I have had two corn plants in the same pot for 15 years and the past five of those it has bloomed three times. It seems happy. Yet I couldn't leave it alone. I re-potted it thinking I would be brave enough to propagate it. It is about ceiling height (8') and I want to cut them off to start more. I am scared to cut... don't know where to cut and if it doesn't work I have lost a beautiful corn plant. What do I cut it with? It seems rather tough skinned. I also have the problem of the skinny stalk. Mine have a garden stake in pot and are tied to it to get them to stay upright. I need step by step instructions....I have looked on these pages and all I see are 'cut it and stick it water..or cut 4 to 6 inches and but this is not specific enough for me. Any help?

Hi Maid..do you have a Dracaena 'fragrens, Corn Plant,' or Dracaena 'Janet Craig?" The corn plant has long, pole-ish canes/trunks. Can you post a pic? Trunks of corn plants don't grow. Only the foliage. Janet Craig's trunks grow along with the plant..After reading your last paragraph, I noticed you asked if the trunk could have grown weak, so, you probably have Dracaena 'Janet Craig.' Though Dracaena's are considered low light plants, they do best in medium to bright light. If the trunk is thin and weak, it probably needs more light. Place in a brighter location..a bright east is perfect, especially in summer..if you live in a cold climate, a west or south in winter will is perfect. Either direction might be too strong in summer. I don't think the trunk weakened because of its sudden growth spurt. You haven't added fertilizer recently, have you? If a plant is dormant, and you apply ferilizer, it'll grow taller but spindly/weak. Which is another possibility. Your tree might be dormant right now, so don't expect much if any growth at all..Once days grow longer, you should see new growth.. Once you see new growth, add a little all purpose fertilizer..this 'might' thicken the trunk. You said it's in an 8" pot? When was the last time it was repotted? If your plant is potbound, this will halt growing..Roots need room to spread. But only repot if needed. What state are in? Toni My Janet Creig is about 4-5 yrs old, gets medium east light, yet still it needs repotting more than any other plant I have.. If your cane is leaning, stake it so it stands erect.

A nearly extinct Austin rose, called Claire Rose (NOT Claire Austin, the recent release) will last WEEKS on the plant and at least that long in a vase-it has a high petal count but does not have "fish scale" appearance that you are looking for but is spectacular nonetheless. The petals adhere to the flower even after they turn brown. One of the few companies that carries this rose is Rogue Valley Roses: http://roguevalleyroses.com/rose/claire-rose It was a tall, skinny 8 footer for me with only a few flowers at the end of the long canes; I was able to peg it (pull the tips of the canes to the ground) so that the canes were more horizontal; this resulted in the breaking of every axillary bud on the cane, producing clusters of flowers all along the cane, so I got hundreds of flowers per season from it. I have just received my first order from this company and like others on this website, am happy with what was sent. Best of luck, John

Thank you everyone. All things considered I feel pretty good for a week post op and I'm behaving quite well. doing only what I'm supposed to do. Drippy, those chipmunks are not funny and they sure aren't "chip and dale" either. Never mind the garden bed destruction that they create, the holes that they dig can be dangerous if you get your shoe or foot caught in one of them and go down. A year ago I did just that and tore ligaments in my ankle. The little boy that used to live next door got his foot in one when he was 4 and broke his leg. Now if that isn't enough insult here's more to add insult to injury. An article in the newspaper a few weeks ago said that chipmunks are a major carrier of deer tick now, more so than even deer and that could be the cause of a massive increase in the number of Lyme Disease cases being reported. Not that i needed an incentive to do everything I can to get rid of them, but that sure added a whole new layer to doing it. Then a friend called me last week the day before I went to the hospital to warn me that she was working in the gardens a month ago and she unknowingly disturbed a chipmunk that jumped on her arm and ran off. She didn't notice that she had a tick on her arm till the next day because it had attached right on top of a birthmark. 2 weeks later, bingo she has the classic bulls eye rash on her arm and has lyme disease. Chipmunks are not very smart. They can't swim, but will be more than happy to dive into water to get sunflower seeds and drown in the process and that's fine with me, right along with eating my datura as well. e-mail me if you want some info on chipmunks that like to dive for sunflower seeds. Bonny, the livingston daisy was WS by a friend of mine. There are 3 of us that share the WS for 3 gardens. We cane up with the idea to share it all after a couple of years of all of us sowing the same seeds then coming to my spring plant swap and all having the same extra seedlings. Didn't make sense so we split it up now. We end up with the same number of containers, more of each kind sowed, but the total variety is split between the homes and we end up with an even bigger variety of plants for the beds. Vera the color of that viola is beautiful. If you have any seeds for trade in the fall, I'd love some and will send you some of mine. PV, sow those seeds for next year. No matter how many of them you have, sow all of them cause they are a funny seed to germinate. My experience with them has been strange to say the least. My first seeds where from valueseeds.com. got 3 packets, 30 seeds in each packet and sowed them in early March. just sprinkled on the top of the soil cause they are small and tannish in color. Out of those 70 seeds we got 6 seedlings. Not a very happy camper that there, but I collected every single one of the seeds I could get my hands on from the plants and it was a ton of seeds, more than 1/4 tsp. Next year we sowed every one of those seeds, and I kept thinking OMG, what will I do if thousands of these seeds germinate. Well, no such luck, we got 20 seedlings last year. Figured ok, better than the year before and we will always have to sow every single seed we get. So this past year I had more than 1/2 teaspoon of seeds. We sowed 4 mushroom containers of seeds, the 10 ounce size container, put each one in a ziplock baggie and put them out in mid April this year. just an experiment to see if a later sowing would make any difference in the germination rate. They began to germinate on 4/29 the exact same day as the prior to years, and they where slow. But this year we saw how the seeds germinate. they swell to at least twice their original size and all but germinate 1 seed at a time. honest. But there was a huge difference in this years germination. We had mushroom containers totally covered in seedlings. so many that we couldn't separate seedlings and planted hunks of them every where. My neighbor across the street still hasn't planted hers out yet and the entire container is covered in flowers and seedlings covering the container. We have to have thousands of seedlings this year. On top of that, we have seedlings of the viola popping up all over the place in the lawn and my neighbor has several popping up in her yard as well. Doesn't make any sense to me why on the third year with the seeds, second year of collecting seeds we have mass germination and the prior 2 years including the first year from commercial purchase the germination was very poor. Fran