Cordyline surface root question

Happy New Year to you all - may 2021 be a healthy year for all of you - and your plants!

Very quick one this.

Planted out a pink / purple Cherry Cordyline (I'm in Devon so it's not as foolhardy as it seems - the Red Star ones which are the same hardiness here grow everywhere locally).

Shooting up nicely with a trunk now - been out since May last year from a 7 litre pot and is now over 3 foot tall. Only quick question is a few roots coming off the base of the trunk outside of the soil? Is this normal? I have heard about "air roots" on these plants which generally means bad things.

Soil is loam and had loads of compost dug in before planting and is still reasonable even in winter.

Should I be worried or is it a case of "leave it alone and it will be fine"? It does seem to be growing at a very slight angle - we have had some bad winds - but doesn't seem unstable at all - could be my dodgy planting though. Top growth is superb, it's shooting up nicely!

Cheers!

 

Have you scraped the mulch away to take the picture.

I've never heard of it being a problem, what have you heard about air roots?

 

The mulch was never right up to the trunk, always thought there was risk of rotting if it was mounded up round the trunk, so I always left some space around it - I am assuming I'm right doing this - I have another couple of cordylines and palms and have not mulched up to the trunk on them.

For some reason (and I might be mistaken) - I thought air roots were a bad sign - i.e. the plant was desperately putting them out because it couldn't do very well in the soil. I'm (very) happy to be corrected on this - I might have heard / read utter nonsense! The plant is overall lookng really well anyway.

 

Going back a few years I had a pretty tall and much branched cordyline, I noticed it was putting out the beginnings of some really thick roots from where the branches met the next stem.
These were probably 15 ft in the air.
Anyway, the whole plant died a couple of years later along with another tall one I had, but from the bottom up, it also flowered like crazy, a year before it died.

It was a different kind of rooting to what you have there, I think the area around the stem has probably stayed damp for a while, at some stage, and the plant has just taken advantage and put a few extra roots out.

I wouldn't be worried, I could be wrong, but I think it quite normal.

 

Many thanks - damp is very possible - we have had rain down here in Devon quite a bit since about October - so that would make sense. I've just done a quick search online as well and there appears to be a defunct palm forum (not sure if we are allowed to mention other forums on here) - where someone has asked a similar question and the responses seem to think these sort of roots are fairly common on these anyway.

Did your cordylines re-shoot or was it game over completely? I'm guessing the second unfortunately if the whole plant died!

 

Mine both regrew from the roots and is over 10ft again now.
But unfortunately not as robust and strong as it was before, due to having to regrow up through other shrubs its stem is much thinner.

 

Good to hear it has shot up again to a respectable height regardless! How long did it take to reach those heights from ground level?

 

I'm thinking maybe 8 yrs to 10ft would be a guess.
Some flower lower down so branch lower, which means the are slower gaining height but are multi stemmed from low down.

I think you pink leaved one will probably be slower growing than the green ones I have, but even so in 4 or 5 yrs it should be a really nice specimen plant.

 

I'm also guessing yours had a mass of roots anyway to help boost the growth.

I've got a Charlie Boy Cordyline planted elsewhere - both these pinky ones from what I have seen and read don't tend to get much above 10 foot anyway - and I've not really seen many "out in the wild". I'm hoping for good things - we've got the climate down here for them.

Plenty of green ones round here - and they all outgrow the red star variants that is for sure. Although there is are some full sized multi headed red star variants in Dawlish by the railway line not far from the station - which I've not seen often elsewhere.

 

I've only ever grown the green ones, mine are from seed.
So of the 4 I have there is some variation in growth habit.
But probably close to the species.

 

How long did they take from seed to attain a reasonable height and trunk? 8 years as in the regrowth or somewhat longer?

 

It was a long time ago, although I do have one that had grown from a seedling around the base of one of them.
They are actually pretty fast growers given good conditions.
But I would say, from seed, a green one, about 5 or 6 yrs to get to the size yours is.

 

Not bad growth rates then! This has put on a good foot and a half at least since being planted out, so I am hoping for good things in 2021 too.

 

As with all these kinds of plants, palms included, they seem to take an age to form that base, but once a stem is actually formed they start to move pretty rapidly upwards in most cases.

 

During the really bad frost which I believe we all had that stayed with us here in South Yorkshire my Cordylines and Phormiums turned to mush .
I sadly cleared it all away.the following spring the phormiums
're sprutted. And the cordylines where one had been just the individual 7 started growing from around the base of the original in a circular form. Grandkids found it a great hiding place!
We left them and three flowered profusely.But they were all thinner trunks. They reached a height of 10 ft but sadly last year the leaves started to go brown .
After reading on a tropical plants section on the Webb that they came from quite a robust root stock I asked at a garden centre and was told that if I topped them in half leaves would regrow the following spring.
It is now the 'Said' spring ,And, I've had a word with them :grumpy: now
I am keeping watch with eagerness.
It's a case of watch this space :confused: