Aglaonema 'Stars:' when good plants grow bad cultivars

16 years ago

Okay. Uncle. I give up. I bought an Aglaonema 'Stars' four months ago, and it has been very insistent since then that it does not like me and does not want to be here. It drops leaves when I water, it drops leaves when I don't water. As they fall, the leaves get that stippled look like there's a spider mite problem, but close inspection -- and I mean *close*, agonizing, prolonged inspection -- has so far failed to turn up anything pestlike.

The plant has nine stems in an 8-inch azalea pot. I didn't change the soil when I bought it, which I'm thinking now maybe I should have, but there's nothing obviously wrong with the soil; it's your basic peaty houseplant mix with some added small bits of styrofoam. Perlite would be better, but the soil seems loose enough all the same.

It gets bright fluorescent light right now, but we've also tried low artificial and moderate natural, with the same results. Temperature is room normal to maybe slightly warm, say 76-82F. If it were someone else's plant, I would diagnose overwatering, but -- I've almost never watered it. Maybe three times in four months, if even that.

I'm inclined to try to repot, because the soil could be too heavy -- it doesn't really look that bad to me, but it does stay wet for a long time. Alternately, I might just try to chop off the tops of all the stems and re-root them in water, because some of them are long enough that they're beginning to go horizontal and I kind of want to do that anyway. Does anybody else know this plant who might be able to advise?

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Comments (4)

elfinn
16 years ago
Don't know this variety in particular, but I've always had great luck in rooting Chinese Evergreeen stalks in water...since you've not repotted, have you looked at the roots? Perhaps it was overwatered before you got it and the shock of bringing it home sparked the downward spiral, and it just needs a new start?
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shiver
16 years ago
I think repotting sounds like a good idea---I usually try that too when all other ideas fail me. I know you've checked your plant carefully for mites and are an experienced plant grower---but I just want to throw out a word of caution. I've had plants I SWORE did not have mites, and then I would finally see one about 6 months later. The ones that don't spin webs are the hardest to catch...

Good luck with the rehab process. Even if it doens't go well, I like your "bad cultivar" approach. I think I'll adopt it!
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mr_subjunctive
Original Author
16 years ago
Well, it's not like there haven't been mites around, in these last few months. I've just never seen any on (or near) this particular plant, despite looking fairly hard. Certainly nothing that would result in this much leaf drop.

I'm thinking that I'm probably going to chop the tops off and water-root. Among other things, the stems are old enough to be laying kind of sideways, and if I started over, I could at least get upright plants, is the theory. And it doesn't hurt anything to check the roots while I'm in there: if they look like they might want to grow anyway, I'll repot them into a looser soil and see if they want to resprout. Not especially optimistic, but I guess I'm not willing to give up on it, either.
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mr_subjunctive
Original Author
16 years ago
This post should have been titled:

Aglaonema 'Stars:' when bad growers try to grow good cultivars.

I finally managed to cut the tops off of the plants today, and when I dumped the soil out to search for roots, the dirt was like straight topsoil cut with just a little teeny bit of sand. Heavy, heavy, heavy. So it's no wonder it was always losing leaves: it was suffocating. The poor thing.

I'm starting to see a pattern here. The last plant I posted about was a Syngonium that also had some soil heaviness issues. Who would ever have suspected that soil might be important to plants?

The tops will probably be just fine once they start rooting; the bottoms I'm a little more concerned about. A lot of the roots seem to have broken or rotted off the rhizomes. I went ahead and cleaned them up as best as I could and repotted the rhizomes in some loose soil, and we'll see how that goes. If I'm lucky, and the plants don't hold a grudge, I'll get a big second plant out of the deal.

And speaking of holding grudges: I apologize to all the Aglaonema 'Stars' plants out there for my vicious and uncalled-for slander.
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Aglaonema 'Stars:' when good plants grow bad cultivars

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elfinn

shiver

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Aglaonema 'Stars:' when good plants grow bad cultivars

Comments (4)

elfinn

shiver

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