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

The Ti Plants are marginally hardy in my Zone 8b garden with winter temperatures as low as about 28 F in NE Florida. I am able to keep the Ti Plants from having severe frost/freeze damage by stringing the plants with twinkle lights and throwing a cloth cover over them on the coldest nights. Without that treatment, they tend to die back to the ground.

Jeremy

I have had my Red (pink) Ti plant growing in my North facing planter for about 5 years. It has grown about 2.5 feet in height during that time. It gets flower buds every year but since this is in dead of winter they rarely bloom. I now have off shoots on each of the three main stalks. I want to propagate it from cuttings but I don't want to risk killing the main plant or the cutting. Interesting observation is that the color of the leaves is most intense in the fall months!

I left some of my ti out in an unheated greenhouse in 1-gallon pots here in Zone 8 Texas where they froze back to the soil. I had others so it wasn't a big loss. But when I went out in the Spring to recycle the soil, I noticed that the Ti had put out new shoots from the roots! The pots didn't get bone dry - I'd water some other hardy plants out there in the early Spring and they'd get a little sprinkling from time to time. For those of you who had winter-kill, don't write it off until late Spring - you never know if it'll come back from the roots. Let it sit fairly dry over the winter and start watering it in the Spring and keep an eye out for shoots.

I am growing this as a houseplant in a sunny window location and it's doing well. Easy to grow. Don't overwater.The colours on foliage are very dramatic! Beautiful plant! I loved learning about the history and uses.

I also was confused about toxicity - all other sites say it is safe and non-toxic. I was worried about my pets.
I've reported it as an error and they are correcting this page.

Definitely a keeper plant!!! A++++

mia01 31 Aug 06 Karachi

I have had this plant [the dark red variety] for two years now and have found it very slow-growing. It is in a largish pot but still under 2 feet high. Also in the plant properties mentioned above it is said to be poisonous, yet foodiesleuth says they wrap food in it.....so have we got something wrong somewhere?? Just wondering...

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.

Lovely colour but needs more water, I think? The leaves dry off quickly.

I saw this plant on clearance at local store. Plant was in rough shape, but I just love the color on this! It is doing well, now that I took it home and repotted. I am going to try propagating this one, but need to read up on air-layering. The bright, bright pink leaves are really stunning!

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.

This is a beautiful plant in summer. I have to bring it in in the winter. It gets kind of ugly, then when put back out in spring it takes off growing again.

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.

4/29/04 - Jacksonville, FL- my ti plants (and does "ti" rhyme w/ "eye" or "tea"?) live under a big old live oak tree - tho I was prepared to see them die back during the winter, they did not. In fact, all are "having babies" per this morning's inspection.

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

i have had one of these in a pot in my covered patio in orlando for about 2 and a half years. i have had mixed success. the pot came with about 5 logs, and all but 2 died within about 1 and a half years. now a few new ones have come up, but one has died. i water them 1-2X/week and they are in partial shade. any ideas about how i can do better? thank you :)

I lived on the island of Maui, Hawaii, for over a year, and this plant was everywhere. Its red color really stood out in a world of intense green.

I lived in St. Petersburg, Florida, zone 9b, for ten years, and tried to grow this plant outdoors, but every few years they would get caught in a deep freeze, and I would lose them. So even there I think it is best grown as a container plant, or in a very protected place.

The "logs" mentioned above are sections of stem that can be rooted. "Lay short lengths in mixture of peat moss and sand, covering about one-half their diameter. Keep moist. When shoots grow out and root, cut them off and plant them." From Southern Living Garden Book.

I have owned one of the plants since I bought one in the form of a 3inch long stick while on vacation in Hawaii in 1982. I took it back to San Diego, Ca. where it started to grow. It lived there until I moved to Newport,N.C. in 1995 where it is still thriving pretty good.It started its first winter on my screened in patio until the first frost. Thought I was going to loose it as it lost all of its leaves, but a beautiful huge flower sprouted from it. The first flower after owing it, at that point, for 13 years. After the flower died off,leaves started appearing again. I have now owned this plant for 21 years, longer than I have had my two children. Which after all this time I feel like it is one of my children

My sister gave me a Ti plant 'log' over twenty years ago. It has grown about five feet tall and still looks good. I have treated it as a houseplant all these years with minimum care.
Just water it when the soil gets dry and feed during the summer with weak solution of liquid fertlilizer and remove bottom leaves as they die off to keep the plant looking pretty.

"Complete Gardening In India", a book by KS Gopalswamiengar pictures this plant with a label C.mahatma. The reddish variegation is prominent. Another plant I had also threw up some little flowers at the tip some time ago. I think it was purplish coloured.