Dracaena Care: Light, Water, Pets and Brown Tips
Dracaena spp.
Dracaenas are tall, tidy and easygoing. They hold up well in offices, with two quirks worth knowing: they dislike soggy soil and they react to tap water.
How to care for a dracaena
Dracaenas do best in medium to bright indirect light and tolerate lower light with slower growth. Colored types such as pink-striped varieties need brighter light to keep their color. Direct hot sun can bleach the leaves.
This is a large group: 'Carmen', marginata types with thin, spiky leaves, and character stump dracaenas with thick, sculptural stems all share the same basic care.
Where a dracaena works
Low light
A dracaena tolerates it with slower growth.
Medium to bright light
The best growth. Colored types keep their color with brighter light.
Hot afternoon sun
Direct hot sun can bleach the leaves.
How often to water a dracaena
Water when the top 1 to 2 inches of soil are dry, usually every 1 to 2 weeks, and let the excess drain. Dracaenas dislike wet roots.
They are sensitive to fluoride and salts. If the leaf tips turn brown, switching to filtered or rainwater, and flushing the soil occasionally, can help.
Why dracaena leaves turn yellow
A yellow leaf at the bottom of the plant is often just age, and the plant drops its oldest leaves as it grows taller. Many yellow leaves at once usually mean overwatering or a pot that is not draining.
Brown, crispy tips are more often caused by dry air, fluoride in tap water, or uneven watering than by disease.
Pots, drainage and water
Dracaenas dislike wet roots and react to salts in the soil. Drainage helps with both.
- Rocks on a pot collar hide the rim of the liner and the soil line.
- The plant stays in its liner, a nursery pot with drainage holes, so water can leave the soil.
- A filler under the liner sets the height so the rim sits just below the top of the decorative pot.
- The decorative pot has no hole. Water that drains from the liner collects here, and has to be emptied.
My pot has no drainage hole. How do I water?
Use a liner with holes inside the decorative pot. Water at a sink, drain, and put it back.
The leaf tips turn brown even though I water.
Fluoride or salt build-up is a common cause. Water so it drains through the liner, and use filtered water if tips keep browning.
Will a tall dracaena tip over?
Tall canes get top-heavy. A heavy decorative pot with a snug liner and a filler keeps it steady.
How big should the pot be?
Dracaenas do fine a little snug. Go up one size when roots fill the liner.
Is a dracaena toxic to cats and dogs?
Dracaenas are toxic to cats and dogs. They contain saponins that can cause vomiting, drooling and, in cats, dilated pupils. Keep them out of reach and call your vet if a pet eats a leaf. Pet-safety information here follows the ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plant list.
Dracaena in offices
Dracaenas give height without taking floor space, which is why they show up in lobbies, atriums and corners that need vertical structure.
In the plant list for a recent office install of about 120 planters, dracaenas were the second-largest group: about 22 plants across Carmen, marginata and character stump forms, from 8 inch tabletop sizes up to 16 inch stump plants chosen for an atrium.
Plants in your office?
Plants for Friends designs, installs and maintains interior plants for offices and commercial spaces across San Diego, Orange County and Los Angeles.
See our office plant service →More plant care guides
About Plants for Friends
Plants for Friends designs, installs and maintains interior plants for commercial spaces and homes across San Diego County, Orange County and Los Angeles County. Every project starts with a walkthrough of the actual space, light, scale, traffic and access, before anything is chosen.
Since 2021, our team has completed more than 200 projects for clients including Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, JLL, Bristol Myers Squibb and ClickUp.
See our completed projects in the Plantfolio →