Cordyline coming back, now what?

5 years ago

I bought this nice big cordyline 2 years ago. The container came with asparagus fern in front and mandevilla that climbed the cordyline. It was pretty!

Two winters ago I put it in my garage for the winter, and it did fine. The fern and mandevilla even came back!

Last year I bought a greenhouse, so I put it in there instead of the garage. It was a mild winter, but EVERYTHING seemed to die! The leaves on the cordyline all shriveled and died, too.

Based on what I read online, in March or April I cut the stalk of the cordyline down to where it started feeling woody, in the hopes that it would come back.

And here's what I found today:

Yay! Not what I expected, I thought I'd have leaf growth on the old stalk, but apparently it's coming up anew from the roots. Better than nothing!

So now the questions are:

1. What do I do about the old stalk?

2. How do I pull out the mandevilla (there's no apparent growth so I guess it's dead) and asparagus fern without damaging the roots of the cordyline?

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Comments (4)

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
5 years ago
if dead.. things rot .. and eventually it can be easily pulled out.. whats your hurry ...

i would just cut the stalk back to an inch or so ... and leave it to rot ...

i might speculate .. you did not kill the root mass.. and if you have an intact root mass for the old large plant.. then you might be surprised how fast it can regrow ...

ken
Jason, zone 7A, near Greensboro NC
Original Author
5 years ago
if dead.. things rot .. and eventually it can be easily pulled out.. whats your hurry

No "hurry", per se, other than the aesthetics of it this or next year. I liked the look of the mandevilla with it, but I don't have any this year so I probably won't do that again until next year.

I was also concerned that the roots of the mandevilla could be wrapped around the roots of the cordyline, and its rotting could lead to killing the other.

If that's not an issue, though, then I'll just cut the old stalk down and let it do its thing :-)
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tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
5 years ago
I have a cordyline here in MI that faithfully comes back from the roots every year. It's always the last plant to poke its head up (mid-June), and doesn't get very large, maybe a foot tall each year, but it IS reliable.

Al
Jason, zone 7A, near Greensboro NC
Original Author
5 years ago
Before it died down over the Winter, mine was almost 4' tall! This is what it looked like in 2019, with purple sweet potato vine, asparagus fern, and mandevilla:

I can tell now that it had gotten kinda rough looked by the end of last year, though, so it really wasn't a bad thing to cut it down and let it start over.