i typed in "do dieffenbachia bloom" and here i am!!! wow what a pleasant surprise! the dieffenbachia has always been a favorite of mine. usually if there is one plant in my house it is this one. imagine my delight when i saw these 2 "blooms/flowers" opening up!!!! never ever had one do this. global warming??? LOL ;~)

I'd also love to share that today, I was in a garden centre and noticed something interesting about a $4, 3/4' tall diffenbachia -- it had two shoots I had never seen before on such a plant! Immediately I remembered reading this thread a while back, and wondering when my 4 year old diffenbachia at home might finally flower (if ever), and promptly bought this $4 rarity so I can see the thing flower with no effort on my part.. haha.
Will put up picures when the shoots open, it looks like it'll be a big flower.

First off, I'm a plant novice, almost always kill every plant I touch. However, I have a diffenbachia that must have incredible DNA... it survived losing 60% of its stem, and has since given me 2 additional plants that are doing really well.

Last year, the plant was getting top-heavy with too many leaves and a thin stem, and a new shoot had started coming out of its stalk, which worried me. I brought it to a garden store and some very nice folks helped me cut off the new shoot and repot into a much bigger pot, burying the stem deeply so it was no longer top heavy.

It's doing great now, and actually flowering (which I'd never seen before). Unfortunately, I just noticed a new plant pop out of the soil; it looks like a shoot came off of the stem that's underneath the soil, and has pushed its way up.

My question is what should I do about this? Should I cut off the new growth at the level of the soil? Should I dig down and cut it off at the stem of the main plant? Or should I just leave it alone?

Also, I've never pruned a plant before... if it starts getting too big, how exactly do I do that? Cut off leaves? How far from the stem do I make the cut?

Any thoughts are appreciated!

I rescued a diffenbachia out of the alley trash three years ago, repotted it and have been cutting off tops when it gets top heavy and repotting it deep in the same pot. I now have five good sized plants in full leaf which I like lots more than one tall skinny stem. The oldest and tallest plant is now blooming its second flower. It has an earthy fragrance but not unpleasant like a carrion flower. I find stripping off all but the top leaves and burying old stems deep into the pot works well for new plants.

I have a dieffenbachia that is 30 inches tall and I just noticed last night it is flowering! I have had them for years, but never had one flower. I took pictures if anyone would like to see them, email me at: linda_j@telus.net.

I was planning to repot the plant this month due to it leaning a bit, so I am glad I didn't! I have it in a 'sun room' and I can't remember, but I may have put it out on our deck last summer or the summer before, but otherwise it lives inside. Can't wait for my husband to see it!

I have been growing diffenbachias for about 20 years, and I always have several in bloom. They start like normal leaves, and then produce a long white stalk. They don't have any smell, but are very neat. If anyone would like a picture, I could email them. I only have a few as they are a regular occurence and I guess I take them for granted.

I have had my Dieffenbachia for the last 4 years or so and have never seen one flower either. One day when I was watering it, sure enough there were 2 flowers sticking straight up from the top. I was shocked and took a couple pictures to ask someone about them. Probably 36 hours later, the "leaves" had wrapped back around the flower and sealed. Now there is a really dark sticky substance leaking from around the sealed flower and getting on the other leaves. Has anyone ever heard of this? Should I remove it?

I have not had my dieffenbachia for even 6 months yet, it has almost trippled in size ( about 3 ft now ) full of lush leaves. I have it on the west side of our apartment between the sliding glass door and the kitchen window, so it gets lots of indirect sunlight. Absolutely georgouse. however, it is now starting to flower. There are 2 "pods" at the top of my plant that are about to bloom. Is there any special care for it while and after it blooms?

mine have been flowering prolifically for the past month. when they first open there is a definite scent--kind of a dusty, musty smell for a couple of days.

I've had my Dieffenbachia for 30 years (We call it George)
2 days ago it produced 2 blooms,my question is --will it now bloom every year?
Seems everyone on this site are seeing these blooms for the first time.

I have had my plants for three years and they have bloomed twice now.
I get very excited to see this beautiful flower.

I bought a 4" Camille Dieffenbachia about 3-4 months ago and immediately repotted it. I keep it in my west bdrm. on the dresser where it gets low filtered light. I mist it about every other day. Yesterday I noticed it has a shoot with a large white pod coming out of it! I was excited and very surprised! I looked up everywhere on the computer, including in my large houseplant book, and could not find anything about them flowering, not until I came across this forum. I read your posts and joined right away! It's cool we are all surprised! I am especially, since mine is just a baby! It does not have an odor, thank goodness, since I sleep in the same room!

