sorry this is gonna be long because i feel like the history will be helpful for context.
i've had this plant for a year now, i got it last may. it did fantastic until mid-winter, it started declining. i took off any dead leaves and then it would do better for a bit, but leaves would start yellowing/browning and dropping again. i adjusted watering as needed and pruned it, and again, it would do better then get worse.
finally, i separated the best trunk (there were 3 to begin with) and repotted it into its own pot maybe 1.5/2 months ago. it's down to only one stem on that one trunk after all the horror, but otherwise was doing well. also there was absolutely no sign of root rot when i repotted, which surprised me.
after that, i'd never seen it look so good. the leaves were a gorgeous rich green and they were full and healthy. i noticed over the past couple weeks that the leaves looked a bit less happy, slightly wilting but overall it's still in much better shape compared to before. i removed 2 yellowing leaves and haven't watered it because the soil doesn't feel completely dry yet. it's also in my bathroom now, east facing window with some good indirect lighting.
OK – fast forward to tonight – it only has the one branch/stem, so i figured maybe getting more of those would help it overall, i read that you can get it to grow more stems by cutting some small inverted V shapes into the first layer of the bark. i made a few of those, and that is when i discovered that the outer layer is coming off super easily and underneath that first layer it has mold. you can see in the photos that it's kind of flaking off.
i am so confused on how it keeps producing new leaves and generally is doing better if the trunk is full of mold? and also how that's possible without root rot? i don't understand what i did to this plant or what i need to do to help it, but it seems like it's still salvageable and i don't want to give up on it :/
any help or speculation is very much appreciated, i've been googling how to help this thing nonstop for months and the fact that it keeps doing better and worse at the same time is driving me insane!
by focusflipper
3 Comments
You likely did have root rot and didn’t notice. What’s happening now is stem rot. This is due to overwatering. Dracaenas hold a ton of water in their stems and benefit from periods of dry soil. Notching is also not an effective technique for dracaenas like this. Maybe on younger, thinner stems, but it won’t stimulate growth on a trunk like this.
It seems that it was probably putting out awesome foliage because it was cannibalizing the rotting trunk.
It likely started to decline because it was getting lower light exposure in the fall/winter. Even though you watered less, it probably needed even less frequent watering, and you would still see some leaf yellowing and loss.
If you’ve already reached stem rot, everything from the rotted part down is dunzo. Best you can do is cut off anything above the rot and try to propagate it in new soil.