Can you help identify what is going on with my plant? It had been growing fabulously over the last few months. I moved it to a clay pot and that is when it started to get yellow leaves. (Only 2 on the bottom that I already removed) now it has like 4 or 5 yellow leaves. I thought maybe it was due to underwatering since terracotta pulls out moisture faster. I am concerned about losing my plant.
When I look at your first photo, it seems like there is a black pot within the clay pot - could you clarify if the soil is actually in contact with the clay pot? Off the top of my head, I would suspect that your dracaena may be getting too much water but I've been wrong before.
Yes, I did actually put the plant back in a plastic pot since it seemed to turned once I put it in the terracotta. It was in the terracotta for about a month and it's been in the plastic for about a week. Normally I don't transplant my plants that much but it didn't seem to like the terracotta for some reason. Could it have anything to do with a build up of something in tap water? I let my tap water sit before watering but I have not been watering with distilled.
Depending on where you live in Colorado, the water could have all kinds of salts. If you have municipal water, you should be able to get a report of the chemicals in the water. You could try rain water to see if it makes any difference; but if you are overwatering, that won't help. The soil should dry out thoroughly between waterings.
If your plant was doing well for the last few months, it doesn't seem that the yellowing would all of a sudden be caused by the same water you've been using. Until you get your watering regime back to what it was, I would suggest taking it out of the clay jardiniere so that you can more easily tell the weight by lifting it in just the lighter plastic pot. It should feel heavy after you have watered it and all the water has finished running though, and it should feel much lighter (but not bone dry) before you water it again. Maybe see if you can figure out when the leaves look like they're starting to wilt. Is this a new plant to you? You know it's going to lose bottom leaves, right? The newer leaves on top look fine, so there may not be any issue here except for your expectations. This will grow taller and the bottom part of the stem will get bare from lost leaves. At some point, you'll decide you don't like that and will cut off the top and plant it into either the same pot or a new pot. Cut the old stem back to where you want new leaves to start growing. These plants are fussy about the water they get - if they don't like the minerals, the tips will go brown. Leaving the tap water sit before using it is a reasonable approach until you see if the plant going to be fussier and want distilled water. I have never gone that far, just figured I had to live with brown leaf tips.
