For the past 3yrs I have had a problem with my Dracaenas. They are really great, but the ends of the leaves always turn brown and die. I gave them a real shower one day and drained them completely in the tub for 10 to 12 hours. We just had a reverse osmosis filter installed so I am hoping that will help eliminate any more minerals in the water. Should I do the bath again seeing as last time I did it we were without the filtration system? Also one of them seems to losea lot of leaves at times...normal?!
the normal growth pattern is that the oldest/bottom leaves die off as new growth appears at the top and this is a continuous thing so, year-round you will see this happening. before watering always let the water sit in a container overnight so excess chlorine can dissipate. letting it sit also allows the water to be at room temp when watering and that's good because it won't shock the roots by being too cold or too hot. you always want to do a very thorough watering - make sure all of the soil is evenly and completely moistened and then let it dry out a good bit before watering again. i would not use filtered water. some minerals are needed by the plants to survive and thrive.
Thank you for the answer. I thought that filtered water was better because of the fact that we get water that is too hard and has all kinds of impurities, including chlorine and the minerals found in our water are inorganic...can not be broken down by our bodies, but maybe that water is better for our plants. There is just one problem...all our water is filtered from the time it enters our house(Reverse Osmosis). What do I do in this case?
the minerals in the water are the food that the plants need to grow...so, filtering them out wouldn't benefit the plants. add a tap to the water line right before it's attached to the filtering system.
What is good for sunny Philadelphia won't work in Quebec. Your municipal water is treated very differently. Actually filtered water would be better for your plants. Hard water contains too many salts and can be too alkaline for your plants. Hard water causes premature leaf browning. Dracaena do best with water with a neutral pH or slightly acid. You may want to add just a small amount of vinegar to your water to lower the pH.
Thanks so much for the expertise. I have a Reverse Osmosis water filtration system so the water is very soft and completely pure, so I can imagine the PH is pretty alkaline. Should I still add vinegar...and should it be white or the apple cider variety?
the water here is very hard and i've never had a problem with leaf-tips browning...i do let the water sit for at least 24 hours though. never heard that bit about adding vinegar.
Thanks for the information. Before I had the water filtration system put in there was a white calcium line (stain) on my glass vases from the water as well as on my lucky bamboos and the leaves on my Dracaenas were so dull with no lustre. Now that I have the filter I see a difference in my plants for the better so I am just wondering what the tap water we have is doing to my plants. I will have to wait and see and if the problem returns I will know that the water isn't any better.
oh, my! your water is particularly hard! i don't see that white crusty stuff hardly at all...only on the unglazed clay and then, it doesn't start to show until about a year into using the container.
Hi! I have a quick question. I recently purchased (about a week ago) a large Dracaena Marginata tree for my dining room. I love it, I have a smaller one for about a year and it has never given me any problems. The reason I am writing is because I had to transplant the large tree from the 14inch pot it came in from the nursery. It was EXTREMELY root bound. I transplanted it into a 16inch pot (see picture). How often does it need to be watered? How much water? Should I use bottled water?
