PlantFiles: Hawaiian Ti Plant, Good Luck Plant, Green Ti Plant
Cordyline fruticosa

I don't even know how old ours is. It grows inside, but then it grows outside, frost doesn't really faze it if it's got sufficient protection (ours was under our deck all winter, and it stayed in the 20s for many nights in a row).

Love this beautiful plant. Love love love it

My mom received a ti log when my sister was born - in 1956!! Mom kept it alive and growing all these years - it seemed to thrive on neglect. I inherited it about 7 years ago and it's bright green and lush and thriving. I don't live in an area where it can be outside year round, but I do put it outside in the shade during the summer months and it fills out beautifully. I'm going to try to divide the stems (canes, stalks?) and repot them to give away to friends. Is there a special way to do this without damaging the other stalks? Or is it like anything else that needs dividing - just hack it apart?

In the area outside its hardiness, it is rarely offered as a houseplant, mostly as cutting from one house to another. Some of the most colorful cultivars are always seen in stores while the regular species is much more rarer seen.

As a green leaf form, it is often mistook for a type of Dracaena. Its shape of leaves and the way it attach its leaves to the stem in a spiral tell plain green ti plants from dracaenas

As others have said, ti plants are great houseplants. Here in Duluth, GA (zone 7B) where I live now, it is a houseplant. But being from Hawaii originally, I've been also growing these plants for cooking purposes. In fact, I just used up most of the leaves on my three plants recently to make a Hawaiian dish called "laulau." The plants do fine in my south facing windows during winter and I put them in my sunroom the rest of the year. They were grown from those ti plant logs that others have mentioned. In the process of learning to garden with the four seasons that we have here, I have lost a few ti plants and plumeria as well. The three ti plants that I have left almost died a couple of years ago when I left them out in my sunroom over winter. They are all about two feet tall now and probably would be taller if I didn't strip the leaves off twice a year for cooking. These plants are very easy to grow as houseplants in Georgia and so very beautiful!

Outdoors, the all green Ti grows well to 4-6 foot. Does and looks best in shade but can take near full sun with some leaf burn.It is much hardier than cultivars. The others varieties i have tried cannot take winters cold. Even if there isn't a frost they seem to just rot away eventually. Slugs and snail attractive.

The Hawaiian Ti (Ki) is one of my favorite indoor/outdoor plants. I currently reside in South Carolina and have had a lot of success in growing these plants, especially when I've bought the logs from Hawaii.

I was first introduced to the Ti here by a friend who had purchased one locally years ago. It definitely was NOT the Hawaiian grown Ti as it didn't like a lot of sun and really disliked being over watered. It's leaves still burn if it gets to much light and it gets root-rot when given the same amount of water as the true Hawaiian grown Ti's.

My next experience came with 2 logs I bought from Hawaii; but I attempted to grow them in water dishes (perhaps for too long) and shortly after transplanting them, they died. It may have been a combination of too much water for too long and to little heat (I tried to do most of this indoors). Lesson was learned...

The next early spring (2004) I bought four more Hawaii Ti logs and these have been great. I started them outdoors in April/May 2004 as cuttings placed in water... as soon as I saw roots or a stem of any kind I transplanted them into 6" pots with VERY good draining soil (cactus mix and tropical mix - maybe even some Styrofoam peanuts at the bottom) and let them grow their roots directly into the soil. This worked very well for all four logs. They all grew very well the first summer outdoors (in good SC light - humid and hot at times) and grew to about a foot and a half tall. I transplanted them again into 10" pots this spring (2005) and they have already grown tremendously larger; nearly double what they were coming out of the winter - one especially. Most are now about 1-2' and one is getting close to 2.5'. I have been amazed that in a single year the plant has grown from a cutting to this size; even the root has gotten very larger on the plant.

I have fertilized them successfully with Osmocote as well; and that might explain their rapid growth.

I also brought some self made "cuttings" home from a recent trip to Maui/Kauai and those too are growing well in their new 10" pots. In fact, one of the cuttings I brought home had leaves on the stem, and they didn't even fall off... they just kept growing.

Overall I have been very pleased with this plant and I love growing them; especially outdoors in Spring/Summer/Fall. They do well indoors during the winter, but you CANNOT over water them... they don't like a lot of winter moisture.

As kids we would go ti leaf sliding...ti leaves + muddy hill...you get the idea. Had quite a bit in my yard (green leaves), many years old, but needed to remove most for a deck. had to dig down over a ft and it would keep coming back. took forever to get enough out that it wouldn't come back up.

The Hawaiian Ti plant (pronounced as in tea not tie) is linked to many legends. One of them is that it is believed if you plant a ring of ti plants all around your house, Pele will not let lava come into your property.

The plant shows up in many different color combinations, but the plain green with broader leaves is the most common and the only one used for lei, hula skirts, lay-lau, etc..

The leaves can be used to make simple woven or braided lei given as a welcoming greeting. They are also used to make the so called "grass skirts" for hula dancers....which can be used whole or ripped into thin strips which are still attached to the stem end and woven into a waistband.

Leaves of ti and taro plant are also used to wrap food bundles that will then be steamed or boiled. The food wrapped in leaves is called a lau-lau (lau is the Hawaiian for leaf) regardless of the contents.

A single ti leaf can also be torn into strips, still attached to the main stem (after pulling out the center hard rib) and used as a fan to chase out flies and other flying insects....

Life in Hawaii would not be the same without the ti plant.

We have several varieties of this plant growing in Hawaii. it is considered good luck to plant around the perimeter of your property to prevent Madame Pele's lava flows from overrunning your place.
The leaves are used for wrapping around food in packets, for steaming or boiling. They are also used for making simple woven leis and they are made into long strips to use in skirts for dancing hula.....the misnamed grass skirt, is usually made of ti leaves.

To propagate the plant: it is easily done by cutting leggy plants down, then cut the part you have cut off, again in several pieces....and cut the bunchy top just leaving a few leaves on it......Just plant each piece and keep watered...

You can plant each piece by laying down horizontally (leaving half the trunk piece out of the ground) and will probably get several nubs of growth along the piece. Or each piece can be planted 1" deep vertically