Hi there, I am one of those professional plant people, and I deal with dracaenas a lot. I had a long chat with the wholesale greenhouse lady where I buy my plants about dracaena marginatas recently. She told me that when they are grown in Florida, they grow them under very high light with lots of fertilizer, so that they grow fast. Time is money, the faster they get the plant to full size, the sooner they can sell it and use the space to grow another one. With all of this light and water, their leaves are very firm, to the point that they can give you an extremely painful poke in the eye, like being poked with a stick (don't ask me how I know this...) A plant will keep these stiff leaves for several months after being put into its office location. If the light is very bright, the leaves will stay stiff. If the light is dim, they will gradually start to droop over time. Once they droop, I don't think they can get stiff again, at least not those particular leaves. The droopy plants that you see the plant company caring for probably only need water every two to four weeks, especially if it is dark and/or cold. I do not recommend moving marginatas into cold. They do not like cold at all, and it will lead to the lower leaves turning a mushy yellow, along with all sort of possibilities for root and stem rot. Marginatas do like to be kept dry, especially if they are in a dim location. Not as dry as a cactus, but pretty darn dry. When in doubt, err on the side of not watering. The ones you see the plant company take care of with the stiff leaves? It is quite possible that they remove them and replace them with new ones periodically, and that is why the leaves appear to stay stiff. Hope that helped!

I dreamed for years regarding my strawberry plant crawling into my window, it was sending out runners, I now have French Strawberry plants. Okay Jo Jo if you want send the picture with the seed and plant to me directly to my email address. I will ask John Trager, Now I really want to know. Guessing doesn't count. Tell him where it was found, in what state and city you purchasedi, and Nursery. I can't wait to find out. It not growing like a vine to me, it is growing too straight.The leaves do remind me a plants that I do have, and I just saw the seeds for the first time Mon. so perhaps? Norma He's pretty good at this an very accurate.

I have a Tardiva in my garden, but I don't think this plant is a Tardiva. The blooms on my Tardiva are more airy and bloom later than the plants where I took the cutting. The blooms on my Tardiva have no smell at all. And like you, I had never noticed any smell in hydrangea blooms before either. But this particular bloom definitely had a smell to it. I need to go back to the original plants and "smell" some of the blooms on the plants. Perhaps the bloom I had was just "a bad apple" so to speak. LOL Thanks!

Thanks for your replies, wirosarian, Jackie, Patty, and SoFL rose. I'm surprised to hear that our temps could be cold enough to cause this. We have days in the 60's and nights in the 40's lately. But, I guess it does make sense, because if it was much colder, it wouldn't bloom at all. I never would have considered cold temperatures causing it. Some sort of bug was consistently ruining the buds on Irish Creme during the summer. I just assumed it was the same thing. I think you guys maybe correct. I'm looking more closely now, and I don't really see chewing from a pest. I'm glad I asked, because I never once thought it could be anything but pest damage. Thank you all so much! Lisa