Dracena Marginata Care & Propagation Guide

Dracena marginata is a low renovation plant that can final for years. It prefers a vibrant or gently shaded spot however will additionally tolerate decrease mild levels. Dracena marginata likes moist compost however is tolerant of erratic watering. Wipe the leaves once in a while to hold them dirt free and shiny, pulling any that have died off.

Dracena Marginata Quick Info

Botanical/Scientific Name	Dracaena marginata
Common Name	Dragon Tree
Varieties	Marginata, Marginata Colorama, Marginata Tarzan
Uses	Most effective houseplants in air purification
Origin	Ancient Greek
Light Care	Medium indirect sunlight
Soil Care	Well-draining, peaty commercial potting soil
Temperature Care	Between 65 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit
Humidity Care	Well in humidity ranging from 60% to 80%
Watering	Water regularly
Pruning Care	Actively growing in spring and summer
Fertilizer Care	Fertilizer once a month during the spring and summer with a liquid fertilizer for indoor plants
Propagation	Take a pair of strong and clean pruning shears and cut the cane to the height you want on the mother plant.
Toxic	Dracaena is toxic to both cats and dogs

Dracena Marginata Care in Detail

Dracena Marginata Watering

All yr long, mist water on the leaves, ideally tender water. As a well-known rule, attempt to expand humidity in the air round the plant.
This is normally the time of the 12 months when Dracena marginata grows most.
Water many times whilst letting the soil combine dry in the floor earlier than watering again.
Watering need to be everyday however limited, in order to now not suffocate the plant's roots.
Every 5 to 7 days is mostly sufficient.
More or much less each two weeks throughout the boom segment (spring-summer-early fall), you can provide Dracena Marginata liquid fertilizer, taking exceptional care to moisten the soil combine beforehand.
Start decreasing the watering due to the fact the plant's water desires begin decreasing.
Only when the soil of Dracena Marginata is dry down to the first inch or so (a couple centimeters), water to moisten the complete soil combine clump again.
Again, one would possibly contend that watering one or two instances a month is enough.
But this additionally relies upon on the place your dracaena is placed: if it is in full sun, its wishes will actually be higher.

Dracena Marginata Soil

Overwatering is one of the most frequent pitfalls of dragon tree care. That being said, Dracena Marginata do like their soil to preserve a little moisture at all times. It's satisfactory to water a dragon tree when the top-half of its soil is dry. A moisture meter or soil probe can assist you screen your plant's needs.
Dracena Marginata are touchy to fluoride and salty water. They're satisfactory watered with distilled, filtered, or non-fluoridated water.

Dracena Marginata Light

Dracena Marginata develop fine in vivid mild however can also live on in partial shade. Keep in mind, flowers saved in decrease mild conditions will develop slower and produce smaller leaves with much less excessive color. Additionally, take care no longer to location your dragon tree in a spot that receives direct rays of sunlight—its foliage can burn easily.
Dracena Marginata prefers medium mild however can live to tell the tale in low light.
Low mild slows the growth fee of new leaves.
Dracena Marginata must no longer get hold of direct sunlight, it burns the leaves.

Dracena Marginata Temperature

Dracena Marginata vegetation are cosy between 60 and eighty levels Fahrenheit (or 15 to 26 ranges Celsius), which is the place most human beings are comfortable, too!
If your domestic is a bit on the drafty side, make certain your plant life are positioned someplace satisfactory and relaxed to remain warm, as they do not like temperature swings.
If you are questioning about humidity, Dracena marginata can manage matters being on the dryer side. This is clearly pretty shocking due to the fact in the wild, these plant life thrive in tropical locations with up to 80% humidity. This may be why the species is notably gradual grower in our homes.
Dracaena is one of the most sought after houseplant with the aid of human beings who prefer to revel in the many advantages of having plant life in a room. It is no longer solely lovely however additionally affords severa fitness advantages to the occupants. However, for your plant to thrive, you have to research how to provide Dracena Marginata the quality viable conditions. In this post, we shall be searching at the special houseplant humidity hints you ought to follow.
Most properties are too dry for plant life to thrive. This is why when thinking about workplace foliage, you have to reflect onconsideration on its humidity requirements. The leaves of most flora will flip brown when the air is too dry. This is frequent in rooms that have a central heating. Such rooms are pretty dry all through the fall and winter. The case is the identical when the air conditioner runs a lot. Unless you are shopping for a cacti or every other plant that is native of dry conditions, you have to reflect onconsideration on the humidity in your room.
One of the easiest methods of making sure your flora thrive is to make investments in a humidifier. This will add moisture in the room which will extensively gain your houseplants. The exact component of Dracena Marginata is that the humidifier will additionally advantage you too. You can buy small vaporizers and location them shut to your plants. However, it is properly to inquire from your indoors foliage company about the humidity wishes of your plant.
Another outstanding approach you can use to resolve the low humidity hassle is to crew the vegetation together. This works due to the fact the moisture that is launched by way of one plant will be picked via the different and vice versa. However, even when you are grouping plants, you have to make positive they are now not too shut together. They want ample air circulation in order to ward off diseases. Additionally, if the leaves are too shut together, this may additionally make it effortless for the unfold of pests and diseases.

