Help with Wilting Aralia

10 years ago

Hi there,

I'm very worried about my beautiful Aralia stump. I believe it's a Fabian or Balfour. I'm not sure which as online research has not been easy with this plant. I've had it for 2 years and only last summer I saved it from the clutches of death by mealy bugs by re potting, flushing and trimming. I was so relived and now mysteriously it is sick again.

I noticed a bunch of drooping wilted leaves a week ago. It turned out to be the entire branch (1 of 5 branches), which seemed shriveled and dead, so i amputated it. I thought it might be root rot so I pulled it out of its soil and had a look. White thick roots and lots of little hairy roots. Nothing black or squishy. It's winter in Canada but my windows aren't drafty. It is dry in here and my window sill is right above the heat vents. This window receives low indirect light but it has always been in the sill and ok.

All of the leaves are a medium green colour, are very soft to the touch and seem too heavy to stand up. I usually wait for the plant to dry out quite a bit before watering. I had been putting a few drops of fertilizer in one a month, which seemed to help it spring back. I don't think I overwatered it but I can't be sure. The soil was slightly moist at the base after weeks of not watering.

So last night I moved it to a sunnier window also over a radiator, got a humidifier and sprayed the plant with water. It seemed really dry in the morning so I have it a little water and sun. After work the plant looks terrible. Everything is drooping. All the leaves are green. And the other branches are not as firm as I'd like.

I've been through a lot with this plant. I don't want it to die and I have no idea what's wrong with it. Help me please.

Other specs: it's in a soiless mixture and it's not a pest infestation.

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Comments (5)

Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
10 years ago
Hi & welcome to Gardenweb! Sorry your plant is ailing. From what you said, these are the important clues.

"my window sill is right above the heat vents."
This sounds like it's getting directly blasted with hot, dry air occasionally. Plants don't like that, intermittently, in a generally cold room.

"The soil was slightly moist at the base after weeks of not watering."
This sounds like the roots have rotted and are unable to deliver moisture to the plant. So the foliage wilts. Adding more water won't help that, just exacerbate it. 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.

If there are no tiny particles in a pot, it will dry soooo much faster. People who lose plants because they forget to water would have a hard time with this, but if you're the more common 'overwatering' type, which it sounds like you are from reading about your Aralia, 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.

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 one visibly ill (which it usually does over time.)

Due to genetic reasons, these Aralias have been renamed Schefflera. Your plant's correct name (for today anyway,) is probably Schefflera elegantissima 'Cultivar name here.' That gives us more clues about its' preferences. Mainly, that the roots can't survive sitting in soggy, dense, airless soil (if we didn't already know that when it was Aralia.) To fix that, we need to give them something much more chunky, porous, airy. Most plants can survive getting too dry once in a while. OTOH, getting soppy wet too often and taking forever to dry out is fatal to most.

More light sounds like a good idea. I have several cultivars of S. elegantissima that grow outside, with the sun hitting them for a few hours in the afternoon. Another pot that is an east windowsill, so direct sun for a few hours in the morning.

I would encourage you to paste what you've written into a post on the house plant forum, to gather all of the excellent advice possible there. This informative post there will make it an easy trip via a click. (At the top of the post will be a link to the house plant forum page.) If you can add a pic, you'll get even more specific advice. Sending good vibes!
Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
10 years ago
*checking after typing isn't the best, I think I spoke incorrectly above about it being renamed to Schefflera, sorry. Your plant may be Polyscias. A pic would also help to ID it.
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Thanks for providing the additional pix. I'm sorry I don't know what to suggest. I've never seen any of these grown w/ this moss /sod layer yours has. These plants can be prone to root rot & it's hard to tell w/out unpotting it, which I don't suggest. But I've seen these bare stems on cases of it before. You could scratch the bare stems & see if you see green or brown below. Anything dry or brittle can be cut off. As to the root rot, do you have any long, thin dowel? Something you can insert all the way down into the mix like a garden stake & then pull it up & smell the dirt that comes up with it? That MAY help check for that w/out unpotting it. Lena
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Have you checked soil moisture in the original rootball? Sometimes the peat-based planting mix dries out and then it doesn't rewet easily. A long slow soak with the hose might help if this is the issue, or remove it and soak the root ball until it stops bubbling and then replant. Actually stick your finger in there to figure out if the rootball is dry. Alternatively, maybe it's planting shock and giving it temporary shade (I often use a lawn chair) will help it acclimatize. Particularly if plants have not been outdoors before planting, the sun can be too much.
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More than likely, too much sun and not enough water. Mine is a volunteer seedling that I brought from South Florida when we moved to Colorado. It was in a south-facing window for months and not really doing well; looked like yours. I moved it to a west-facing window that only gets sun for a few hours in the afternoon, gave it a bit more water and it's doing fine.
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This plant does not like wet feet; so, if you're going to use a medium that holds an excessive amount of water (like yours does), and you want to maximize your plant's opportunity to realize as much of its genetic potential as possible, you'll need to put in place a strategy that serves as a work-around to the excess water. Better though, would be to simply make a medium that can't hold excess water; this, because it automatically comes with the superior aeration your plant would so appreciate. If that's not in the cards, the links that follow will give you plenty of tips on how to mitigate a medium's tendency to hold more water than is good for the plant. E.g., you can water so the soil is fully saturated and water runs freely from the drain. You can then hold your planting over the sink and move it up and down. You'll immediately notice that on the reversal from downward to upward motion, water in the pot continues to move downward ant out of the drain. Had you known this and borrowed the science from Newton's first law of motion, your plant would be much better for it. Pay extra close attention to using ballast for plantings too large to lug to the sink and wrestle with. It removes excess water, nearly all of it, passively; so no effort on your part after you've properly put the planting together to make use of whatever you choose for ballast. Dealing with water-retentive media. Using ballast to limit water retention. Al
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Help with Wilting Aralia

Comments (5)

Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL

Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL

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