How To Propagate Dracaena Fragrans (The Corn Plant Propagation)

Dracaena Fragans has the common name, Corn Plant. It is a popular house plant native to West Africa and Tropical Africa. The plant is also referred to as Dracaena Massangeana. This plant is many people’s favorite due to its beautiful shiny leaves and easy maintenance. Keeping it healthy for a while might cause it to produce beautiful white flowers, which only accentuates the beauty you enjoy in your house from the plant. The leaves clean the air so that many common indoor toxins are no longer a problem for you.

There are several ways to propagate Dracaena Fragrans, and we shall discuss them shortly. Before we get there, let’s look at the plant more closely.

Different Methods To Propagate Dracaena Fragrans

This plant is many people’s favorite, especially those at the beginning of their gardening journey. New gardeners love it because it doesn’t take a lot of skills to propagate and maintain, yet it gives you a high-quality appearance and effect in the house. Even seasoned gardeners love Dracaena due to its rich appearance.

You can use three primary methods to propagate for Dracaena Fragrans: beheading, stem propagation, and air layering.

Method #1: Beheading

As the name suggests, this method requires you to cut off the head of the plant to propagate it. Beheading Dracaena Fragrans and other dracaena plants aren’t strange. These plants can grow up to seven feet which might be too high for a house plant. Beheading, therefore, is one of the routine practices you can undertake to control dracaena’s height. You can use the cuttings you get during your normal controls for propagation. The following are the steps to take when beheading.

1. Get a sharp knife or other cutting tool and sterilize it: It is critical to sterilize lest you infect the plant and the cutting with diseases or get harmful substances into them.
2. Snip the plant just below the leaf line and ensure that you cut it below a node: Having a node as part of the cutting is necessary because rooting happens on the node.
3. Put the cutting in soil or a clean water bottle to facilitate rooting: Avoid tap water because it usually contains salt that makes rooting difficult. Tap water may also contain fluoride and chlorine, which are poisonous to dracaena. Get some distilled water for this purpose. Also, using distilled water to water your pottage is better if you propagate Dracaena fragrans using soil.
4. Put the bottle or pot where the cutting is placed at a warning spot under indirect sunlight: Please note that dracaena doesn’t do well under direct sunlight, and your cuttings will not survive.
5. The time rooting occurs on the season: They appear faster during summer and spring than during winter. It is always better to propagate these plants in summer because they grow. Even the mother plant will recover faster this season than if you beheaded it in Winter.

Just in case you are wondering: Beheading dracaena doesn’t ruin it. There will be leaves growing on the nearby nodes within a short time of cutting it, especially if you are propagating in warmer seasons.

We have a detailed guideline about beheading succulents on Succulent City, which you can view here >>

Method #2: Propagating From Stem Cuttings

Beheading enables you to get a new dracaena plant, but maybe you want more. You can get more plants by using this other propagation method to create many dracaena plants at home or for a nursery. Take the following steps.

1. Sterilize your cutting tool and cut off the head as you would if you were propagating by beheading.
2. Remove as many cuttings as you can. Each cutting should be eight inches long and have several nodes; remember, rooting occurs at the nodes.
3. Place the cuttings in soil or distilled water and wait for rooting. Like beheading, rooting will be quick in winter, but the cuttings have no leaves. It will take longer for these to be formed into complete plants. The leafy beheaded section will grow faster than the stem cuttings.

The lower nodes of the cutting will produce roots, while the ones above the surface will bud and produce leaves. The best stem to use this way has been allowed to grow without being beheaded. It will have the space to produce several suitable stems.

A detailed guide: How To Propagate Succulents From Cuttings.

Method #3: Air Layering

This propagation method lets the daughter produce roots before cutting them off the mother plant. To propagate this way, you need the following:

• A sterilized knife
• Plastic wrap
• Sphagnum moss
• Rooting hormone

The following are the steps to take:

1. Determine the position where you want roots to appear in the new plant.
2. Use the knife to scrape off the bark where the rooting occurs. It is best to strip on a nose. The width of the deprived area should be about half an inch.
3. Dust the rooting hormone on the stripped section of the bark. You can still propagate Dracaena fragrans without using the rooting hormone, but it will allow the stem to produce roots faster.
4. Dip your sphagnum moss in water, position it around the stripped part of the bark, and secure it with plastic wrap.
5. You can cut off the head below the roots and transplant it to a pot when you see roots growing on the wounded section.

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Potting Dracaena Fragrans After The Propagation

Once the cutting has produced roots, put the soil in a pot where you want the plant to remain permanently. The soil should be rich in organic matter, but you can add mild houseplant fertilizer. Avoid superphosphate fertilizers since they contain fluoride, which negatively affects dracaena.

Water the soil evenly and make a hole at the center. Put the plant’s roots into the hole, ensuring the roots remain in a natural position as they possibly can. Return the soil and press it in. After this, water the plant again and give it time to grow.

The following are some observations on the propagation of Dracaena fragrans.

1. Thicker stems take longer to root: If you have an option, you should propagate dracaena using medium-sized stems as they will take less time. However, all you have are thick cuttings. You can still use them. Only you will need a little patience.
2. Non-transparent vases produce better rooting: Putting your cuttings in transparent bottles makes the rooting more fun to watch, which is a good thing. However, the cutting roots are faster and better when not exposed to light.

Before You Leave …

Do you want to read more about Dracaena? Here is more:

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