Hi I ordered a corn plant but it was basically dead when I got got. Cut off the 2 buds until I was only left with the trunk. Will it bud new leaves if I keep caring for it? Should I repot it or just throw it out? Help! Please help as you can see I’m just left with the stump. I had to cut off the 2 buds on each side they were completely dead. I’m still watering it but wondering l if I should just trash it. Is there any hope it with produce more buds???
If the stump isn't squishy anywhere, it might produce more buds. You could unpot it, see if there are any roots, see if there is anything that looks green and alive. If it's not all dry stump, you could put it back, or try new soil, keep it fairly dry and see if you get anything. The current soil looks very wet for a plant with no leaves to take up the moisture. It will not need the same amount of water as for your other plants. It might take a while, though I'm not sure how long. Anyone else have some idea - a month?
Hi & thanks so much for your help, it’s very appreciated! So the stump is not all squishy. I took it out of it’s current pot and checked the roots, there were some, though not many. I have repotted with new soil in a smaller pot. I am patient & will wait and see. If anyone else has any suggestions that would be wonderful! Thanks again
Hi, Eileen, Man alive, you are at the very beginning of a wonderful journey. Required by the corn plant: almost nothing. It wants a lazy, forgetful caretaker. It is FAST asleep, and very much alive. It needs almost no water for the longest time. We actually forgot about several we had stored away in a forgotten corner, until one day by chance I was looking for something, and, OMIGOSH! I felt terrible—I'd completely forgotten these things, and they were bone dry and had no light and—they had BUDS! Our apartment in Vancouver's West End is now a jungle of plants, totally messy and delightfully gigantic. We rarely purchase plants now; we take "dead" plants in from the alley. The so-called "stump"in your photo might be better in a "much" bigger pot, say about the size of Costa Rica. I say this because you really do need to mostly "ignore" you stump-plant, likely almost forgetting it's there. It would be happy on the forest-floor of a cloud-forest. It does like warmth; it's not like a geranium bulb over-wintering in newspaper in a basement. But too much water will kill it. Do you have some place where you can ignore your plant? Maybe on the least-bothered-with corner of a plant table? In a month, it might show something is happening. In six months, it probably will show something has happened. And in a year, it will look very much like it does today—quite likely, still a dead-ish cut-off plant stump—and right beside it, there will be one or maybe more than one fantastically delightful, quickly-becoming-huge, gorgeously ALIVE, young giants. They will grow from near the top of your stump, and they will grow from beside it. touching it. These are not small plants. They are huge. A bigger pot will be appreciated, and I'd use anything BUT NOT clay. The pot itself need not be beautiful, as it won't be much noticed in a year or two. The plant has the capability of teaching you a million miracles. It will become your guardian, and I don't say that lightly. We never "own" dogs or cats or plants or children; but we are entitled to be their "guardians" for awhile. You can be this plant's guardian—and it will certainly be yours. You can treat it as roughly as you'd treat a boyfriend; you can treat it as kindly as you'd treat your grandmother. The plant will clean your room of toxins in the air. It is totally magical, and, by the way, it is also poisonous if you are careless when you handle it. Ours crowd my computer-space, and my right elbow bumps into them a lot—and so I often have an itchy colourless rash on that elbow. My fault. And you can also get a mild form of lock-jaw, which I found amusing; that was maybe when I had a glass of drinking-water sitting all day under a great big leaf a couple of feet above. When you get the time, go to Costa Rica to see these plants the way God takes care of them.
