I'm only commenting in the hopes that this will bump your question back up--since you've obviously tried researching your issue! Hopefully someone is able to help you. I have 5 dracaenas and although I've nearly killed some of them at least twice in the last 8 years (and revived them thankfully), I haven't experienced what you have on yours. Best of luck!

storm0959, thank you, I really appreciate it. I'll take any help over no help at all :)

I have some possible solutions in mind (one of them being pretty radical), just needed to confirm with anybody if they would be helpful at all:

1) Repot into fresh and better draining soil (planning to use peat + perlite + pine bark 1:1:1 just because I won't be able to get 5:1:1 mix's other ingredients locally). Maybe cut off rusty spots on the stem and treat it with alcohol.

2) The radical solution - cut the stem off above the rusty spots and reroot the plant. I've no idea if it's going to help if the problem is bacterial or fungal and hope it won't come to this.

UPDATE:

I decided to repot in a completely fresh soil with a big % of pine bark for better aeration and the roots look healthy, though pretty potbound. Since last repot over 6 month ago this plant's rootball doubled in size, every cubic inch of soil is packed with roots and repotting is going to be a pain for me.

I'll try to find a bigger pot and shake off all of the old soil and repot it, however this doesn't explain spot for me. The roots are firm and healthy, the are no big salt deposits, except for here:

Does that mean the spots are caused by infection? Are those rusty spots in the stem fungal?

Anyone? Please?

So the pictures in your initial post are since the repot 6 months ago? Or did you repot with new soil since the original post? And are the new leaves since then also spotted?

I repotted this plant twice. First time was about two years after I got it, then second time last October and third time yesterday. I'm concerned that if it's something other than soil that's causing the spots my improvements will be useless :(

Yeah, for sure. So the new leaves since October are also spotted? Hmmm...can't be the soil then

Sorry, I've got the repots all wrong. I've potted up the plant after I got it, then I didn't repot for two years until last October. And the actual second time was just the other day.

The spots started appearing last summer close to stem and tips, there were literally 2 or 3 of them, so I wasn't concerned. I thought it was either dry air, sunburn, or watering issue because the spots were brown and dry.

By October there were multiple spots, plus some leaves' vein pattern started showing through - I've read it was a symptom of exhausted soil. So I've repotted into a completely fresh soil, it's seen in the pictures..Since then spots just kept appearing very slowly but gradually, and before I knew it my dracaena was covered in them.

Before this repot I didnt' water it for a few weeks and the spots keep appearing on the newer leaves. So...keeping it dry doesn't help either.

And you're certain it's not mites? I just noticed that you said arid climate and dracs are susceptible to mites when the air is dry... Another question: any of those spots sticky? Or do you see sticky spots in general?

I haven't seen any pests, though I haven't inspected it with a magnifying glass. Guess, I'll do that too just in case. Spots aren't sticky. Yellow and rusty are just regular spots and in some places have texture, and brown are just papery dry. It doesn't look like the air is too dry, judging from the fact that neither this dracaena, nor my fiddle leaf fig develop brown spots on the leaf edges.

I found some other topics on the internet that describe similar issues but there's no solution either, just general recommendations on improving soil and stuff:

https://gardening.stackexchange.com/questions/27172/tiny-yellow-spots-on-dracaena-reflexa-pleomele-what-i-am-doing-wrong

https://gardening.stackexchange.com/questions/38227/dracaena-massangeana-leaf-spots-on-new-growth?rq=1

Boiling water doesn't dissipate any fluoride that may be present in the water. These pale green Dracaenas are particularly sensitive to it, too. I would advise using only distilled or rain water to water it from now on, now that you have it freshly repotted. I would also refrain from cutting off any more leaves, since this doesn't alleviate the problem anyways, and it only robs the plant of its ability to photosynthesize the food and energy it needs to fully recover from this ordeal. The leaves may not look pretty, but they still function. Using only distilled or rain water, any new foliage will emerge unscathed. When the blemished leaves are of no longer any use for the plant, it will shed them naturally on its own. Pruning these leaves off prematurely will only set your plant back, and make its recovery even more strenuous.

Yeah, I already figured that it doesn't help though trial and error. Unfortunately, I only have tapwater to water with. I don't think collecting rainwater would be possible, since I live in an apartment and even if I could arrange it, it barely rains here May to October.

The reason I even cut those leaves, was because I was too afraid of infection. I bought a plant infected with something very similar to anthracnose once and it spread quickly to a few others. I just didn't want something like this happening again. I can see in hindsight that I probably shouldn't have done it, but it's done already.

