What Can I Do About a Container With 3 Different Kinds in It

Question

I was given 3 plants. Where I work I saw a sorry sight. It was a container (small at that) to be holding 3 plants – one was a dracaena, the other ficus, and another kind of dracaena and there was 3 of them. She said will you take that container home; no one ever waters it or cares for it. I got it a very large container at the nursery and had taken the whole thing in with me. He told me the one under the ficus, which were hardly any growing very bare, but under it was about a foot tall dracaena (the kind with the light cream colored lines through the big leaves.

Well, I have had this for more than 2 months now and caring for them they are growing like crazy. But I am concerned for the dracaena under the ficus that are being invaded by the big guy and it is trying to grow very fast now. But they have been in the same pot so long, there is no way to take or separate them. It’s really troubling me. I am worried about what I can do for them and worry about there tangled up root system. They have been together about 4 years. Anyone having any ideas for me, as this lower one at the bottom of the container is trying to grow through the ficus. Thank you.

Answer 1

If it were mine, I’d separate them and repot into individual containers. I use a short, sharp saw to divide plants. This may sound drastic, but it’s actually the easiest of the plants. No matter how you divide, roots will be injured, so do it and get it over. I wouldn’t use a large container if the root systems are small. You want to use a container that’s 4″ wider than the root system after dividing.

Answer 2

I really don’t know where each olant starts roots starts and ends they are tangled around interwoven in a circle , they were in to small of a olanter which had even bursted out at the bottom of the container when i first saw it , and brought it home. I immediatly took it to a nursery and show’d it to the man there and we found a very large one and he took it out of the small one sort of hit the sides of the olants to try to loosen the roots and said the shock with kill them to try much more, that they had grown since the beginning with each other. He said, i could just cut the stem of the Dracaena that is under-neith, the ficus that are really having a whole lot of new leaves now since leaving that small ot.,container. then there is next to the ficus another tyoe of Dracaena growing tall nothing hindering it it has room, since it isn’t under anything and there was 3 bunchs of heads on the branch now 3 small ones have grown on it the container is huge enough size for now, But the dilema, is that one below that will be so tall and is just getting huge lately i hate to cut it , at the stem, or cut it down so it only grows 3 feet and never any taller , because it can’t it already has s read its leaves into all the other olants. I don’t know about taking a saw or shar knife , like i said i dont know where one begins and ends its just a tangled mess and oacked in so tight in a big circle where they had been in a circle small container once. I thank you for your advice, i may have to get radical with them , it’s just they have come so far and look so green and ha y now. sorry about the missing letter next to the o .i am taking your suggestion serious now. thank you so much.

Answer 3

I already gave you my thoughts on the thread above, but here are some more of your concerns – will the plants miss each other? I would say I don’t think so. Plants are not like animals, and they’re communication systems and motivations are their own. Many people don’t think that plants communicate at all, but I’m not so sure. If they do, though, it’s for sure it’s in ways currently unknown to us.
Something to do with electro-magnetics, probably. This is a subject that I’m currently discussing on my blog, if you’d like to check it out. http://theficuswrangler.blogspot.com/ for 4/19/13. Anyway, you’ll have them sitting close together, right? That should be fine with them.