracaenas typically develop over time. I want to turn it back into the compact, lush plant it used to look like.

I know you can cut the tops off and root them but the process makes me nervous. I am a very experienced gardener - at least with outdoor plants - and that sort of treatment goes against the grain of everything I know. Outdoor plants generally do not respond well to that kind of treatment ;-))

So can someone please talk me through the process? Where do I cut? Do I have to let the cut ends dry out before replanting? Do I have to root them in water or something first before replanting?

btw, I have no interest in keeping the bare stalks. I know they will sprout out with new growth after being chopped off but I dislike that look.

Tx.

Featured Answer

tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)

11 years ago

If all you want is a shorter plant, use a saw to cut off the top of the plant. You only need enough stem beneath the lowest foliage to stick in the rooting medium, which could be all coarse or screened perlite or perlite + fir bark. I use the gritty mix for rooting.

After you cut the top off, use a very sharp utility knife or razor blade to smooth the cut so there are no ragged pieces of anything between epidermis and pith, which is where plumbing plugging rot would start. Stick the cutting & keep it damp not wet, warm, and in good light. If your medium supports perched water, it's very important that you don't stick the cutting so deep the proximal end is immersed in water at the bottom of the pot.

No need to allow the cut end to callus, but a dusting of flowers of sulfur or cinnamon (for the anti-fungal properties) would be helpful.

I'd wait until July to do it when the plant's energy reserves are topped off. Success is much more a sure thing.

As knowledgeable as you are, I'm surprised you'd have any qualms about beheading anything woody. I do it all the time. All of these plants - recently dug from beds (except for the quince on the left) and potted, are destined to be large bonsai. All were well over 10 ft tall at one or more points in their life.

They don't look like much in the picture, but their future is very bright.

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Comments (6)

gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
Original Author
11 years ago
Thanks for that, Al :-) I've got it now.

You are far braver than I. 'Beheading' and 'woody' don't go together well in my gardening vocabulary. I did a bad thing to one of my Japanese maples last year and had to decapitate it and I still shudder about it. It sat in the corner all of last summer because I couldn't stand looking at it but couldn't bring myself to toss it. I'm glad I didn't, as it looks pretty darn good now, although more of a shrub than a tree.
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tsugajunkie z5 SE WI ♱
11 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
The Dracaenas I have originally came from trimmings from a motel atrium I happened to be at when they beheaded them. That was 20 years ago. Even using very crude propagation methods I had over 50% root. Since then I've rooted many using methods similar to Al's with great success. Find a place to hide the stump, you may enjoy what it turns into as well as being a fallback to try rooting its top later should your first attempt fail. One of my stumps developed into a nice weeping form. Straight, tall trunk with leaves that droop straight down.

tj
Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
11 years ago
I've taken cuttings of Dracaenas too many times to count, and don't recall losing any of the cuttings or stumps, but I would encourage you to keep the stump, as insurance & non-jinx vibes, at least until you know the tops have taken root. And I think you may like the appearance if you're into bushy. Putting the cut tops in the pot with the stump would yield the most amount of leaves in the smallest possible space, (bushy,) yes?

Here's what used to be a main, single trunk, cut off 2-3 yrs ago. (Pls ignore the background, house is under construction/porch repair.)

Here's the stump. It grew 3 heads to replace the removed one, which makes a mass of more leaves, overall, in the same space. (The debris on the pot & lower leaves is rain-splashed sand.)

Pot of various Dracaena cuttings.
tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
11 years ago
Pam - if you save the trunk, you might get beck-budding that produces several sprouts - especially if you wait 'til summer. You could then cut 3-4" below the sprout and cut off anything above the sprout, then stick the cutting so the base of the sprout is at or just above the soil line; so, what you're doing to get a single plant could yield many.

Al
gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
Original Author
11 years ago
Thanks to all the above comments - you've given me confidence :-)

And I will wait until summer, Al, before performing the surgery. Currently, there are three stalks on the plant so conceivably could have enough new ones to share! It also really needs to be repotted and upsized but I'm going to do that now. Should have settled into its new digs by the time it comes to getting out the saw.