HELP PLEASE!! I have an enormous, but beautiful Dieffenbachia plant. It has gotten to over 6 feet tall, and grew to be very top heavy. Unfortunately, it has snapped near the base and now I have a little stub with roots stuck in a pot, and a beautiful leafy green top. I immediately put the top into water, but I am afraid I am going to lose it. This plant has a very long history. I purchased it from an elderly gentleman who was moving from his house and couldn't keep such a large plant anymore. His wife had passed away (hence the moving), and it was she who had owned this plant. He told me that she had had it for the entirety of their marriage, which he claimed was over 30 years!!! I don't know enough about plants to determine if this could even be possible, but he seemed to have a loving memory attached to this plant and I promised to take good care of it. Sadly, I love my house plants but am not super educated in how to best take care of them. So when the plant started leaning, I just kept rotating it in hopes that it would go toward the sun. But it was flourishing so much that it got too heavy for its own britches and broke. So can someone please advise me on how to save this plant (I call it "Grandpa plant", after the old man). And in the future, what do I do if I see my plant leaning like this again? Thanks a lot! Trickius
You won't lose Grandpa - Dieffenbachia snaps and falls to the ground in the wild too; it's a propagation strategy for the plant. What I'd do is to actually plant the crown directly into moist soil (use the same mix the base is in - if the plant's happy it's good mix) and then simply leave it for a couple of weeks, then resume your normal care regimen. Dieffs will root better in soil than they do in water. If it's very tall and you're worried about its stability, cut it in half and root both halves. Make sure you've got at least one node buried (a node is the portion of stem between leaf scars.) In the future, if you'd like to maintain one tall stem you're going to have to use a stick of some sort for support. Otherwise, when you see the plant getting too top-heavy, cut the tops and replant them. You'll get branching from the basal canes, and new clones of Grandpa Plant from the crowns.
I don't think the upper portion can be saved in its entirety. However you can make new plants from it. Cultural Guidelines for Commercial Production of Interiorscape Dieffenbachia
I've done it before, but I find that the top-heaviness problem persists. So I generally cut them into 2 or 3-foot sections and make lots of clones. In wild situations, the longest broken-off and then re-rooted piece I've seen was around 7'.
The bottom should send up new shoots too. Just make sure not to overwater it - it still needs water, but not as much as when the top was there to take up the water.
Hello all! Thank you for your replies... I finally got around to re-potting the plants (I now have 3, one growing from the stump that was left in the pot when it broke, and 2 from me splitting the top in half). I had unexpected surgery just shortly after Grandpa plant broke, so the plant had to sit in water for over a month... but it grew a ton of roots. However, I have another question. So a while ago, I was having issues with fruit fly like bugs in my plants. To get rid of them, I ended up re-potting a bunch of my plants and putting the old dirt on my balcony over winter. In the process, I kind of just dumped all the dirt into one massive pot, and this included rocks (meant for those lucky bamboo trees, etc.). Anyway, I didn't want all that dirt to go to waste, and I figured that being in -40 weather, those bugs would be dead (and even if they aren't, I have other solutions). That's not my concern... My concern was this: In order to get all the rocks out of the dirt, I sifted the dirt through a noodle strainer. This got me next to pure soil, with very few other things in it including the chunks of wood that is often put into soil. This seemed great and I happily potted one of the halves of Grandpa Plant. Once I was done, I started wondering if I made a mistake. Should I have left those wood chunks in there? Will it not water properly, or do they provide essential nutrients? Will it cause any harm/should I re-re-pot it (I *really* don't want to do this). I googled it, and as usual, there is next to nothing out there about my specific problem, so I was wondering if you guys could tell me what you think. Thanks a lot!
The presence of wood chips in the soil would increase its porosity resulting in an improvement in drainage and a healthier environment for the roots. The pest you described is likely to be fungus gnats which thrive in wet soils.
Yes, you should have left the big pieces in. Re-re-potting is probably okay, though obviously it's not ideal. Junglekeeper is correct; your bugs were probably fungus gnats. Annoying as they are, they were probably not really hurting anything.
So... Is it something that is worth the effort of re-re-potting it? Or will it likely be ok if I don't?
As for the fungus gnats (yes, that's what they were... I just couldn't remember their name), I had several solutions: 1. I re-potted most of my plants (specifically the ones that seemed to be plagued with these annoying bugs), 2. I poured about an inch of fine grain sand on top of each plant, 3. I vacuumed CONSTANTLY to get any of the adults out of the air (this was a constant thing for a week or so) 4. I used insecticidal soap. I didn't do all of these things at once... it was a "this isn't working, so let's try the next thing" over a long period of time process. But, I haven't had these bugs for a long time, so all my effort worked :) I didn't think they were killing my plants. They were just annoying the hell out of me, especially since I probably had hundreds of them flying around my apartment, many of which enjoyed chilling out in the kitchen near my sink. They were driving me bonkers.
I couldn't make any promises one way or the other, but if it were my plant, I would probably go ahead and re-repot.
Bah! Hahaha! I guess I will go ahead and re-re-pot it... I will have to wait for the soil to dry though, because of course once I potted it, I thoroughly watered it. Oh well... annoying lesson learned. Thanks for your help! :)
