Dreaming of dracaena
This indoor plant can survive and even thrive outside, writes
IREMEMBER IN graphic detail the first time I ever saw a dracaena. I was putting together an article about a new, very smart house and there was a dracaena in a fluted ceramic pot in the living room. It was taller than I and certainly slimmer, and it was placed about a metre from the end of a low, six-seater leather sofa facing the sea view. So very, very stylish.
I was far more besotted with the dracaena than either the house or my boyfriend at the time, and as soon as I got home I bought one for what was, back in the day, a heart-stopping amount of money.
When I moved to the Far North, leaving both the dracaena and the boyfriend behind, I bought a couple of new ones, planted them in black ceramic pots and sited them on the terrible trendy black tiles at one end of our living room. It wasn’t long before I became disenchanted with the white, limey mark that spread out from underneath them and had to be scrubbed off every couple of weeks so they were relocated to the garden. There they have, if not thrived, at least survived in less than ideal conditions for plants that hail from Madagascar.
You’ll see dracaenas in most garden centres, usually in the indoor plant section. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have one growing outside. It will, however, require a largely frost-free environment in a warm climate. Like me, they consider running
away when it gets below 17C for more than a few days at a time.
It certainly gets below 17C here in the Far North, but our garden is largely frostfree and I’m happy to race outside with shade cloth in the wee hours if it does look like frost. And I must have done everything right so far because ours have been fine for the last two years, despite the less-thanoptimum conditions. They are planted in the shadiest part of the garden, sheltered by three big totara and rubbing elbows with a titoki and a puriri. I suppose it would be fair to say they look slightly perplexed, but both seem perfectly healthy. They’re in rich, volcanic soil which is not a requirement but which they may see as a bonus, and the soil drains well.
All of this was achieved by accident rather than design, and I was gratified to read quite recently that a dracaena is happy in part-shade as long as there’s enough indirect light. Some water is okay, but soggy feet are not. You can use a basic fertiliser every couple weeks during the growing season to encourage more growth, so I’ll try that this year just to be on the safe side. And that seems to be about it. Experts say that once your dracaena is established outside, you won’t have to give it much attention at all.
If you know what kind of dracaena you are planting, try to provide for that particular variety’s needs. Most are pretty similar, but there will likely be differences in size and how much space the plants need. Some varieties stay low, while others grow up to a couple of metres tall.
Given the right conditions, a dracaena can add drama and style to your landscape design with different heights, shapes, leaf colours, leaf patterns and textures.
If you turn out to be successful at growing dracaena, you may be tempted to propagate them. It takes a bit of courage, though, because the most common method is simply to cut the head off. The procedure is to snip it just below the leaf line and be sure to include at least one node: roots grow from these round, white bumps on the stem. Then either plant your cutting in some soil or put it in water. I’d go for water because you can see when the cutting has rooted. Then you can plant it into soil when the root is about 5cm long.
A word of warning — as much as you might love your dracaena, don’t encourage your dogs and cats to love it too. It’s poisonous to dogs and cats.
Like me, they consider running away when it gets below 17C for more than a few days at a time.