Mr Sub, shame on you..LOL..psychic plant network.. Jeremy, Mr Sub's just poking fun..He's a great guy. What size holes are on your leaves? In other words, are they pinpoint size? Does every plant with holey leaves also have creases? If each plant has creases, I'm inclined to agree w/Mr Sub...someone, child, pet? is rubbing/grabbing leaves..though, in this case, holes would be large..if a pet, you'd see nibbles/chewed foliage. Do you know how to check for plant insects? Spider mite, (most common) mealy, scale, aphids..I find it curious this started after adding a new plant..What's a Volcano plant??? Misting won't cause holes, and I doubt fungus..I mist 2+ times a day, plus use humidifers/indoor fountains, and plants are for the most part, bugless. As a matter of fact, one room, dryer than the others, and more neglected, neglected as far as humidity--- well, every so often, mites find their way on citrus and gardenias, mostly in winter..It's only after misting these critters kick the bucket.. Check for webbs..(finer than the common house spider webbing) white cottony masses..anything that shouldn't be on your plant, or moves, is suspect. Now, if your house is dry and soil is kept constantly wet, that's another story..I believe it was Billie who mentioned Fungus Gnats..They're visable to the eye especially after you give plant/s a drink..they move about soil..If your plants have FG's, use the yellow sticky traps, and allow soil to dry out more..run a ceiling fan on low, and when outside temps are nice, crack the window a little each day..Toni

If you're using a chunky, porous, airy soil, root rot is not a concern, nor pot size. Bagged potting soil is known for its' predominance of tiny particles, which lodge together with no air spaces betwen them, takes forever to dry out. This is what overwatering means but it's not your fault. It's the soil holding too much moisture, so the problem is really underdrying. This is where myths about pot size and 'likes to be rootbound' come from. If there are no tiny particles in a pot, there will be air pockets and it will dry soooo much faster. People who lose plants because they forget to water would have a hard time with this, (and nothing to fix except to try to remember to water a little more often,) but if you're the more common 'overwatering' type, this can mean the difference between plants that stay alive vs. those that die. I used to kill plants by 'overwatering' too until learning how to fix things through the great info here at GW. Roots can't survive sitting in soggy, dense, airless soil. To fix that, we need to give them something much more chunky, porous, airy. Many address the problem by adding a significant amount of perlite to bagged potting soils, which helps but is still not ideal because the tiny particles are still there, around the perlite, with no air between them. Ideally, the tiny particles should not be in a pot at all. Dealing with it by 'not overwatering' is done successfully by millions of people, but those who like to water plants often are just going to kill them without a great mix of no tiny particles. Most plants can survive getting too dry once in a while. OTOH, getting soppy wet too often in a 'soil' that makes that possible, and taking forever to dry out is fatal to most. I might recommend an alternative source of water other than tap water, such as rain, melted snow, condensate from dehumidifier or A/C, distilled. It makes a huge difference if tap water is making a plant visibly ill (which it usually does over time.) Yellow, chlorotic leaves are not attractive.

Hello Everyone! Thanks for your quick response regarding the health of my plant. Reading your comments i come to think it is fertilizer... the beads pop when you squish them and its kind of fun. I was scared for the health of my plant because I just realized the beads after i got back from a weekend trip.... and since its my first plant i wanted to make sure i wasnt killing it. Again thanks for your comments now i can go on happy with my plant! Thanks Jennifer

Here is what I recommend, if you plan to try and save them and overwinter. Trim them down on top and also trim the roots back (do a search on overwintering on the forum) wash old soil away from roots trim back to a nice size root ball and then repot. An easy great soil to use is MG Orchid mix, it has the right size bark as well as perlite, it also contains 3 months of slow release fertilizer. Once you repot water them nicely and let the plants recover over time and they do not need as much watering in the winter as in the spring and summer. Try to keep your light cycle to 10-12 hours of light per day, some purchase a timer to regulate light time cycles. After the three months of slow release fertilizer has ended I would recommend using Alaska Fish fertilizer 5-1-1 (caution it really stinks, but once mixed with water and poured into the soil it's not so bad and dissipates rather quickly) then once spring comes around, harden them off and start the new season. Based on the leaves and soil from the pictures it looks like the soil was too dry and leaves wilted and the lighting could have caused some browning of the leaves so overall I think conditions were the issue for the plants but you should be able to get them to bounce back. I would also recommend that between mid Jan - first week or two of Feb that you start seeds of any super hot peppers and any milder varieties end of Feb-March as a backup plan. Mark