| Description | A tropical plant that is commonly used in combination with flowering annuals in outdoor pots and sometimes in gardens. It provides a vertical form for the combinations. An extremely tough plant. |
|---|---|
| Pronunciation | (kor-dil-LYE-nee) |
| Plant Type | All Plants, Annuals |
| Hardiness Zone | 8-10 |
| Sunlight | prefers full sun, tolerates less |
| Moisture | average, tolerates dryness |
| Soil & Site | average |
| Growing Media | average |
| Temperature | In zone #5 these plants tolerate cold weather. They are one of the last plants to be pulled from the annual gardens. In a few of my gardens I leave them until the spring. |
| Flowers | Flowers are not one of the prime purposes of using this plant. They will produce an inflorescence of a pendulous panicle of white flowers. I have never seen this plant flower since it is usually tossed on the compost pile in the fall of the year. |
| Leaves | A strongly apical dominant single stemmed plant. Has flat sessile linear leaves. It basically looks like a small palm tree. |
| Stems | usually single stemmed, strong apical dominance |
| Dimensions | Can reach over 6 feet but usually grown as smaller plants |
| Maintenance | remove dead leaves mostly from the base of the plant, has strong apical dominance, cutting back the plant will promote branching |
| Propagation | tip cuttings or stem section cuttings either stuck vertical with correct orientation or laid on it's side, helps to let the cut callus |
| Native Site | New Zealand |
| Misc Facts | In the catalogs this plant is listed as Cordyline indivisa and sometimes Cordyline australis. |
| Author's Notes | When I started in the green plant business (late 1970'3) this was one of the most common vertical, palm-like accent plants used. Now there are many other cultivars with different colored foliage. We grew this from seed in the greenhouse and it took a couple years to reach a 2 foot size. |
| Notes & Reference | #02-Exotic Plant Manual (Alfred Byrd Graf), #37-The Contained Garden (Kenneth A. Beckett, David Carr, David ) |
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