John the Viking wrote in
:


Hi, don't know if this plant is part of the bamboo 'family' or whatever,
i'm new and desperate for advice!

Small intro, don't judge me by the nickname, it's just how I look. I'm
a bit of a hippy. I love my plants, almost obsessively. What I have I
received from people I love, or I got them when i felt delighted.
Mostly I've got bamboo's, they're great! I usually go for the ones you
see around the supermarkets, because I see them bound up looking
'pretty' but know secretly that the way they're arranged and tied up
means they'll die soon. I liberate the bamboo!

anyway, my friend gave me a dracaena massangeana. I saw hers, it was
great. she gave me one before summer last year, it looked good, it was
healthy and beautiful. After a couple of months of good times, I had to
find somewhere for it to stay however, as I was off to uni for a year,
in a hall room with underfloor heating which would no way do good to
the plant and end up being vomited on by people living in the same
halls as me, or messed around with, I planned for the eventuality
anyways. I left it with my 'friend' who had lots of plants, all very
healthy, for a year. I just got it back from his this weekend and I was
pretty upset with him. what I failed to realise was how this guy had
left my plant in the care of his other housemate, for him to have as a
'project'. This project apparently was too tedious for said housemate
and the plant wasn't bushy, with lots of layers of vibrant two-tone
green leaves, fleshy and lovely, it was two logs with three extremely
long, yellow tipped leaves, a dead bud and one struggling live bud
coming from the top of one of said 'logs' and very red cores to the
logs indeed.

Suffice to say I'm really really annoyed. People keep telling me to
leave the plant for dead, but I refuse, I WON'T LEAVE IT FOR DEAD! not
because it was a gift, or because I have dellusions of it having a
personality, but because it's a living organism that deserves to see
some love when it's had so much neglect. i can only blame myself for
not forseeing what would happen, but I know with all the attention I
can give it I can help it grow back. i don't care how long it takes.

Please help me! I've trawled the web but all I can find are very
complicated things about nutrients and stuff which I can't fathom, or
just pictures of people using the dracaena massangeana as office
furniture.

I must help to save this plant! I'll have a pic of it up soon if anyone
replies to this thread positively.

thanks,

John

p.s. i'm quite poor, but what money i have i will use on the plant.


Howdy J T Viking
Try
http://www.bachmans.com/retail/tipsh.../Dracaenas.cfm

i personaly prefer d. marginata, but hey, you want to save yours.
The one that still has green, you may save by air-layering.
Make a shallow cut in the stem, wrap with moss (cotton gauze), soak the
moss, cover with thin plastic wrap. Check dayly (damp, not soaking, keep
moist)
Wait for roots.
This is the most frequent means of propagatiion.

BTW Nandina are not bamboo either. (But they are still quite nice to look
at.)
--
Throckmorton P. Ruddygore