Toni: Luke is just a 'mutt', as they say. The best guess is part border collie and part blue-tick hound. We adopted him about 3 years ago from the elderly neighbor lady. She'd been walking him and fell and was hurt. She asked us to just watch him for awhile, but my then 8 y.o. DD really fell for him, and we ended up keeping him (her adult kids advised her to give him up, and she obliged.) It has worked out nicely, as she still gets to visit him, and occasionally he'll wander over there (we live in the country) and she'll have him spend the night....lol...funny! He was probably at least 2-3 years old when we got him, so he'd be 5 or 6 now, but still has a lot of 'puppy' left in him. He weighs about 75 pounds, so not exactly a 'lap dog'! It has been made clear to Luke that he is NOT the alpha-dog...and we humans aren't the ones who clarified the point, if you know what I mean! Harley (the 11 y.o. small dog)tries hard to keep up with Luke..it keeps him 'spry'! Our dogs chew on grass outdoors, but they have never bothered any of the indoor plants in that way - Harley will occasionally bury a treat in a large potted plant (grr) but that's the only way they've ever really bothered my plants. The cats chewed the ends of the leaves of my Beaucarnea but never any other plants. Maybe the dogs just know better than to mess w/Mama's plants?! (I like to think so)(Ã) jasdip...I'm still thinking 'previous cold-damage', but just my opinion....keep us posted!

all plants lose old leaves ... i cant tell from these pix if these are the older ones ... it was outdoors... some of the tearing may be related to wind damage ... storm ... ???? i dont understand the freeze history ... new leaves are always a good sign.. that its doing what need be done underground ... i wouldnt be jumping to fungus very fast ... there is a houseplant forum.. should you wish to learn more about such ... its a plant.. not a child.. i would not be feeding it in winter.. indoors .. sounds like you probably gave it enough for a while .. and i dont know what you mean by dry food ... i would probably tend to a water soluable ... and though you have drain holes.. it doesnt sound like you water so heavily that it runs out the bottom ... so there shouldnt be all that much nutrients that you need to be replacing ... how about a pic of the plant as a whole ... how will it get light during winter .... is that interior wall just for pix ??? ken

I agree with Dave in NoVA - it definitely looks like the giant (white) bird of paradise. I got rid of mine after a few years of moving into the garage (and eventually greenhouse) for winter and outside for summer - a giant waste of space and labor. Give your grandson a hug. The leaf will be fine and will eventually turn ugly in a year or two and new ones will replace it. The nature of the beast.

Thank you for your reply. If you click on the picture, you can see that there is plenty of light. The leaves are not yellow either. Only the really old leaves are yellow. They have turned brown on the edges. They are wilty and not crispy. So I had smaller pots for the plants and recently switched to a lot bigger ones with obviously a lot more soil but i continued to water same amount as before. I don’t think I was watering enough as most of the soil would be dry (since now there was so much more soil). Because if this, I felt the soil would dry out really quickly too. Therefore, I started watering more and have noticed the stems breaking. I‘ve also noticed that when a new leaf is about to grow, the stems break from the spot where the new leaf comes out from. I’m not sure if this is the reason??