Majesty palms dont really like being indoors for the most part. They can sucessfully stay indoors but they must be misted if your house is dry, and watered pretty well. My majesty palm looks pretty healthy except that the newest frond might not be opening fully. Im getting a little concerned, but Im going to buy a water spritzer and hopefully it will hang in until spring. Good luck! -Alex

I'm not an expert however I live in So. CA, Zone 10B. Our roses also grow most of the year. I prune my roses in late December or early January. Black spot can't be cured however you can minimize it's effect. If you don't mind chemicals, Bayer Advanced for roses has helped me fight the black spot problem. If your roses are blooming, I'd recommend waiting until December to prune them back. If they aren't blooming I'd prune them severely to about 18 to 24 inches above ground. If all you are left with is canes after pruning, you can jump start leaf production with one application of 10-10-10 general flower liquid or granular fertilizer. After that, I would use any liquid or granular fertilizer specifically for roses. There are a few systemic products for roses like Bayer Advanced that include fertilizer. Good luck

The soil is all wrong. Gravel at the bottom of the pot doesn't improve drainage, and actually makes things worse. The same goes for sand. Remove the plant from the pot and toss the old soil. Get all the old soil off the roots and let the rootball dry out for a week or two. You want it completely dry. Don't worry, this won't hurt the plant. It stores a lot of water in the trunk. Next, the soil. There are a couple ways to approach this. Since you're growing indoors, the "gritty mix" is ideal if you can find all the ingredients (see here: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/2842847/container-soils-water-movement-and-retention-xxii?n=99). If you cannot find those ingredients, mix potting soil with perlite (or pumice, whichever you can find) in a 50/50 ratio. Finally, planting. The pot you're using looks about the right size. Repot the plant with whatever soil mix you chose. I'd plant a bit higher than you have it in the photo, with the roots just below the soil line. Do not top-dress it with gravel (holds in moisture) and don't water it for another two weeks. Even then, water sparingly until you see new leaves emerging, and in the future don't water until the soil has been completely dry for at least a couple of weeks. Indoors these plants don't use a lot of water. I have one outdoors in a pot here in CA and I water it *maybe* once a month. Final note on soil. People will come along after me and say you have to use the gritty mix and you should not use soils based on organics under any circumstances. That's not exactly true. The advantage of the gritty mix is that you have less risk of overwatering, which is the biggest danger for people new to container plants. So if you can make the gritty mix, I would do it. If you don't have time or the ingredients aren't available, don't worry, just use the soil/perlite mix, water very infrequently and you should be fine.

Hi, I've never had any Echeverias, but those roots just don't look healthy to me. I would say your plant was drowning in a mix that is too water retentive. Going forward, I would get rid of all that dressing you had on top of the soil. It traps water inside the soil, prevents evaporation, and keeps oxygen out. Truthfully, I would chuck it and start all over again. But, it seems that you are embracing the challenge of saving this one plant (I love doing that sometimes). If I were you and really wanted to save it, I would get a small bag of perlite, and plant that rooted stem in a small container with 100% perlite. Yes, perlite floats, and it's not perfect, but it will let oxygen get to the roots, and will give it a chance too come back to life. This would only be a temporary thing, until the roots have had a chance to bounce back to life. I have saved a couple of hopeless cases by doing that