With its willowy foliage and the potential to grow three feet tall as an indoor houseplant, the Dracaena plant is a popular and striking ornamental plant in the home. If you’ve never cared for a Dracaena but enjoy the look of the plant, you may want to investigate whether the Dracaena is a good indoor plant.
Like most houseplants, the Dracaena does need some attention and care to thrive. However, as long as you’re willing to handle the basics like watering the plant, feeding it, and giving it the right amount of light, you won’t find these plants impossible to grow, even if you’re a beginner.
Overall, the Dracaena has many positive features, but it does have a few drawbacks to consider. Let’s learn more about the Dracaena and whether you should bring one home.
Is the Dracaena a Good Indoor Plant?
The simple answer is that yes, the Dracaena is a good indoor plant. It purifies the air and creates a beautiful focal point in your home while requiring only standard houseplant care.
However, the Dracaena is toxic to dogs and cats, which may make it a difficult houseplant for a home with pets.
Positive Features Of the Dracaena Houseplant
The Dracaena is an Excellent Air Purifier
You may already know that plants purify the air, but some plants are particularly adept at doing so. The Dracaena is one of the most sought-after plants around the world for precisely this reason.
Research from NASA indicates that houseplants can purify the air by removing toxins like volatile organic compounds. Some of the chemicals the Dracaena removes from the air include benzene, formaldehyde, and trichloroethylene.
Scientists have linked those chemicals to everything from respiratory problems to headaches to kidney disease, as well as many other maladies. The Dracaena is an excellent houseplant because it cleans the air and looks good doing it!
The Dracaena is Easy to Grow
Sometimes, it’s fun to accept a challenge when growing a plant. Difficult feeding rotations, tricky watering schedules, and getting the lighting just right can make the overall growing experience quite a task.
The Dracaena offers quite the opposite experience since it’s relatively easy to grow, as long as you don’t overwater it.
The most important factors in growing a happy and healthy Dracaena are making sure that it is planted in good quality potting soil and is placed in a location with bright, indirect sunlight.
Once you’ve mastered these two requirements, all it takes is some fertilizer in the growing months of spring and summer and some water every so often. In particularly dry climates, the plant tends to enjoy a light spritzing of water, too.
The Dracaena Can Control Humidity
The Dracaena does enjoy a moist environment and may need some extra water if your home is in the desert, but the plant will also reward your efforts by helping to keep the humidity at a comfortable level in your home.
If you suffer from nosebleeds or other uncomfortable issues in dry weather, your Dracaena may help reduce your incidence of respiratory issues. In fact, placing more than one Dracaena in a room can increase the humidity even more.
With a Dracaena helping you increase the humidity in your home, you can say goodbye to dry skin and enjoy a comfortable winter without having to use an entire bottle of moisturizer every other day.
The Dracaena is a Beautiful Plant
Houseplants are a simple way to improve the aesthetics of your home, and all they usually need is water, light, and occasional feeding.
The Dracaena, in particular, is a very striking houseplant and not easily missed when you put it on display in your home.
The beauty of the Dracaena is certainly one of its most positive attributes and certainly a reason to select it as the newest houseplant addition to your home. There is even some science to back up this claim.
A small study on interactions with houseplants published in the Journal of Physical Anthropology suggests that interacting with houseplants may potentially reduce psychological and physiological stress when compared with interactions that don’t involve plants.
Possible Drawbacks of the Dracaena Houseplant
The Dracaena is Toxic to Dogs & Cats
The primary drawback of bringing a Dracaena into your home as a houseplant is that it may poison your cat or dog should they decide to try and eat it.
According to the ASPCA, the Dracaena plant may cause vomiting and hypersalivation in dogs and cats, as well as dilated pupils in cats.
Sometimes, animals may even experience anorexia or depression as a result of ingesting a portion of the Dracaena. Occasionally, the plant may cause diarrhea.
Although these symptoms are serious, poisoning from the Dracaena isn’t normally fatal unless the symptoms go untreated. Symptoms like vomiting and diarrhea are serious problems when left untreated.
Pet owners should think carefully before deciding to bring a Dracaena in the home, which may sit within reach of a curious cat or clumsy dog.
The Dracaena Plant Can’t Tolerate Frost
The Dracaena can’t tolerate frost, which means anyone who lives in an area where temperatures regularly reach below freezing must bring the plant inside.
Even in areas where the temperatures outside don’t dip into the freezing level, it’s still common to see Dracaenas grown as houseplants inside.
The fact that the Dracaena can’t survive a frost isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker when you’re looking for a houseplant, but it is something to consider in some circumstances.
For example, if you have a power outage and need to leave your home after a snowstorm, the Dracaena might not fare well.
The Dracaena Won’t Thrive in Very Low Light
One of the common issues homeowners and apartment dwellers have when they want to beautify their homes with plants is sunlight.
Sometimes, a home might not have any windows capable of supporting a plant that needs some sunlight.
Anyone looking for a low-light plant might be disappointed with the Dracaena since the plant responds best when it lives in an area with bright, indirect light.
Technically, the Dracaena can live in low light conditions, but the plant won’t look healthy and may eventually start dying.
Related: Dracaena Angustifolia Care