The Corpus Callosum

I am not an expert on plants.  Indeed, I've only been doing this earnestly for about a year.  So don't take anything I say as advice for managing your own plants.  This is for entertainment purposes only.  Always consult a professional before you pick up the pruning shears.

The specimen in the photograph is a generic Dracaena from Lowe's.  It cost about three dollars.  The label does not say what variety it is, or even what species.  Life is like that; sometimes, you do not know exactly what you are dealing with. That is OK.  You can still figure out how to proceed, even if you do not know what name to use.  What good are names, anyway?
 
Overall, there are about forty species of Dracena.  Some of these are fairly large trees, such as the Canary Islands Dragon Tree (Dracaena draco).  Others are smaller, commonly used as houseplants.  This one may be a Dracaena fragrans 'Janet Craig Compacta', but I am not at all sure about that.  I'm also not sure it matters.  A person can only care about a finite number of things, after all.

Of the three Dracaena I bought, all had several brown leaf tips.  That tends to indicate overwatering.  The water requirement is determined, in part, by the growth rate of the plant, and the evaporation rate.  More light or more warmth = higher water requirement.  It takes time to learn to discern the signs and symptoms that each plant presents, and to know what to do about them.  Not all the employees at Lowe's have figured this out, with respect to all the plants.

The specimen in the photo had been damaged particularly badly.  It appeared to have been crushed from the top, and all the top leaves were dead.  I gave it several weeks, to see if the leaves would revive, but they did not.  It does not do, to be in a hurry, when growing plants.

So a couple of weeks ago, I started pulling off the dead leaves.  Upon pulling off the fourth one, the top third of the stalk came with it.  The stalk was grayish-brown, kind of moldy looking.  That went in the trash.  If I had taken another moment to think, it would have occurred to me to put it in the compost bin.  Oh well.  It will compost fine wherever it ends up.  Can't worry about everything.

I thought I had killed the poor thing, or at least, damaged it beyond salvation.  But when I looked at the remaining stalk, it was clear that there were two small -- very healthy -- clusters of leaves.  Those will become branches. 


The poor thing still looks like the ugly duckling, in between its two intact sisters. However,  I think that the one that was most heavily damaged, will end up being the most interesting plant: it will have a forked trunk. 

Of course, only time will tell. 

Now I am tempted to cut the tops off the other two.  But I think I will wait.  There is no hurry.  I can take plenty of time, look at the plants every day, and think about it.  When the correct course of action is clear, that is when I will take action.

By the way, this works with the healing of people, too.