Red-edged Dracaena Growing Suggestions

Hi, it’s Nell with joyous garden and today I’m going to talk about their Draceana marginata also known as Madagascar Dragon Tree. It is a great plant where you want a little bit more modern feel or you want an Asian feel. Because of the spiky leaves that this one is on called a candelabra form. It’s this great braided form. I’ve seen these braided I’ve seen them in small pots all the way up to 22 feet.

I was an interior escaper at one time which means I put interior plants into commercial building so I really know what kind of, um, conditions they can stand. This one, in terms of exposure, likes a nice bright light. Nothing too direct and hot and not in a dark corner because it does need some light you know. The other Draceanas you would have or a Bamboo Palm, that kind of light. And in terms of watering you should really water it only when it’s dry. You can overwater it which most people do with houseplants. I water mine once every two weeks maybe a little bit more in the summer time. In the winter I tend not to keep my house really really hot so I might water it like once every three weeks.

You might see some brown tips on the ends of yours. If they’re just small brown tips it’s a result of salts and fluorides in our water. It’s just how these houseplants react to them they grow in subtropical and tropical areas where they were used to rainfall. So when they get our water that have all that in them they will burn out on the tips a bit. If you see a lot of browning it’s either over watering or if you see a lot of yellowing it’s under watering. That’s large. See just these small tips. Either use like a distilled water or pour some water out of your tap and then let it sit for a day or so and all that will dissolve out. Then you can thoroughly water it and try not to let any water sit in the bottom of the saucer.

If you watched any of my other videos you know that I’m not really big on fertilizing outdoor plants. But indoor plants, because they’re growing indoors, like a little bit of fertilizer. So if you can find an organic liquid fertilizer for houseplants be sure to use it at the strength that they recommend. If it calls for 1/2 teaspoon per pint be sure to use that and only fertilize it once or twice a year. They really don’t need it any more than that.

Your house plant is probably going to get some sort of an insect at some point in time especially when our heat comes on and it gets dry. It tends to bring out a lot of insects. This one here is susceptible to spider mite especially mealy bug and scale and you can control those with a homemade spray of either alcohol is good for mealy bug. Scale you’ll see its brown spots and you can really just pick that off if it’s not too much on it. And spider mite, just a soapy spray to spray it down or you can get something like a horticultural oil spray and use that on your house. Or if you want to make it easier on that or just take them to the sink or the shower if you can do that and then just give them a really good spray to wash all that off. Be sure to get the undersides of the leaves because that’s where these um critters all live and breed. And get down inside here. Especially the mealy bug and scale will get down in here too so just be sure to get it in there.

In terms of pruning if there are some large brown tips you can prune those off if there’s any. And if there are any yellow leaves you can just take those off like that. It doesn’t need a whole lot of pruning. Sometimes the heads on these just get droopy and it’s usually from like lack of light or consistent watering, too much water or too little watering. Cut it here and it’ll actually spread out here so if you want to do that you can do that. I talked about spraying it with some water and hosing it well. Probably in the summer you would have to hose it. If you get water or rain you wouldn’t. I don’t, I live in southern California, so that’s why I say hose off. So I just take mine out in the rain because it’s good to get the dust off these leaves too. And if you can’t do that, if you live in an apartment building, you can put it in the shower and clean your leaves off.

And as I said it comes in all different forms. It comes in a single trunk with multi heads. It comes in multiple stems with all sorts of character. It’s called the Draceana marginata with character. This one would be character marginata.