Back to the water issue, I think I've read that no matter how long you let is sit, it's not going to break down all the fluoride in it either. I think I could just buy bottled water for this dracaena, the other alternative would be to give it away and I'd rather not do that.

Almost all bottled water is just bottled tap water. Your best bet is buying distilled water. Distilled water doesn't have anything in it but pure water. And it's fairly cheap, too. Cheaper than those bottled tap water brands.

I thought I'd post an update on how the Dracaena's doing ten months later. There's not a lot of updates in similar Dracaena topics on the internet, so people like me never know if the advice given works. Hopefully, it can be useful for somebody out there.
Ten months ago I removed all of the old soil and repotted with fresh soil with high % of pine bark and perlite. I didn't fertilize for the rest of that year, because after I tried once the remaining foliage had fertilizer burn. And lastly, I couldn't figure out where to get distilled water, so I just switched my water filter to a different one and it worked.

UPDATE: It's grown much bigger, nearly doubled in size since last year and put on so much new growth. The new leaves are bigger than ever.

The lower leaves are a bit ugly, because of the fertilizer burn, but the newer growth is spotless and looks great.

The spotting is slowly developing again. But at least this time I know what to do and how long it takes until salt deposits in the soil start harming the plant.

I'm planning to repot again very soon, probably this weekend.

However, now that my hometown is on lockdown for the next two weeks I can't go out and get an even bigger pot. So I'm going to have to go for a root trim instead. I've never tried that before and any advice or instruction on root trimming is very welcome!

Oh wow! They look amazing in the wild, so much vigor!

Sorry about your frost damages dracaenas, I hope they will be alright. I actually damaged mine the very first day I got it. I was carrying it around outside in freezing temperature for about an hour and was very surprised about leaves browning so quickly. It bounced back eventually, after about a year of not growing.

Is the shoot coming out of the bloomed plant because the mother plant dies after blooming? I've never looked up if dracaenas were monocarpic, but then I never really hoped mine would bloom in my place :D

I guess they are native plants somewhere in the world - probably think of them as weeds at these locations.

I think we all learn through experience, mistakes, and outright neglect. At least the cold didn't kill the plant so it may have made it stronger? My sister-in-law and her husband bought a corn plant when they visited us about 35 years ago for our youngest daughter's 5th birthday. Middle of January and it was in the 70's. My wife took them to the major family owned (at the time) chain nursery in the Atlanta area and her sister bought a corn plant. The weather changed from 70's (short sleeve weather) to single digits overnight. Their vehicle at the time was a Chevy S-10 with a cap on it. They put the corn plant in the bed and my BIL said he watched that plant turn black on their return trip to Nashville (normally a four hour drive but longer this trip due to snow). It was dead (at least that is what they surmised).

So I can see how your plant could get some cold damage carrying it around outside in freezing weather even if only for an hour. Sensitive aren't they?

I don't know if Dracaena is monocarpic or not. The ones in Maui certainly didn't look like flowering ever hurt them?

The couple who owned the garden (six acres?) provided lunch for the tour van and sold cuttings and other Hawaiian hand made knick-knacks. Here is a sample of their cuttings (expensive if you ask me)

they stand forever though, as what you see are bracts, not flowers..perhaps 2 months?

gingers and crab claw heliconias are usually very expensive in flower shops.

probably in a local shop would cost much more then that! love the look :)

@Fatimonster Thank you for your update! I'm actually struggling with the same issue... yellow-orange spots and bumpy texture. Was it the water and repot that fixed it?

@storm0959 I have black sticky spots - do you know what that is?

Chantal, yes changing the soil and water filter helped with the spotting for a year.

As you can see in the update spotting started developing again. I repotted again this year, however it's spread more since then, but not as badly as in the original photos. I'm guessing it's spreading even after the repot because unbeknownst to me my husband bought regular water filters cartridges (instead of hard water) and I've been watering with fluoride rich water for some time.

That or fluoride accumulation affects plant with some sort of delay, i.e. the issue has been fixed, but the spotting will stop spreading after some time.

Not sure about the black sticky spots, I've never had those on my plants. Could it be pests?

Thank you so much! That is so helpful. The spots are super bizarre - I can't find any evidence of pests -.there are only about 5 of them. It could be something very random.

@Fatimonster you're a webhero! What you stated earlier is so true, you never get to see if something worked! Thnx for the follow up!

these are fungal spots, they can increase with time. it would be best to spray with anti-fungal.