Dumb Cane (When and How to cut back?

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bayside Severn, MD(Zone 7a) Dec 14, 2002

I have a dumb cane that has leaves on the top and leaves on the bottom. My queston is can I cut it in the middle where there are no leaves and will it grow new leaves out of its trunk? I am really new to house plants I hope this is not a dumb question.

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bayside Severn, MD(Zone 7a) Dec 14, 2002

Here is a picture of the plant.

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KathyJo Fayette, MO(Zone 6a) Dec 14, 2002

I have a couple of these and yes I would think they will start leafing out right below where you cut them off.
I have three different stalks.. They were all rescue plants one from a library and two from a hospital.

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PlanterRik Birmingham, AL(Zone 7b) Jan 07, 2003

The plant looks perfect. Why would you want to start chopping at it now?

If you let it go without water too long from time to time, it will lose some lower leaves. It looks like you have a young adult plant, started from a thick-stemmed cutting that may have lost some lower leaves (though I can't really see that part of the stalk), and has several offsets/young plants/babies coming up from the underground stalk.

If you don't like the way it looks for some reason, you could cut it off low, leaving the base of the stalk and the young plants to fill out the pot.

To save the severed top of the plant without losing leaves, keep the leaves very moist by wrapping them in wet paper (newspaper, paper towels, newsprint). Raise the base of the stalk higher than the leaves and give the cut a chance to dry/heal, which could take a few days. Otherwise, the wound becomes an easy point of entry for bacteria, and you could end up fighting bacterial rot. You might want to rinse the leaves once a day and change their paper in order to stave off bacterial or fungal growth.

When the wound is well dried/healed and looks white, you can repot it (use a rooting hormone like Rootone, if you want). Use fresh soil with amendments, like perlite, bark, a bit of sand, to be sure that it will drain well and stay loose/aerated. Keep the soil evenly moist for the first couple of weeks and mist the foliage very often so it can absorb the water that the developing root system
will eventually provide.

Slowly reduce the moisture of the soil until only the surface becomes dry before you rewater. Then allow the top inch to dry before rewatering. Stop there. Water whenever the top inch of soil is dry and use a good fertilizer according to the label instructions. Provide bright indirect light.

You should have two pots of happy and attractive plants.

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bayside Severn, MD(Zone 7a) Feb 15, 2003

Thank you for all the information that you gave me. I will try it and let everyone know how things go.

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