Pruning a Corn Plant, Dracaena Massangeana

Hi, I’m Catherine. Today we have a very common house plant called the Corn Plant. Its botanical name is Dracaena massangeana. It has a fragrant flower in the fall and winter that some people think is too fragrant so they cut it off. Well whatever.

My talk to you today is how you can prune your Corn Plant, Dracaena massangeana. The original plant comes from South America with these big thick canes. This one is actually called a 2 3 4; a 2 foot cane a three foot cane and a four foot cane. It comes into Florida like this with just the stem. Then what happens is the stems get put in the container and they start to root.

You can clearly see this one sprouted two new tops that we call heads, Dracaena massangeana top heads. So the original plant was rooted and then it sprouted these heads. What happens over time as you can see is the heads grow very, very, very tall. The new leaves at the top are green and beautiful and have this wonderful striping on it which is yellow in the center. The problem is that the old leaves tend to have the brown spots, they tend to spot. They’re not as nice looking. If you trim this leaf off then you have a plant that doesn’t have leaves all the way up.

So what I want to show you is how to trim it over time so it always looks beautiful. You see how our four foot cane had three heads on it and this head was trimmed way up here so it left all the old leaves. This is the correct way to trim it. Take a sprout three or four inches off of the main cane and you can see I have a baby starting already. Trim it across and if it sprouts a new head this head will look like this one. In a little while it comes out with this beautiful new top.

These plants can be trimmed anywhere along the stem. So you might have a piece that’s four or five feet tall. You can trim that off and eventually it will sprout a new head in four to six weeks. The best time is in the spring and summer when the plant is growing more vigorously. In another video I’ll show you how to root the tops. It’s very easy to root and you can make multiple plants. You can even trim it off and stick it in the soil and it may easily root and give you another plant.

So don’t be afraid to trim your Corn Plants. Remember the best spot is 3 or 4 inches above the original sprout off the big thick cane and give it 4 to 6 weeks and it will sprout a new top. The leaves will be a beautiful green with good color and it’ll look great.