It's pissed off for some reason... We will get to the bottom of this... Cool looking plant though. Adding it to the want list now!

~~gabe

Thanks, Gabe. There were only a few at my local nursery and I grabbed one before they sold out. They are very difficult to find in my area, so I really want to make sure it is doing ok! : ) All of the peperomia varieties have such unique looking foliage.

Thank you, Al. While I tried to make my potting soil less water retentive by adding a quarter perlite, I guess soggy soil could be the problem (perched water at bottom perhaps?) It happened just after repotting when I gave it a good watering. I wonder if I leave it alone to dry out for a bit if that will help? It is in a west facing window, which should help I hope.

The peperomia roots I noticed are not as thick and long as other house plants like pothos, etc., so I should have known better. Thanks for your reply. Now I know what this is!

So in other words, Al, It's pissed off... haha jk. I love the science you bring to my plant world!! the best =)

Your best bet is to use a more appropriate medium. If that's not in the picture, do water correctly, but use tricks that can help you reduce the amount of water your soil can hold. You can use ballast even in very small pots to good advantage, tip the pot, use a wick, ......

Read about additional trickery you can employ to help lessen the limitations imposed by too much water in the root zone. Even though it won't reverse the damage already done, it will go a long way toward preventing it from happening again. Once you get to the point where you can water w/o the act being inherently limiting, things get a lot easier and more rewarding.

B - the more we know about how plants function and how to provide the conditions they like, the more reward we'll get for our efforts, so learning all you can is a good investment. Just think, plants are supposed to be relaxing and relieve stress, so we prolly don't want to be tearing our hair out when things go awry. I'm glad you find the science part of some value.

Al

Thank you, Al! The tipping method, I know I can do! : ) In fact, I've been doing it with my snake plants, not realizing what exactly I was doing.

It would probably be too stressful for the plant to re-pot at this point, but I saw a post where you had a recommended mix. Do you have a link, or the name of the forum where I might find it? Next season, I'll switch from the Miracle Gro (not to bash, but something just doesn't feel right about it--lots of moisture right out of the bag). Or would a half-half peat-perlite mix for indoor tropicals be acceptable, in your opinion? I promise I won't bother you again, but as B says, we learn so much from you!

It's not a bother at all. Adding 50% peat to an otherwise unacceptably water-retentive soil is helpful, but you can see it's only marginally effective, even using only the mind's eye./ If you start with a very water retentive soil, and mix it with half perlite, what exactly is accomplished? We know that there is still enough fine particles in the mix to entirely fill the spaces between the perlite particles, so aeration and drainage aren't improved. The primary benefit of adding large volumes of perlite to heavy (water-retentive) media comes from the fact that perlite isn't internally porous, so it takes up space that would otherwise be occupied by fine particles and filled with water. IOW, it acts as ballast. In order to maximize the benefit perlite can offer, you would need to screen out the fine particles and use a volume of screened perlite sufficient to ensure there would be an insufficient volume of fine particles to fill all the air spaces between the perlite particles, and that would be somewhere in the range of 80% screened perlite.

Larger volumes of perlite are helpful because they reduce the volume of water a soil CAN hold, and that allows better aeration to return to a larger fraction of the soil faster; but as noted, it doesn't help much with drainage or aeration unless its volume is greater than the threshold % it takes to ensure all the spaces between the perlite particles aren't filled with fine material. Perlite also doesn't reduce the ht of the perched water column (depth of the saturated soil after a full saturation) until it reaches the threshold level where the air spaces between perlite particles aren't entirely filled by fine matter.

Pine bark and perlite are almost made for each other. Perlite and peat, mixed, can't offer near the drainage/aeration potential of a perlite pine bark mix. The perlite particles, even small ones, wedge between the flat bark pieces, creating very large pockets of air that don't occur in peat or other fine particles. That allows you to add either bark fines or peat back into the mix to adjust water retention, and still have a LOT of air porosity at container capacity (medium fully saturated).

You don't need to worry about what's acceptable to me. I'm good with whatever you decide is right for you. I'm not here to criticize your choices, rather, I am here to provide the information you and others need to weigh the cost of materials, time, and effort against the potential gains. If someone tells you Miracle-Gro et al similar offer potential equal or similar to a soil designed to minimize excess water retention (perched water), that's a conversation I want to be a part of. Being able to go a week or two between waterings is convenient, but the convenience comes at a cost. I point out the cost or lost potential, and you decide what best fits your needs. There should be no surprise in the idea that what best suits the grower and what best suits the plant are more often than not, mutually exclusive.

BTW - that tip about holding the pot over a sink, lowering it, then sharply reversing direction to upward is a VERY good way to rid smaller pots of excess water. I use it ALL THE TIME on small starts - especially cuttings.

Al

Must find this pine bark. I always thought peat held a lot of water and wondered why nurseries use it. But those plants are grown under ideal conditions, so I guess that's why it's not a problem. And pots are always small, it seems like, so I guess the roots take in moisture quickly.

Thank you for your generous responses and for educating us all!

hello I live in Oklahoma and found this plant that I had been looking for now about 25 years.Had one in California and my favorite.I have this plant now 6 months and growing crazy but it had brown spots like the other post.So what should I do.It has lots of new growth on it

Is it pot bound perhaps?