Sounds like not enough water. How big is the plant and pot size?

They like a moist soil when it's warm and they don't store water so well when small. So when it gets dry the leaves turn brown and will shed eventually. I keep all mine over potted so the soil stay moist longer. It's been over 90deg for weeks and even in to the low 100's. I water every 4 when it gets hot like this. All my Oppies are in full leaf still and will hold their foliage till around Nov-Dec.

Too dry.Pot up another size to help it recover.

Just moved it to a 10 inch clay pot. The soil was in fact quite dry, so I soaked it and added new soil since the new pot is bigger. Will see what happens. Overall, it's in fine shape; most of the leaves are still green and new growth is not affected. Just some were shriveling up and I had never seen it do that before. Last couple of years when I let it dry out on purpose, it did does so slowly during cooler weather. The leaves turned dark red too and it looked really nice. So, I guess I wasn't expecting them to go straight to brown.

Also, was wondering if any of you know when the best time for pruning Opy is? Is it while they are dry (dormant) or during active growth?

Thanks for you help.

Usually prune in the spring, and again in summer for the plants bedded out.

After soaking it and repotting it, many more leaves dried up. Also, some of the leaves have since turned red and yellow. Good news is that it seems the dying leaves are older. Half of the tree is still quite green and showing no signs of wilting. I probably let it dry out too fast when I brought it inside. My initial thinking was that there would be less evaporation indoors, but I was way wrong.

Does anyone on here ever prune opy while it is still leafless?

Dandy8 -

I was wondering how your tree was. I think I may have "droughted" my Decaryi on the move indoors, as well. It has been pretty hot in my sunroom the last few days (pretty cool before that when we were hitting 42 degrees at night outdoors!). That's why I moved it in. Just some of the top leave browning and holding on - the rest nice and glossy (and some new growth happening, as well. Metal Halides and some sun coming in may have caused sunburn(?) on mine, I guess. Not sure because my O. Pachypus is perfectly fine under similar conditions, as are all of my other succulents.

So, I moved it further from the light and watered it (had been watering it every 3 days or so, but it is in a pretty fast draining coarse mix).

Hope I didn't do any permanent damage - I love that tree!

Sunburn? Lightburn? Drought? Don't think it is dormancy...

{{gwi:655148}}

Thanks for any opinions...

Could be light scorch, especially since it's at the top of the
plant. I would leave it the bright light, maybe throw a piece
of cheese cloth over it for a week or so and slowly remove
it. It will appreciate that light once it gets used to it.

Caudex1 -

Thanks for the reply. I suspected that, too, but couldn't believe it. The tree was sitting right next to a ficus, an adenium and a european olive - and they are all fine. At certain parts of the day, the sun would hit the plant (in addition to the lights), basically in the spot where you see the leaf damage. At the top. Bottom looks great, and it is still pushing some growth (note the growth in the pic, above the damaged leaves on the left). Funny - it was also outside in full sun over the summer! Maybe the light (600 watt MH) and the sun combined (albeit through a skylight) was just too intense?

I don't have any cheese cloth, so I moved the plant a couple of feet down on a lower shelf. Hopefully, it will bounce back. As we move into fall, the light intensity (sun) will be decreasing in that room anyway. Then, it will be sleepytime.

The glass intensifies the sun rays, plus it doesn't have the air circulation it did outdoors.

- tom_termine

Mine has recovered very nicely. Mainly old leaves have fallen off and now a whole new set of leaves have grown out and more are coming. I have been watering it like it's still summer. I think I'll do that as long as possible since it looks like this fall it is not getting cool as quickly as last year where I am.

Based on your picture, it looks like yours was
"droughted" like mine. Just based on the way your leaves are shriveled, and how some leaves have stayed green. Looks very much like mine did. Sunburned leaves don't usually get so damaged, and when they do, the damage looks different.

I did some research on sudden drought, and I found taht it's similar to a sudden freeze in early fall. Alot of the leaves just go straight to brown. However, Opy will sacrifice the old ones and save the newer ones in emergency situations like that. But it seems that it can recover easily, though I would not "drought" it suddenly more than once a year. Last fall I let mine go dormant by reducing watering once it got cool -- which seemed to work really well. It went to sleep slowly, and leaves turned bright red before falling off. Temps where it was were reaching low 40's at night.

Possible causes of "drought":
Even though it was outside in really hot weather before I brought mine in, inside it is much drier, there is less transpiration from neighboring plants, less air circulation which can cause window sills to really heat up in direct sunlight.