lighting – How to Care for Houseplants

There are quite a few members of the Dracaena houseplant family and Dracaena Warneckii is among the most colorful and easy care. Dracaena Warneckii makes my list as one of the best house plants for its ease of care and colorful foliage.

One new interior landscape account that I serviced a number of years ago had a Dracaena Warneckii in an out of the way office. I missed this plant for over 3 months and, although it had a number of dried up lower leaves on it, it was still alive and growing! I don’t recommend this, just a point about houseplant perseverance, especially Dracaena Warneckii. Another reason Dracaena Warneckii is on my best houseplants list.

Produced in a variety of forms, Dracaena Warneckii is grown as a tip, bush, staggered, character and cane. Dracaena plants can be anywhere from one foot tall to twenty feet tall or more. It is unusual to find them at that height except in interior landscapes or in nature.

Light for Dracaena Warneckii Houseplant

Warneckii does best in a bright light situation. Most Dracaena will do quite well under artificial lighting alone or a combination of natural light and artificial light. Keep your Dracaena Warneckii in bright, filtered light if available. Direct afternoon sun is not recommended as it can burn the foliage. Bright light is preferred and some morning sun will help keep your Dracaena looking good.

Most dracaenas can be maintained in lower lighting with reduced watering and Warneckii is one house plant that will tolerate lower light levels. It is prone to root rot if over-watered in lower light.

For more information on proper watering of your Dracaena Warneckii houseplant, see below and check out the page on general indoor house plant watering practices.

Watering Dracaena Warneckii

Houseplants should be checked for watering needs once a week. They may not need water every week but it is best to check the soil and groom your plant on the same day each week. That way you are less likely to forget about your plant. In lower to medium light, water when potting soil has dried down at least 3/4 of the depth of the pot. In bright light, allow Dracaena Warneckii houseplant to dry at least 1/2 – 3/4 of the way down and then water thoroughly. Please see watering indoor plants and information on importance of light for your houseplants as these two things will most impact your plant’s health.

Dracaena Warneckii Care Tips

Despite my story about not watering a Dracaena Warneckii for three months, I do not recommend this as a common watering practice. Dracaena can be let to go almost all the way dry but you also risk damaging the foliage by leaving your plant too dry for extended periods of time. You may find bumpy, yellow spots or blotches on your Warneckii houseplant’s lower foliage when it has been allowed to dry too much.

A few notes about Warneckii. It is best placed in a low traffic location. The foliage of Dracaena Warneckii is much more easily damaged than other Dracaenas. Handle with care. Dracaena Warneckii is also prone to damage from excess soluble salts (fertilizers) and fluoride (often found in your water). This can cause yellow blotches, brown tips and leaf margins. This is often made worse by allowing plant to dry too much. Leach plant occasionally and replace soil with fresh media to help alleviate the problem. Dracaena Warneckii can also have root and stem rot problems if kept too wet in low light.

Remove lower leaves as they yellow and trim brown tips to the original leaf shape using sharp clean scissors. It is normal for a new plant to shed its old foliage when it is moved to a new and different environment, so expect new additions to your plant family. Warneckii will lose some of its inner and lower leaves as time goes by.

Trim the leaf edges as needed but once you have lost more than half of the leaf it is best to remove it entirely. This will help encourage new vibrant growth for a great looking plant. Given the proper care, it should acclimate and become a beautiful, trouble free plant.

As your Dracaena Warneckii plant grows taller and loses its lower leaves, you may want to cut the stem or stalk back before the plant becomes too tall. When you cut back the stem, your Dracaena Warneckii will produce new “heads” or shoots from the stem from the leaf nodes below your cut.
Keep your Warneckii house plant’s foliage clean and initially keep an eye out for insect problems. Mites, mealybug, thrips and scale can sometimes be a problem but Warneckii is, for the most part, not prone to many insect problems. Mealybugs are the most likely problem. A good wash down with soapy water should be sufficient to control any pests. If you do notice insects, be sure to address immediately to prevent population growth.

