Morning, A1. Thanks. In the late 90's/early 2000's I joined Freecycle, (forgot the name which is the reason I asked you,) but unsubscribed after getting as many as 25 emails per day. lol. I haven't grown Spikes for a while, but tags read Cordyline, Dracaena sp. I can't recall green spike name, but purple was called Red Star. In zones 8 and up, Spikes are grown as perennials, but in zones 7 and under they're grown as annuals or house plants. 'during winter.' Here's an old photo of my green and red/purple Spikes. One site coins purple spike as Cordyline baurei, 'Red Star.' Description...A Dracaena (Cordyline baurei).... I do not recall C. (baurei) on Spike tags. Dave's Garden calls purple spike, C. australis, and Dracaena Spike 'Purple Tower.' PT doesn't sound familiar either. lol. Another site...about.com Cordyline are common decorative plants that appear under a few names in garden centers. In fact, the whole thing can get rather confusing. The most popular indoor cordyline is the C. terminalis, which is often sold as C. fruticosa or Dracaena terminalis. Likewise, these plants are often referred to as "Ti plants" or "Hawaiian Ti trees." However, Dracaena fragrans, with its bright green leaves, are also sold as Ti plants, and in fact, cordyline and dracaena are both members of the agave family. The best way to tell the difference is look at the roots: cordyline roots are white, and dracaena roots are yellow or orange. There are 15 species of cordyline, but only a few are commonly seen in cultivation: â¢C. australis. Resembles yucca plant, with narrow, long and grayish to dark leaves. â¢C. terminalis. A gaudy, show plant with nearly infinite varieties. Leaves are wide (3") and thin and come in green, red, black, yellow, orange and mixed colors. Varieties include C. terminalis 'tricolor', C. terminalis 'Rededge', C. terminalis 'Firebrand' and C. terminalis 'Ti' C. terminalis sounds right. Toni Tips for growing cordyline plants indoors, including watering and humidity ... and an easy explanation to sort of cordyline and the (closely related dracaena)

Hi Al. I have to use my phone for Internet. DM is auto-corrected from DE - diatomaceous earth. Sorry about that. Yes, I bare-rooted it, washed the roots, and spread them out in the pot. It is all grit, no soil, no bark. I don't have a place to sift messy bark fines in my tiny apartment, so you and I discussed it and left them out. I use exactly the method you describe to get the excess water out of the bottom of the grit after I water this plant. (It seems an enormous pot to me). I don't do it hard enough to get more than a couple tablespoons though. I don't know why I hadn't thought to do that when it wilted. I have done the dowel test though, a number of times, and it comes out dry. I use meat skewers, which are actually bamboo, but that should make little difference. If I leave the skewer in the grit and just pull it out when I'm testing the wetness, the skewer is always damp. If I just shove one into it for a few seconds to test it, it comes out dry. I don't know the optimum amount of time to leave it in. Suggestions? When it wilts, I water it, so I don't know if it would perk up on its own overnight. That's an interesting observation though. With soil it's easy to tell why something wilts. I've been watering it every two days since it last wilted, so I'll return to the previous twice weekly schedule and see if it releases any water with the shake test before watering it again. It is growing surprisingly fast. I cut a broken leaf off of it just a week or so ago, and I'm surprised to see the leftover stub has grown about 1/2 inch. That seems a lot for a Draceana in mid-winter in this climate. All but my succulents, Sansevieria, and Beaucarnea have been growing quite fast all fall & winter though, despite the cold and gloom here. The only exception was a pothos in straight DE, but that took off after changing to 2:1 mix. Thanks for your help, Al. I'll let you know if I get any water out of the pot in a couple days. In case anyone's following this, the thread Al's referring to is below. Here is a link that might be useful: Draceana and increasing disenchantment...

It is the nature of this plant, to a more or less degree, to shed lower leaves as it grows in height and makes new leaves at the top. The rate of loss and the yellowing of the tips on so many of the lower leaves, could indeed be an issue of drainage and watering. Sand is NOT a good option although it has its uses but in this case a 50% addition will be heavy and compacting down like concrete when dry, being then hard to wet, and allowing little air movement around the roots. You are far better to stick with a commercial potting mix, which is usually organic and provides not only better drainage but good air circulation around the roots. Being winter, I am not going to suggest you do anything too severe, you had best wait till the weather is warming a little. As you have 3 trunks on the plant, I would sacrifice the longest one to try cut off the top and root it, and chop up the rest of it's trunk into pieces a few inches long (plenty of articles on the web about this) to try to propagate more. That way at least you will have some new, lower foliaged plants, available to add to a planting later and provide a bit of coverage for the rest of the trunk. You could do this progressively with the others if you were successful. The cut part of the original plant should also re-sprout side shoots, although all this will be very gradual. When the weather is warmer, I would remove the plant from the current mix and re-pot it in a better mix. You don't have to wash off all the soil but give it a bit of a shake to remove the excess and then backfill when you've replaced it in its pot, and fill up again to the original level, water and leave to recover.

For some reason I'm not seeing images on this site today. Is it a big fat blunt ended root, the thickness of a normal margi stem? If so it's normal, they do this from time to time. If it gets in the way just prune it. Big ones can produce aerial roots of this nature too.