I have had this dieffenbachia for a few years and two days ago, as I was watering it, I saw two things sticking out of two different leaves. I found this site and I read the comments and then today I look at the plant and the two "flowers" were inside the leaves, like Jackie 5 above explains. I have two plants and the one upstairs which is 5 feet tall doesn't seem to have any blooms. I'll see what happens to this "flowers" in the next few days. By the way, this plant had gotten so tall that I cut the stems about 6 inches from the soil surface and rooted the cuttings which became the plant I have upstairs. The cut stems all got tall and produce leaves and is now beautiful. So they can be pruned without being hurt.

Yesterday I looked at plant while watering and it has 4 more "flowers" wrap by leaves. The first two an\re totally enclosed by the leaves. Weird stuff!

Yesterday one of the so called flowers, wrapped inside the leave, was hanging there totally rotten. Can anybody explain this? I still have about 6 "flowers" wrapped in leaves.

My dieffenbachia is 39 years old and I've had to cut it back a number of times when it reached the ceiling. It has four flourishing stalks in it that are currently about 4 feet tall. I have never seen it bloom in all these years until last week. I smelled it before I saw it, after my livingroom took on an eye-watering strong odor best described as a combination of sour pickles and black pepper. Stinging, like Mace. I couldn't imagine what was causing the offensive smell and searched all over the room until finally following my nose to the plant. Imagine my surprise when I saw this large lily-like bloom nestled amidst the leaves on my old dieffenbachia which had never before flowered. And there were 2 additional yet unopened blooms clustered against it. Sadly, I had to cut them all off due to the unpleasant smell, but within a matter of days another bloom popped up in the same area. It seems to be making up for 39 years of dormancy. :)

Interesting!

Dieffenbachia Flowers have unusual smell. My dumb cane is almost 6 feet tall. It's magnificent. But I'm contemplating to cut flowers off. I cut some leaves off two weeks ago with my bare hands because I was clueless that this plant is actually poisonous. Sigh. I'm fine but next time I'm using gloves just in case.

I live in Wasilla Alaska I've had this same strand of plant for years, propagated many times. Last summer they all flowered to my amazement. I squired another strand ( plant) last summer and this winter it is blooming like crazy ten to thirteen and still going. I also had a hard time finding anything in my books. This technology is a new adventures for me but what a great way to share with other plant inthusants.

Hi All,

My Aunt gave me her plant about 40 years ago. I have shared rooting and divisions from the plant to many others. In all the years I have had it, it has never bloomed until now. I am happy to hear it is related to the Jack in the Pulpit family, since I love this plant. My blooms look like the ones above.

Charity

My mom gave me her dieffenbachia 30 some years ago, I don't really remember how long she had it before they moved and it was too tall to move. It has broken off because it got to tall to support itself several times. The last time I thought it was dead. I took the large pot outside and planted flowers in it that my kids bought for Mother's Day one year. After that year I put the pot in the basement for 2 years to get it out of the way. We recently moved and to my surprise when we were moving the pot the dieffenbachia had started growing out of the dirt. Two years we have been in our new house and today I was looking at it, because it's growing out of control and I need to figure out a support system for it. I have my very first flower bud EVER. I didn't even know they had flowers. I don't have good luck with small house plants but this baby won't die

I bought this plant 3 weeks ago because it said on the tag it was an air purifying plant. Until that day I had never seen or heard about it. Then I read up on it and found about it being poisonous and to be careful about brushing up to it. Ok. My kids are grown. Don't have animals so I kept it. One week later I start to see buds. Wow, bonus time, didn't know it would bloom. Great! No, not so great. I can't take the smell. To me like rotting wood. I brought the plant to purify the house, not stink it up. Is this smell typical of the plant or just from the flowers?

I have had my plant for the past 3 years. It has flowered every year. This year has surprised me. My plant currently has 13 flowers on it. Guess it is happy

My dieffenbachia bloomed yesterday. Is it going to be okay? One blog said it may die after it blooms? Its a brand new plant. I've had it 3 weeks. I love it. Its a star brite.

Another picture

I cut the top off my grandmothers plant that she has had for 15 years. Since I haven’t bought a pot I have kept it in a very tall vase. It seems to be very happy. I also thought it was another leaf opening up and then upon closer inspection I saw this and there is a second bus that hasn’t opened.

My almost 5 years old, around 8 feet tall has now started giving flower. I’m over the moon.

I have been been keeping my daughters plant for a few months while they are in transition. It came from my grandson’s funeral. He was eight months old an would now be 20 years old if he had lived. This happeNed when they lived inLouisiana. It now has two blooms just now beginning to open. It is coming up on the anniversary of his death next month. I think it is blooming for him, don’t you?

