thanks so much! as soon as I got home I have been watering it regularly and pulled off some of the dried, dead flowers and leaves. there are a few healthly bits still nice and green though so I think it will be ok. I appreciate that they thought of me to give me the gift, but I'll pass it along to someone who can give it a proper home!

Well... it's 2 yrs old, started in the compost pile & spent the first summer outside in the veg garden. I dug it up in the fall, since it had grown rather tall & looked happy. I was too tender-hearted to condemn it to death by frost. Currently 2' tall (+ that 2" new growth I mentioned) & living in a 1 gallon plastic pot of garden soil/compost. It has a little over an inch of thin bark coming on at the base of the trunk. I've been using 1/8 strength 3:1:2 fertilizer for about a month, usually about every week or 10 days. None of the new leaves since fertilizer have had crispy tips - I think they're from last summer when I let it get a little too dry - it really hasn't been a leaf-dropper at all. At the equinox, I'm going up everybody's doses to 1/4 strength for a while. Everyone just got a pot flush yesterday (no food) since the weather was so nice - my S-facing glass-roof deck was out of the N wind & "warm" w/ the glass magnifying the sun. All the plants are getting southern exposure at this point & the 'Cado is right by the window. Anyhoo - it will get a root prune & repot into fast mix in June. Maybe a move to a 2 gal pot; we'll see what those roots are doing... then it can eat as much as it wants. I may very well defoliate the trunk at that point. I think it will enjoy spending the summer outdoors. I'm after a taller plant, so when I lop, it's just a few cm off the top. The last cut (only the 2nd lopping) brought 2 buds: the slacker & the over-achiever. If the slacker gets it's @ss in gear, that'll be enough balance for now & I'll let those shoots grow the better part of a foot or so before I chop them. If not, I'll take another few cm off the top & hope for more balanced budding. Thanks Josh for sharing your experience on this thread - I think Avocado is something most people try, simply because it's around. You're proving that it can actually be a viable & attractive houseplant, given one is willing to put in some initial work. GB

This original post is old I know, but it has received some recent activity, I am sure Kevin who started this thread is long gone, and hopefully with a healthy plant, but I would look here if I had a sick LB, with the new activity. If I ran this website, I would have a disclaimer legally written up attached, there is so much incorrect information. Thankfully, most of it was written some time ago, and I will not be hauled out and publicly tarred and feathered. Sometimes you gotta speak up! First of all, Sans (above) is very knowledgeable, and gives good clear suggestions as to where to start when figuring out why a plant is sick. Listen to only her, in this post please. not that she is the only one with good tips, but you are just receiving so many well intentioned but totally lethal suggestions. I am sort of surprised. I am going to hurt some feelings and be attacked by others, both of which I hate. I just have to speak up, because this plant is not very unhealthy, and you have kept it in quite nice shape for a long time. Most LB's are tossed within a the first year, I would bet. Please.......Do not increase light to improve the yellowing of leaves. you will have yellow burnt leaves. The number one reason for yellowing leaves on most plant types is over watering. If you feel strongly you are not overwatering, trust that and look for the second reason most likely reason, TOO MUCH light. Can it be the summer sun has made the plant feel like it moved from Anchorage to the Sahara I would need more water if I was suddenly thrown into a desert, are you changing culture from winter needs to summer needsl .Does the room get Southern exposure Get it further from the window if it does. You say you have had this plant a couple of years Honestly, that is a long time for most to keep this plant looking so nice. Your Draceana is by far healthier than the 30 or more that I see every day at work, I have the only Lucky bamboo in the building that is happy. You have done well for two years. Of all the advice you can get, no one is better equipped to diagnose what adjustments will help your plant than you. Please listen to your own instincts, reread you original post. You had two guesses, and they are the best guesses to start with. I could tell you to change water on a schedule, , how to fert, but I don't know if you are already doing that or not. If I were to give specific advice, I would ask you google yellow dry leaves on Lucky bamboo, Lucky bamboo care, Native habitat for LB and so on. You don't have to become a plant nerd, but a little bit of this really helps. Pick some sights that are really reputable, no advice from sights with adds all over them, and no forums, if you are not sure you can spot good tips over bad ones. Just good research. Flower shops are not where I would start, and yet the best article I found for you is from a flower shop. After that, come back here. It is fun to learn what others did, There are so many posters here that are golden in being helpful and accurate with their suggestions. And some, not so much. Here is part of a page with very good advice below, with link The solution for too much sun is changing out the water and not fertilizing for a couple of months. Move the plant into a bright area without direct sunlight. Too much sun can cause yellowish leaves and splitting, which can be fixed with trimming them off at an angle. and the link: http://www.flowershopnetwork.com/blog/?s=lucky+bamboo You may have to copy and paste, Link would not insert. I looked at a lot of pages for you, just poke around. My best advice to you is trust your own instincts a bit more, I think you have a greener thumb than you realize.

Interesting. Just as an FYI - a prominent collector in DC gave his collection away a few years ago and gave me his NCSU Afrocarpus. He said that _in his opinion_ he thought it was a mislabeled East Asian Podocarpus and that somewhere along the line a nursery or botanic garden had mixed it up. Now, usually, if I cite someone else on this board, I do so assuming their views to be authoritative and correct. That is not the case this time. I'm just throwing it out there. In terms of the morphology and growth habits of it, does anything seem notably different than the Podocarps you see along the Gulf? Anyhow I'm trying it experimentally. Even the very hardiest one floating around, "Podocarpus chinensis" of commerce, died here in the first polar winter. But I think the spot for it was not optimal and I want to try another one at some point, if Camforest sells it again.