Dracena Marginata Fertilizer

Dracaenas have to be fertilized with a water-soluble business houseplant fertilizer. Look for a Dracena Marginata fertilizer with a nitrogen-phosphorous-potassium ratio of 3:1:2 plus traces of zinc, sodium, manganese, copper and iron. Mix in accordance to product instructions and practice each 4 weeks in the spring and summer time months when the flora are actively growing. During fall and wintry weather months, the flora do not want fertilizing.
Don't observe fertilizer to a dracaena for one month after bringing the plant domestic from the nursery. Dracena Marginata desires time to acclimate itself to its new location. Feeding your Dracena Marginata too quickly after relocation places extra stress on the plant. If you are shifting and taking your dracaena with you, decrease fertilizer through 50 percentage one month earlier than your transferring date and do not fertilize for the first month in your new home. Maintain soil pH at a barely acidic 6 to 6.5. Soil pH backyard of this vary will intervene with nutrient uptake and motive leaf damage.

Dracena Marginata Pruning

Pruning dracaena vegetation produces a full, wholesome Dracena Marginata, as two or extra new branches, every with its very own cluster of leaves, will quickly appear. dracaena pruning isn't always at all difficult. Here's some useful suggestions on how to reduce lower back a dracaena. The fine time for pruning dracaena flora is when the plant is actively developing in spring and summer. If possible, keep away from dracaena trimming whilst the plant is dormant in fall and winter. Be positive your slicing blade is sharp so cuts will be easy and even. Ragged cuts are ugly and can invite disease. Dip your pruners or knife into a combination of bleach and water to make sure it is free of disease-causing pathogens. Cut the canes at an perspective to minimize the danger of infection. Remove any broken canes, brown leaves, or vulnerable growth.

Dracena Marginata Repotting

Dracena Marginata requires desirable soil combine that can be amended with ⅓ compost, if you've got obtained any.
In order to decorate drainage, pour clay pebbles or small stones into the pot to shape a layer at the bottom.
This will assist make sure that roots might not wallow in water, which may want to be deadly to it.
Set up your dracaena in a fair-sized pot crammed with one of a kind indoor plant or inexperienced plant soil mix.
Although it may also be integral to repot it in spring each two or three years, when no longer repotting then go for ordinary topdressing which need to additionally flawlessly reply the boom medium wants of the plant.
Certain species like goldieana, sanderana and surculosa do not want repotting due to the fact Dracena Marginata boom is very slow.

Dracena Marginata Pest & Disease Control

Check oftentimes for Dracena Marginata pest problems. Take a appear below the sword-like leaves, on the trunk, and at the base. A white cottony or waxy mass can point out mealybugs or tender scale. If you locate simply a few bugs that devour dracaena, you may also blast them off with a robust spray of water. Mealybugs go thru stages, with the juvenile stage of crawlers doing the most damage. These pests motive stunting and leaf drop.
The excellent way to keep away from Dracena Marginata pest troubles is to be vigilant about preserving them away. Check for pests in the keep earlier than you buy plants. Seclude new purchases for a few days to make certain no eggs will hatch or no pests are hiding in the soil. Keep an eye on your dracaena if you cross it outdoor in spring. Feed and water efficiently as you furnish desirable lighting. Too a good deal water on occasion attracts pests. A wholesome Dracena Marginata is higher in a position to ward off sickness and bugs that devour dracaena.

Dracena Marginata Propagation

Dracena Marginata Leaf Propagation

The first alternative is to take pinnacle cuttings, which end result from the elimination of the pinnacle of the plant. While totally casting off the pinnacle component of the mum or dad plant can also sound alarming, increase ought to resume pretty rapidly from boom nodes after cutting Dracena Marginata. Make a reduce under the leaf line of the plant, making certain to consist of quite a few nodes of the plant's stem. Cuttings can be planted in a container with moist soil, or they can be positioned in a vase of easy water. Dracena Marginata cuttings propagated in water require little time earlier than roots start to form. Once roots start to form, pot up the flora in a Dracena Marginata container.

Dracena Marginata Division Propagation

Dracena marginata foliage grows atop long, naked stems referred to as canes. Cut the cane into portions about two inches long, every with one node, reserving the pinnacle 4 to six inches of the reducing for use as a tip cutting. You might also get quicker effects and more desirable roots if you roll every piece in rooting hormone. Lay the portions horizontally on a tray of seed-starting medium and push them down so that about 1/2 of the slicing is above the soil. Enclose the tray in a plastic bag to hold the humidity excessive and area it out of direct sunlight. Pot the portions in man or woman pots when they commence to grow.
Tip cuttings ought to be 4 to six inches long. Remove all however a few leaves at the pinnacle and dip the decrease two inches in rooting powder. Stick the reducing two inches deep in a pot of seed-starting medium. Like cane cuttings, tip cuttings want a moist environment. Enclose the pot in a plastic bag or cowl it with a clear plastic soda bottle with the backside reduce out and hold it out of direct sunlight.

