Dracaena deremensis Janet Craig (compacta) Kokedama measures approximately 9 inches tall with a 5 inch moss ball. The display plate and tianjin clay doll are not included.
CARE: Dracaena deremensis Janet Craig survives low light levels and grows best in filtered indirect light, but no direct sunlight. Dracaena deremensis do not like heat (maximum 32°C)! This is very important to remember especially during summer months when plants have a tendency to discolor and get leaf notch. Below 21°C, there is little growth. There will be cold damage below 13°C for a week or more. It is best to avoid wet or dry extremes. You will do much better keeping this dracaena on the dry side. Do not let your plant sit in water. Immerse the kodedama moss ball for only 5-10 minutes when watering is needed. If not excessively fertilized, the plant will tolerate considerable dryness. Keep the foliage clean with regular dusting. Trim brown tips and edge of leaves to a natural contour with scissors.
DO NOT fertilize your dracaenas unless you use the correct plant food and understand the plant completely. Dracaenas are fluoride sensitive and many fertilizers leave such salts behind in the soil. Water from a fish aquarium, fish excrement fertilizers, and worm castings in water are recommended. If you use treated municipal water, allow it to sit for 24 hours for the chlorine to gas off. We recommend using distilled or reverse osmosis water.
Janet Craig has relatively few insect pests, but look for scale on plants, and mealybugs on Dracaena are occasional problems.
Dracaena Janet Craig
Dracaena deremensis (Janet Craig) is an English synonym of Dracaena fragrans (cornstalk dracaena), which is a flowering plant species that is native throughout tropical Africa, from Sudan south to Mozambique, west to Côte d'Ivoire and southwest to Angola, growing in upland regions at 600–2,250 metres altitude.
Dracaena fragrans is a slow-growing shrub, usually multistemmed at the base with mature specimens reaching 15 metres tall with a narrow crown of usually slender erect branches. Stems may reach up to 30 cm diameter on old plants. Young plants have a single unbranched stem with a rosette of leaves until the growing tip flowers or is damaged, after which it branches, producing two or more new stems; thereafter, branching increases with subsequent flowering episodes.
The leaves are glossy green, lanceolate, 20–150 cm long, and 2–12 cm wide; small leaves are erect to spreading, and larger leaves usually drooping under their weight. The flowers are produced in panicles 15–160 cm long, the individual flowers are 2.5 cm diameter, with a six-lobed corolla, pink at first, opening white with a fine red or purple central line on each of the 7–12 mm lobes; they are highly fragrant, and popular with pollinating insects. The fruit is an orange-red berry 1–2 cm diameter, containing several seeds.
