Dracaena Warneckii Plant Care

Add a splash of green to your interior with Dracaena plants, especially the Warneckii Dracaena. This indoor plant is known for its showy foliage. It makes for a beautiful addition to your home plus it’s versatile to care for.

What is Dracaena Plants?

All Dracaena plants have one thing in common, they are slow-growing plants. The Warneckii is a hybrid from the Dracaena fragrans known as the corn plant originating from Africa.

It is a stunner and has received many Garden Merit Awards from the Royal Horticultural Society. It is one of the best houseplants to have to enhance the look and feel of your living space. The botanical name is Dracaena deremensis, with the common names dragon plant, female dragon, or corn plant.

In the Dracaena family, the Warneckii has eccentric features as they can thrive under harsh conditions. The foliage grows in a bushy pattern with whitish to gray strands found on the leaves.

When sold in garden stores, some botanists refer to them as the Striped Dracaena. It also grows upwards to form edged leaves that remain evergreen. Even the stripes keep their gleaming mark when the dry months arrive.

If grown indoors, the Dracaena ‘Warneckii’ plant can reach up to five feet high, but it can reach up to ten feet tall as an outdoor plant. When taken care of under the right conditions, your plant can reach an age of up to 40 years.

While the Warneckii Dracaena produces a round creamy-yellow bloom in summer, it rarely produces blooms indoors.

How to Care for Dracaena Plant?

Growing Dracaena plants do not come with a difficult learning curve. So to take care of this gorgeous plant, you can find all the details right here with us.

Right Potting Soil for Dracaena Warneckii

Growing as indoor plants, your dragon plant needs well-draining soil with loads of organic matter to thrive. While it is easy to care for, it does not tolerate wet feet well. For perfect potting soil, you can add some perlite and peat moss to your mix.

Doing this allows the water to drain freely through the drainage holes. Adding perlite provides aeration with drainage. While peat moss offers essential nutrients to keep it moist. A too thick soil leads to the water pooling at the top.

Lighting Needs for Indoor Plants

Your Warneckii plant thrives in a spot with indirect bright light. When you place it in a sunny spot, it does grow faster, but too much direct sunlight can burn the leaves. Instead, you can set your plant in indirect sunlight further away from the window.

You can also grow your Striped Dracaena in fluorescent office lighting as it has dark green foliage. Yet, the lighting conditions will impact your plant’s growth rate. Or, the foliage color can fade.

Watering Your Dracaena Warneckii

We recommend watering your Dracaena plants when you notice the top two inches of the soil are dry. Doing this helps avoid problems with soil moisture. In addition, it helps to douse the soil well and leave the excess water to drain from the pot.

You can leave the water for 24-hours in a container before watering your indoor plant. Leaving it standing removes contaminants in tap water and prevents cold shock. It helps to water most Dracaena plants with rainwater or distilled water.

Temperature and Humidity Level

Dracaena ‘Warneckii’ can grow indoors in typical room humidity levels and temperatures. Yet, your table plant cannot tolerate sudden temperature fluctuations. Thus, we recommend keeping your Dracaena plant away from cold drafts and warm radiators.

If the temperature remains above 60°F (15°C) for growing outdoors, it grows well. You can leave your potted corn plant outside in summer in bright indirect light, but when the temperature drops, bring them inside.

If you notice brown tips, the air moisture needs to increase, or your plant will dry out. Keeping the air humid during the winter months is one of the challenges growing Dracaena ‘Warneckii’. As your plant needs less water, it can suffer when it does not receive rainfall found outdoors.

We recommend misting the leaves with distilled water but without misting directly on the foliage. Or you can place a humidity tray like using pebbles with water without the bottom of the pot not touching the water.

Lastly, you can use a damp cloth to wipe the leaves once a week as it will provide moisture to your plant.  

Applying Fertilizers for Dracaena Warneckii

The fantastic thing is your plant is not a big feeder. You can use diluted basic houseplant food or a balanced liquid fertilizer every three weeks to boost its growth. Only feed your Dracaena plants in the growing season of spring and summer.

You need not provide most indoor plants with fertilizer during winter as they are dormant. It is from too much fertilizer if you notice yellowing leaves or brown tips. Unfortunately, many people mistake these signs for water problems.

To prevent the build-up of minerals in the soil, you can flush the potting soil in a bath and let the water run through it for up to five minutes. Yet, remember to leave it standing to allow the water to drain freely to prevent root rot.

Repotting and Pruning

Your Warneckii Dracaena does not mind being a bit root-bound. But if the roots fill the container too much, it can constrict the growth. You can then select a pot about two sizes bigger.

When repotting your plant, you will need to remove the thick stem to get the root ball out. Then shake the potting soil off and place the roots in water to remove the rest of the dust. Now is the time to check the root ball for rotting or decaying to trim them away.

Now, fill a pot halfway with your potting mix and place it back into the soil. Water and set it in a shaded spot away from direct sunlight to prevent transplant shock. One essential thing you will need to do is prune your plant.

As your plant matures, you notice the lower leaf edges turn yellow and fall off. In spring, you can trim these leaves and prune them back to the desired size to control the height.

Propagating Dracaena deremensis

The easiest way to ensure that you always have a corn plant is to propagate it with stem cuttings. As the majority of the foliage grows at the top, they become a bit skinny at times. Instead, you can take the woody stem and split it into three sections.

Hence, you will have a root section, middle segment, and crown. First, we recommend you cut the height to retain about five inches of the stem. Now, plant that section into sterile potting soil.

Next, cut your remaining stem about one-half of the circumference as new growth will emerge to form new spiky foliage. Finally, you can take the middle part of the stem and leave it for a few days to dry.

Now, plant that section into fresh soil by keeping the stem warm and moist. To help boost the formation of the roots on both branches you grow, you can use some rooting hormone at the cut ends.

Dracaena Warneckii Varieties

In the Dracaena family, you can find different species to place with your Warneckii Dracaena, as seen here.

Dracaena Lemon Lime

The Dracaena Lemon Lime is a gorgeous plant with neon yellow and green striped leaves. The care is straightforward, and it can reach heights up to seven feet indoors. Or you can keep it to a table plant size.

Dracaena Fragrans

The Dracaena plant also goes by the name Dracaena masangeana with shiny-looking leaves and helps remove indoor air toxins. It grows multiple crowns and can produce fragrant white flowers grown in the right indoor environment.

Dracaena Marginata

When damaged or cut, the Dracaena marginata or Madagascar Dragon Tree oozes a red blood resin. It is also an air purifying plant to help remove harmful toxins.

Dracaena Warneckii Diseases and Pests

One of the biggest concerns with your Warneckii Dracaena is overwatering. It can lead to bacterial and fungal diseases spreading into the roots. In addition, it results in brown leaf stains to death. Overwatering can also result in mold growing in the soil.

While white plant mod is harmless, it ruins the look of your plant. You can mix baking soda and dish soap with water to destroy mold on most Dracaena plants to cure the problem. Common pests are spider mites treated with neem oil.

Another mold concern is pythium causing yellow spots and wilting. The fungus attacks the roots, and if the entire root system is infected, the leaves develop black lesions. The best is to remove the infected leaves and stems and apply a fungicide.