Apply to top and lower leaf and stem surfaces being careful not to saturate the soil. You can clean by hand or use a spray bottle to apply your plant cleaning solution. I use a sponge moistened with my cleaning solution to gently wipe the top and lower leaf surfaces. Cleaning of your house plants should be a regular part of your house plant care. Be extra careful cleaning Dracaena Warneckii as the leaves can be easily damaged.

Dracaena Warneckii Plant Care Question?

If you have a question about your Dracaena warneckii houseplant or other houseplants, you can send me an email and I will do my best to help you find an answer to your question or a solution to your problem. You can contact me here. Thanks for visiting!

**Dracaena Warneckii Interior Landscape Plant #PlantsAtWork**

A Few Notes About Light for Houseplants

Plants require light to produce food. Outdoors that is not a problem but for houseplants light can be quite limited.

I recently did a search for “houseplant care” and was surprised to see that the top, non-paid search result defined high light for an indoor plant as any light for more than six hours a day. Here is a quote from that result – “Houseplants typically require high light (six or more hours a day), medium light (four to six hours a day), or low light (less than three hours a day).” This is simply bad, and incorrect, information.

That gardener’s path is incorrect and I hope that if you find that website you will go on to other results as the person running that site is just making stuff up. He may have a few houseplants, or perhaps not, but…

First and most important, no houseplant should receive light for less than eight hours a day at the minimum. That is if you want your houseplant to be growing, not dying. Your houseplant requires light to produce food to keep itself alive.

Light is measured in intensity and foot candles and lumens are used to describe the light intensity. I have a light meter that measures light intensity but you may not need this type of tool for your plants at home. The meter is much the same as one that a photographer might use to make sure photographs look their best. You may not use a light meter but it is a good idea to know about light intensity, how it is measured, and how important it is for a healthy, growing houseplant.

Low light, medium light and high light fall between 25 foot candles to 250+ foot candles. Low light is at the lower end of that measurement and high light at the upper end. As an example, I have a sliding glass door that faces to the north. The light meter gives me a reading of about 185 foot candles just inside the door on an overcast day. A perfect spot for most houseplants (except my pets would eat them), bright light no direct sun.

When I step back from the glass door about 5 feet, I get a reading of about 40 foot candles, on the same overcast day. When I step outside the glass door onto the patio, same overcast day, I get a reading of 360 foot candles. That is a big difference. Just a note, this picture is not where I measured the light levels. Although, it does show houseplants in nice lighting.

While you may not be able to measure the light intensity in your home, suffice it to say that providing medium to bright indirect light is going to be best for just about any common houseplant. Pick the brightest spot with indirect light. For the most part, your houseplant will not need direct sunlight. Indirect sunlight will be fine.

Duration is the length of time your plant is exposed to light each day. This is called the day length or photoperiod. The amount or length of time that houseplants require light is 8 to 16 hours a day. Medium to high light is okay for just about any houseplant for a minimum of 8 hours. That is if you want to keep them growing and looking good.

Light quality is the next consideration. Sunlight is composed of different wave lengths or colors. It has all of the colors, or light wave lengths, that plants require to survive, thrive, and grow. These colors are the light spectrum. You can see many of those colors in a rainbow. Some are more essential to plant growth (blue and red) and may not be present with some types of artificial light. So indirect sunlight is easiest and best for assuring your plants do well. And it doesn’t cost you anything. Use either lights made for growing plants or cool white fluorescent lights if “real” light is not available.

There are many things that affect the natural light indoors, like the size of your windows, the time of year, cloudy, overcast days and even lots of trees growing outside of your windows. Keep these things in mind as you find a well-lit place for growing your indoor houseplants! If you have any houseplant care questions, you can send them my way. Thanks for visiting www.PlantAndFlowerInfo.com