Dracaena Draco (dragon) tree advice

[Dani]

Hi all,

I am a newbie, have read with interest some of your Palm discussions and hope someone can help me with this one please. 

I have a small dragon tree. I bought it from a nursery 4-5 years ago. It has trunk with approx. height 20 cm. Approx diameter 25cm. 

I asked my husband to dig it out so we could shuffle a few plants around. All the info I’ve read and pictures I’ve seen about the dragon tree, suggested the root system was small and when I moved it from our old house a couple of years ago the root ball was reasonably small, so I expected this to be a simple job.

I was wrong. My husband must have dug down about 40-50cm and this tree appeared to have a taproot as thick as it’s trunk.  I have never seen a thing like it. It also had a root ball where you’d expect to see one. Needless to say, we filled the hole back in and decided to leave it for now. 

Does anyone have experience of dragon trees with roots like this? Could the tree have grown a trunk under ground? 

Cheers

 

 

[PalmatierMeg]

Photos?

[LJG]

Draco’s are very easy to transplant. Cutting roots is fine. Make sure the new location is freedraining and it will root quickly. I have moved some huge ones and they never missed a beat. 

[Dani]

Thanks LJG. I’m thinking the big thick long taproot may be a trunk and there’s a second set of roots at the bottom of it. So will attempt to raise and replant it above ground with some support. I will try and get photos. 

[LJG]

1 hour ago, Dani said:

Thanks LJG. I’m thinking the big thick long taproot may be a trunk and there’s a second set of roots at the bottom of it. So will attempt to raise and replant it above ground with some support. I will try and get photos. 

It won’t have a tap root. You can’t miss Draco roots as they are red on outside and soft inside unlike dicot trees. If you are hitting a ‘woody’ root, it’s not from the Draco. 

[Dani]

It actually looks like a trunk (same thickness underground as above) except there’s a root ball growing where you’d expect to see one - and this long thing growing from the centre, to a depth of around 40-50cm. My husband says there’s additional roots at the bottom of it. So it has two sets of roots. It’s bizarre, I’ve never seen anything like it. He asked a friend at work about it (who has some experience with dragon trees) and he said this can happen, if the tree got planted a bit too deep. I will post some photos when we get a chance to dig. Have you ever heard of this?

[LJG]

No, but if the Draco was planted small and grew large in the spot, they can make huge roots. Send pics. 

[Dani]

We dug up the dragon tree and found it was growing a trunk underground! I’ve attached photos. The bottom photo is what was under the ground, before we pulled it out.

[Jubaea]

It looks like this plant was planted too deep and that the tap root is actually part of the trunk.  I have grown several dragon trees and they typically send many lateral roots out near soil level.  I would expect if you dug down further you would find many lateral roots emerging from about the same area.

[Dani]

Thanks jubea, yes we found it was a trunk so dig it up and repositioned it above the ground. So far so good, the Draco looks happy and we are happy to see the Draco now has some height.