I only noticed this flower because I was searching for the strange smell in my living room. It's coming from this emerging

First of all, im really impressed that this forum has been actice for 15years.

I came home yesterday and saw that my plant have got a baby and was like "cool, i have to post questions about this in a plantfacebookgroup."

Then the smell came. I went to bed and woke up and the smell was still in my livingroom.

So i started to vacuum and cleaning and sniffing aorund and finally found out it was the plant :) (i took it to my bathroom and the smell followed).

But i havent seen any tips to what i should do.

Will the smell ever leave?

Should I just cut the flower??

Greetings from Sweden

Agree with the longevity of this thread! Awesome. I have what I've always called a dieffenbachia, or dumb cane, and never saw any type of bloom/flower until last week. The leaves are solid green, no stripe and

the strangeness of the top caught my eye. Is it?

can't get photo in... tiny flowers are purple

I have one of these plants that I bought this summer. Left it in the 2 gal pot initially and then put it in a bigger pot. Has been doing pretty well. I also recently noticed an odor in my apartment and what appears to be a flowering shoot as in some of the pictures above. It is definitely the source of the smell. It is not terribly strong or offensive, but is definitely noticeable, earthy and plant-like. Reminds me of a cucumber type of smell or similar to some liquid body washes. I, like others, bought the plant because the label said 'air purifier', not for blooms. I guess if you want to see blooms, you will have to put up with the smell. If you don't want the smell, you would remove the flower, which is probably what I will do. Even small odors are definitely noticeable upon entering my small apartment.

we got our plant about two years ago (the florist at Safeway was going to throw it away) and it's grown about 4 feet! this last week it started to bloom! sorry for the sideways photo ha!

It is nice to see all these comments here 😀, and I found that every one was amazed to see their plant blooming and not only me. I have bought my plant 3 years ago, but now it reached 6 feets tall and I was surprised to see that my baby has 2 new babies 2 days ago 😍

I've raised this since it was a stem with 3 leaves. It has been repotted twice. And is 3 and a half years old. A gift from my mother. This bloom I found just today. My mother has never had one bloom. This is new to me.

Fun! I find the flowers have a distinctive smell. Some people like and some do not.

Im happy this isnt just me lol. i just googled “dieffenbachia flower“, and you guys popped up. My plant was propagated from a very old and much much larger plant at work. and ive had it maybe ~7 months. and today i noticed two flowers and maybe a 3rd and 4th coming. thanks all!! should i remove them as to provide all the energy they take to the original plant? also, can i propogate these? ill try anyway and update in the future!

Wondering what to do about dieffenbachia blooms that are sticky and turn dark? Is it recommended to cut them off? If so, when they first bloom or after they turn dark? I liked the plant better when it didn't bloom!

Yes, cut them when they begin to turn dark! Is this the first time your plant has flowered?

You don't have to let them bloom if you don't want it to. I agree with Youlanda about cutting when dark but some people cut earlier.

Thanks youlanda clark & chicago_farmer! Appreciate your input, as I couldn't find anything online. I have had the plant for over five years, but it only started blooming in the last one or two years. So how do you keep it from blooming?

I cut as soon as I see the bloom coming in as to use the energy it takes for the foliage itself. It’s actually grown quite a bit

Thank you! I cut mine back this morning, along with the newest blooms.

Every summer mine produces long white blooms and they really stink! Once I tracked down the odor the first time it bloomed I've come to recognize the smell. I just walked down stairs where we keep ours and I knew we had a bloom open up because I could smell it. (And I had just 30 minutes before watched a movie down there with no problem.) I asked my husband to cut it off because the smell was so awful. He brought it upstairs to throw out in my kitchen compost bucket and it nearly knocked me out. The smell is very overwhelming to me but not as bad for him. It had to go outside. Too bad, the flower is really pretty. I decided to research it on the web to see if anyone else has this experience. I came across this site so thought I'd share.

I felt it necessary to give you a general explanation about Dieffenbachia flowering, In fact, Dieffenbachia typically produces inconspicuous, small, and unremarkable flowers that many growers remove to redirect the plant's energy toward foliage growth. Removing the flowers won't harm the plant, and it's a common practice to maintain the plant's lush appearance. Instead, focus on taking care of the leaves, providing adequate light, water, and humidity, and regularly checking for any signs of disease or pests. If your Dieffenbachia does flower and you choose to remove them, you'll likely find that it continues to thrive as a stunning foliage plant.