{"id":20992,"date":"2015-03-05T00:01:42","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T08:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=20992"},"modified":"2015-03-05T00:01:42","modified_gmt":"2015-03-05T08:01:42","slug":"the-dracena-is-dead-long-live-the-dracena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/the-dracena-is-dead-long-live-the-dracena\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dracena Is Dead. Long Live the Dracena"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
One of the stalks of our\u00a0dracena marginata got way\u00a0too tall and was curling painfully around itself on our living room\u00a0ceiling. Photos by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

I did it.\u00a0I cut the dracena marginata growing wild in our\u00a0living room\u00a0down to size.<\/p>\n

One of its stalks was eight feet tall.\u00a0It\u00a0had hit the ceiling of our living room months ago and, stymied, had proceeded to grow around and around itself in painful contortions<\/a>. It hurt to look at that plant.\u00a0But the thought of cutting off the stalk and throwing it into the compost bin was to me even more painful.<\/p>\n

My Minnesota gardener friend<\/a> came to the rescue with this advice: “Be brave, cut it off at an angle about 4-6 inches up from the soil. Pretend you are giving it a much needed haircut. New shoots will grow from that. The plant will thank you.”<\/p>\n

As for the cut-off stalk, she said, “You can take the part of the stalk with leaves still on it, cut it off from the main stalk at an angle and let it root in water.\u00a0When roots form, plant it back in pot.”<\/p>\n

Armed with that\u00a0advice and a steak knife from the kitchen, I proceeded to give the dracena a haircut. Here’s what happened next:<\/p>\n

\"Homeowner<\/a>
On the advice of my Minnesota gardener friend, I proceeded to cut the stalk back. A steak knife from the kitchen didn’t cut it. This plant was way tougher than I thought.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Homeowner<\/a>
Bread knife didn’t work either.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Homeowner<\/a>
And neither did this butcher knife. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Homeowner<\/a>
I went up to the garage and found an\u00a0old\u00a0pruning saw.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Homeowner<\/a>
That worked.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Stalk<\/a>
As my Minnesota gardener friend advised, I cut the stalk off on an angle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The too-tall stalk.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A<\/a>
And its\u00a0cut-off\u00a0top, now in water.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Barbara<\/a>
But what to do with the over-sized stalk? Too beautiful to be thrown into the compost, it found a place in our dining room on a wall next to another work of art — a plate by ceramic artist Nancy Selvin<\/a>. Photos by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More about mortality at “My Years Are Numbered. Give Me Those Blossoms Now.”<\/a>\u00a0 Read about a gardening success at “An Unruly Garden Tamed at Last.”<\/a>\u00a0 More gardening confessions at “I Did It. I Offed Those Frightful Snapdragons.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Homeowner<\/a><\/p>\n

I did it. I cut the dracena marginata growing wild in our living room down to size. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21010,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[34,1407,1188,1409,278,82],"class_list":["post-20992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","tag-dont-miss","tag-dracena-marginata","tag-house","tag-house-plants","tag-my-unruly-garden","tag-on-the-funny-side"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20992\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}