Help with Corn Plant - Dracaena fragrans 'massangeana'

Please help! I repotted my 5+ year old 8 foot cornplant a little over a month ago and it is NOT happy. I have since done some research and learned (unfortunately too late) that corn plants like to be root bound. Currently, some of the leaves are turning brown and the leaves are drooping. Should I repot it again only in a smaller pot? The only reason I repotted it in the first place was that it seemed too tall for the pot it was in - it started leaning and adding dirt to try and straighten did not help. Please advise! I will just cry if I lose this plant!

You could try putting it back into a smaller pot and using a stick or pole to stake it so it doesn't droop. As for the drooping leaves and leaves turning brown, how often are you watering? It might help misting with a spray bottle of water every day to raise the humidity a bit too.

Can you post a photo of your plant? It's really hard to tell what's going on without a picture.

Even plants that enjoy being rootbound eventually need to be repotted. It could just be suffering a bit from transplant shock, anytime you repot something it disturbs the roots and that will often cause some signs of distress such as what you're seeing. I would check the watering though if I were you, if the plant had been pretty rootbound and now you've moved it into a roomier pot, there's more soil there to hold water so it shouldn't need to be watered as often as it had been previously and if you do water it as often then you will likely overwater it, which can also cause drooping and browning leaves. I would also check that you didn't plant it deeper in the pot than it had been before.

I added a photo! Thanks

It kind of looks overwatered to me, but there are so many things that have similar symptoms I couldn't say that for sure. Does your pot have a drainage hole? If not then that's probably your problem right there, pots without drainage almost guarantee you're going to overwater the plant (unless it's a bog plant that likes to have wet feet). Otherwise, just looking at how it is in the pot it looks like it may be planted a little on the deep side but it's hard to tell for sure. But it's worth thinking about if you piled soil higher up on the trunks/stems when you repotted it than it was in the old pot. And I'd also check your watering, stick your finger a few inches down in the soil and see how it feels.

I probably did plant it low in the pot since it was leaning previously in the other pot. It is pretty tall so I had hoped planting it deep with a bigger pot would help keep it steady. It does have a drainage hole but I will plan to remove it from the pot and add drainage rock as it is holding more water these days - it use to need to be watered at least once a week! Hopefully this will work - I guess I will give it another month after repotting to see what happens. Thanks for your advice!!

I would repot it back to the level it was at previously unless someone comes along and says for sure that it'll be OK planted deeper. A lot of times it won't kill the plant quickly if you plant it too deep, but by the time you realize that it's killing it, it's too late to do anything about it. So if you're having problems with it tipping over, I'd either get a heavier pot, or put a stake in it or something. I also wouldn't add the rocks, they actually don't help with drainage and can hurt even though that's sort of counter-intuitive. There's a good sticky thread in the container gardening forum that explains water movement in containers, and tapla (the person who wrote the thread) explains it much better than I could so I'd go read his explanation and then decide if you want to put rocks in there or not.

OK...so I removed the plant from the new pot, and yes, I definitely planted it too deep. I had to remove about 4 inches of soil before I got to the base of the plant. Speaking of roots, the plant is basically 'bareroot' at this point - it does not have a root ball. I replanted it back in the pot but perhaps I should move it to a smaller pot now? Will having it in too large of a pot kill it?

Having too large of a pot won't kill things in and of itself, but it makes it easier to overwater the plant. But whether you ought to downsize really depends on how much too big the current pot is...if for example it would be a nice fit in an 8" pot but you currently have it in a 10" pot that's not the end of the world. But if it really ought to be in an 8" pot and you have it in a 20" pot, then you ought to put it in a smaller one. If you're only one size off from optimal though I'd probably leave it alone rather than repotting it again, it's been through enough!

Thanks ecrane3! The pot is probably too big particularly since the root ball fell apart while repotting it the first time. It is an extremely heavy plant and in the current pot it stands about 10 feet tall (grew about a foot once I followed your instructions and moved it up higher in the pot - smile). I think I am going to leave it alone for about a month and see what happens. I will be extremely careful about watering it. I agree - it has been through a lot!