GET GROWING!
THE KINDEST CUT OF ALL
New growth on the mother plant after removing the top.
By LADYBUG
You know those tropical plants they sell at department and box stores or even, periodically, at grocery chains? No, not the large, lush tropicals like rubber plants, palms or fig trees that come with a fancy price tag.
Nor the miniature orange trees that have me drooling over the mental picture of reaching out for a fresh juicy orange in the depths of winter.
This is about the little ones, displayed almost as an afterthought in the passage to the exit (never understood that placement, it’s almost like they don’t really care if the poor plants are sold or not). You have to be a dedicated plant lover to notice them, and head right back to line up to pay for the one you want to take home.
These impulse purchases don’t require either a monetary or space commitment as you can pick one up for a mere dollar or two and they are so tiny, it’s difficult to imagine they will ever grow to full size.
Well, they do. It may take longer, but with a half-decent care routine, they reward patience with a large, beautiful plant.
I picked up a dwarf umbrella tree and a draceana many years ago. Both tiny, both happy on a countertop for a year or two before they even required repotting and moving to a spot of their own by the windows. The umbrella plant grew and spread its pretty variegated leaves and the draceana grew up. Literally. It shot up several inches in one season, reminding me of teenagers going through growth spurts. It seemed to me that one day I was thinking I should maybe trim it a bit and the next, it was touching the ceiling. From there, it twisted and grew horizontally. Would have made for an interesting plant accent had it been full of leaves. However, what I had was a crown full of leaves on a bare stem. I planted ajwain seedlings along the edge of the pot it was in and they grew around the stem, covering it somewhat. But with the poor draceana twisting and turning, I had to find a better solution.
A search revealed that draceanas can be cut down and not only will the crown sprout new leaves, the cut stem can also be replanted for a new plant.
The top that was removed rooted and is happy in its own pot.
So, of course, that’s what I did. Apologizing to it for the harsh treatment, I took the top half off and planted that in a new pot. Watered and fertilized both, murmured a few words of encouragement and sat back and hoped for the best.
The mother plant soon had a tiny nub of growth which rapidly grew bigger. The part that I had replanted rooted and looked happy. But the magical part for me was that new growth also sprouted from the section of the stem I had cut from the crown and stuck into the pot separately. It’s still really, really, small, but it’s growing. What more can a gardener ask for?
Regular readers of this column may recall the one on the Chelsea Chop in May 2021 (archived in our online edition). Well, that can successfully be applied any time of year to indoor plants too.