Dracena Marginata Propagation in Water

Dracaena can root without delay in soil, or in water. The advantage of water is that your Dracena Marginata slicing will be much less in all likelihood to dehydrate, and you can watch the roots grow. But new roots come to be accustomed to water, and have to re-adapt when you vicinity them into soil.
Change the water at least as soon as per week, ideally twice. This will stop micro organism and fungus from constructing up in the water. I like to put a small splash of hydrogen peroxide in the water. I discover it does not harm the propagation process, and maintains the water more energizing longer. A bit of hydrogen peroxide additionally continues reduce flora sparkling wayyyy longer!
Keep the cuttings in the brightest oblique mild you have. Avoid low lighting, and keep away from direct sunlight. Too a great deal mild and the plant wont be in a position to preserve up. It's in a weakened country with no roots, so milder prerequisites supply it a higher chance.
It's ordinary for the decrease leaves on the reducing to flip yellow and fall off. Expect some of this. Dracena Marginata is conserving energy, and losing leaves.

Dracena Marginata Varieties

In the dragon tree genus are about a hundred exclusive species. The most frequent Dracena Marginata will be regularly viewed a separate species, however is subcategorizes for some years now as Dracaena reflexa var. Marginata. It is accessible in two or three color. The two-colored kind has dark-green and red-framed leaves whilst the three-colored kind indicates with leaves in green, red and crème-stripped.
Another much less recognised type, the "Dracaena deremensis" in the species "Bausei" indicates in monochrome and reaches a most increase peak of a hundred and twenty cm. Of the identical species is the kind "Warneckii" with two vibrant stripes on the leaf.

Dracena Marginata Benefits

1. Dracena Marginata is the Best Air Purifying Houseplant
2. Dracena Marginata Increases Concentration and Sharpens Focus
3. Dracena Marginata Increases Humidity
4. It has Great Ornamental Value
5. It desires Low-Maintenance

Dracena Marginata Care FAQs

Dracena marginata brown tips

The nice of your water should additionally be inflicting your Dracena Marginata's leaves to brown. Dracaena vegetation are touchy to the chemical substances determined in most faucet water. Use filtered water or permit your faucet water to take a seat out uncovered in a single day earlier than watering so chemical compounds such as chlorine can evaporate.
Sap-sucking bugs like spider mites can drain your plant of moisture. This Dracena Marginata hassle shortly manifests itself by means of yellowing leaflets and fronds. Scale, mealybugs, and spider mites happen regularly in indoor conditions. If no longer killed early on, these small pests proliferate and go all alongside frond components into nooks and crannies. The piercing mouths of the bugs exhaust your plant and speed up yellowing, mainly if your Dracaena is already unhealthy from terrible lighting, a nutrient deficiency or incorrect soil moisture.
If there is new boom on your plant and the yellowing and browning leaves are older, especially at the backside of the plant, this Dracena Marginata yellowing is natural. Your plant sheds its historic leaves and sends strength to new growth.

Dracena marginata cats

Dracena marginata is poisonous to cats. Cats are naturally inquisitive and do something they desire as they cycle via their 9 lives. Being enchanted with the aid of your houseplants is no exception, specifically when they're domestic and bored with the aid of your absence. Their curiosity would possibly properly lead them to chew one of your houseplants, consisting of the poisonous Dragon Tree.
However, whilst the Dracena Marginata is toxic to cats, they probably might not eat too an awful lot as it is pretty bitter. Furthermore, the plant is solely mildly to quite toxic, so ingestion might not be deadly. According to the ASPCA, no demise from Dracena Marginata plant consumption has been suggested to date. Still, it is higher they do not devour it at all.
Since cats can not speak to us, it is no longer handy to inform if it has eaten the Dragon Tree. Yes, you can see when the leaves have been chewed, however it is tougher to inform from the different components of the plant. Luckily, there are symptoms that can notify you of plant poisoning in your cat.

Dracena marginata yellow leaves

The most frequent motive of yellowing leaves amongst Dracena Marginata flowers is unsuitable soil moisture–in particular, overwatering. Your Dracaena likes to be stored damp (but now not moist or saturated!), so preserving a normal watering agenda is key.
If the air is too dry, you will in all likelihood see browning leaf guidelines and yellowing margins in your Dracaena plants. Loss of leaves is positive to follow.
You can deal with this trouble by means of placing your Dracaena plant on a pebble tray stuffed with water.
One very easy purpose why leaves flip yellow and fall off is age. As a plant matures and grows taller, the Dracena Marginata decrease leaves naturally mature and drop off.
When this happens, you can trim Dracena Marginata off trim or pull them away. Fresh new increase replaces the historical leaves at the pinnacle of the plant.
Another massive reason of leaves turning brown or yellow in Dracaena vegetation is publicity to bloodless drafts. Dracaena likes a persistently heat temperature of 70° to 80° ranges Fahrenheit at all times.