Cordyline for beginner gardeners

Cordyline is also known as Hawaiian T plant and Goodluck plant. Vibrant colours of most varieties are quite attractive and add to the beauty of your garden. They are rather easy to take care of and propagate and suits those with a busy lifestyle and little time for gardening. Still some special aspects need to be considered while having Cordyline plants in your garden. The one shown here has brilliant colours, especially if grown in a little shade and given plenty of water. They can grow as tall as the compound wall very easily and may be even visible above the compound wall in many cases.

This is a much more common variety which grows easily without the need for any significant care. One plant in my garden has been there for decades and keep on growing as a big bush requiring frequent pruning to conserve space in the courtyard. The set shown here is not from the garden, but grown elsewhere, initially as supports for vegetable climbers. They were pruned recently after the vegetable crop so as to prevent them from growing too much. Within a few weeks they have started growing back well. This is an alternate use as support for vegetable vines, in my combo cultivation.

Cordyline plants can be easily propagated using stem cuttings. Care should be taken to growth them in shade till the roots are well established. Adequate availability of water should also be ensured. Couple of Cordyline plants grown from stem cuttings can be seen here. No rooting hormone was used. These stem cuttings were planted directly on ground soil a few weeks back. Now they have started producing new colourful leaves while some old leaves have fallen off.

These are a couple of Cordyline plants growing in bright sunlight. You may note that some old leaves have started getting a greenish hue. This is often noted in summer, when the colours become less attractive.

More pronounced increase in the greenish hue can be seen in the older leaves of these plants which were in bright sunlight. When that was noted, they were shifted to partially shaded regions which get sunlight during part of the day and new leaves are regaining the bright colours. When exposed to too much sunlight, chlorophyll content can increase and anthocyanin content decrease, leading to fluctuations in colour. That is the well documented mechanism for change in colour in Coleus plants in which change in colour is more pronounced.