jammer wrote:
: My striped dracaena is said to need distilled water. Can i boil and
: cool water and use it? This is kind of an emergency as the leaves have
: to be cut off now as it is. I want to repot it but have no water. Can
: i boil and cool water and use that?

As others pointed out, go for rainwater or distilled water. Dracaena and
others, for example, spider plants (Chlorophytum comosum), are sensitive
to salts in the soil and will show browning at the tips in response.

Using tapwater in areas where water is treated can lead to problems since
it can be fairly high in pH as well. In our area, the tapwater is at a pH
of 8.4 and that's not unusual.

I have always found that indoor plants do MUCH better on rainwater than
tapwater. In addition to being free of mineral salts, rainwater is also
naturally acidic and carries a little bonus of dissolved nitrogen.
Unpolluted rainwater is at about 5.6. Many container plants benefit from
this. Potting soil can become alkaline over a period of time from buildup
of mineral salts.

Virginia Tech has an excellent set of factsheets on houseplants:
http://www.ext.vt.edu/cgi-bin/WebObj...at=ir-ln-ig-pp

-- Karen

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