Fascinating tree with a long historical background. Dragon tree's sap has a long record of use in Chinese medicines. Before Mao came to power, Chinese intellectuals gathered for companionship in groves of paulownias, as they are said to promote chun-tzu, the becoming of a man of complete virtue. In Chinese legend, the tree was an omen of good fortune because of its association with the phoenix, since like the mythical bird, thay sometimes regenerate after a fire. All Paulownia trees are highly sensitive to insecticides and weed killers and will die or be severely damaged if exposed to them. It shouldn't be hard to poison the stump with something like Glyphos, but I never use those sort of herbicides, so I'm not certain.

Okay, thanks for the help. I did give it a little water today, I made sure it drained all the way out, and I put rocks on top of the soil, and there is a tiny layer of water, and rocks that sit higher than the water at the bottom of the pot so the cup that it came in sits on top of tbe rocks. I read somewhere that this helps humidify the plant. Easily removed if you guys don't think I should have either or. I also read cold damaged plants like a humidifier somewhat near by while it recovers. Is my anita plant good enough (produces humidity) or should I get out my humidifier? This post was edited by Huskymom87 on Tue, Jan 27, 15 at 19:57

Shoody, thanks for the video! So I cut some of the stems and separated the different trunks (there may have been some root loss when removing the very old soil, nothing major) because once the soil was removed the roots were easily loosened from each other’s grasp. I repotted two of the trunks in the pot it came from and put the other two in a different pot. So they each have more room than they did before. Both are reacting the same way. Wish I had known about repotting times :( I had seen a video that said late summer was the perfect time to do it for this plant. It’s still hot where I live so maybe the prolonged sunlight/temps will make up for it.

Your plant is wilting because there isn't enough oxygen in the grow medium to allow roots to function normally/ efficiently. You can remove the plant from the pot and set it on some combination of newspapers, rags, paper bags, towels, ..... which will pull the excess water out of the grow medium. After a few hours, return the plant to the pot and then to its cache pot. When you water, you should water at the sink until the entire soil column is wet, then allow the pot the plant is in to drain thoroughly. Tipping the pot at a 45* angle will force an additional measure of any excess water the soil holds out of the drain hole. Compare B to A below to see how this works. The main pot (one the plant is in) should never be allowed to sit in the effluent that exits the drain hole after you water, that's why you should water at the sink and allow the pot to drain there; or, make sure the pot is up on some type of blocking so salts in the waste water that exits the drain hole have no pathway by which to make their way back into the soil. Determining appropriate watering intervals is a key element of a good care regimen; and, if you're watering correctly, the plant should be fertilized about every 4th or 5th time you water in winter and every 3rd or 4th time in summer. Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 is an excellent fertilizer for houseplants, and provides a complete nutritional supplementation from a single source. A good way to determine appropriate watering intervals: Using a 'tell' Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need plenty of air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support the kind of root health most growers would like to see; and, a healthy root system is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips leads to avoid over-watering leads to a residual build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil from tapwater and fertilizer solutions, which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma. It creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor. In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water. Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'. One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) would work better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half and serve as a pair. Sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell comes out dry or nearly so. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue. Al