Sick or Dying Plants?
tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
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tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
7 years agoNeed2SeeGreen 10 (SoCal)
7 years agotapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a) thanked Need2SeeGreen 10 (SoCal)Related Discussions
crape myrtle sick? dying ? help please.
Comments (8)HI. This is a photo of the Miami with the Yellowing branch. Overall it is healthy, just that one branch is withering.... but it is a late bloomer... just now blooming in August. Glad to hear that Powdery Mildew or the yellowing on the Pink Velours are not major problems. We haven't had much rain but I have watered the new Pink Velour well almost every day, holding off when we did get rain. I did not apply any fertilizer to the new Pink Velour. I did apply a little Triple Phosphate to the Miami (in early July) because it still didn't have any buds at that time and had never really bloomed well. I've watered the Miami and larger pink velour once or twice a week because we haven't had much rain at all for a long stretch here in my area. Thanks for the comments. Is there anyway to avoid the Powdery Mildew? This is the first year I've seen it....See MoreHow long is too long? Dracaena marginata roots dried out ...
Comments (19)Hi I have a similar question! I went to a friends house and they were throwing a large Dracaena into the garbage. They had uprooted and left it outside in the front yard (and it was a hot day.) I immediately put it in a vase of water and took it home. Let it soak for 24 hours and replanted it today in a mix of cactus and potting soil, and watered. The stem is green underneath all the way to the soul, however the roots did seem dried out (I also think they probably were not gentle when they unpotted it.) Since the leaves have started turning brown and wilting. I pulled some dead ones off. Looks worse than when I found it. Not sure how long it was outside as the person who did it was not there. Could have been a day, pr a few days but since leaves had not totally wilted I am hoping it was for under a few days. As you can see the top looks like it is going to fall off. Just wanted to know if it has a chance? If there is anything I can do? Watering? And also if deck is best or inside for recovery (it is hot but not in direct sun out there.) Thanks! Any tips are appreciated!...See MoreI think this tree is dying and I don't know how to save it.
Comments (10)I know this is long, Heidi, but I've got personal experience with your situation. To be brief, I'm confident that this tree is not even close to death's door, and would be much better served by fixing the causes of its decline now so it can green up and be much healthier to deal with the stress of repotting next summer. In particular, your ficus was thriving until three months ago, and we know that the decline was caused by low light and poor watering, which means that fixing the root congestion and soil aren't an emergency. To be clear, gardengal is probably right that you could repot now without killing the tree, but because it would be easy to get it green again by correcting the biggest problems now, you would be best off waiting until summer to do major root work and put it in a great growing medium. Then you will be rewarded with a burst of new growth, and you'll soon be pinching growing tips and pruning to control its enthusiastic growth and tell it to fill in all those gaps left by dropped leaves. My experience: I have two smaller roughly five year old ficuses that were completely rootbound and were stuck in a dim corner. I often forgot about watering until leaves started yellowing and dropping, and the I'd fill their tall plastic 'saucers' and left the water there until they stopped soaking it up. In other words, I drowned the roots every time I watered, and maximized the amount of deadly mineral deposits in the soil. Aside from feeble attempts to maintain a few leaves, they had almost stopped growing entirely because their depleted energy reserves made them more vulnerable to attack and only allowed them to put our a few leaves at a time, and most of the buds and leaves that appeared were killed by spider mites. But these are tough plants, so they clung to life for about three years before I finally cared enough to search for answers and found these forums. I immediately started treating the mite infestation, thoroughly flushed the pots (I swear I could hear them sigh with relief), fertilized with a weak solution of Foliage Pro, which has a great ratio of basic nutrients plus all the micronutrients plants need, moved it in front of my best window, which only provides mediocre light, and added bright white (not soft white) 5000k 100W led and cfl bulbs in clamp-on fixtures. Two months later, each branch has about half a dozen new leaves, including some emerging near the stem (a sign that the tree is getting better). It's wonderful to see them getting so green, and I'm already reading up on how to prune them when they get growing again. So Heidi, if I were in your place, I'd start by checking the leaves for spider mites with a bright light and a magnifying glass (they're tiny red dots on the leaves, and you may see little bits of webs on the leaves our branches). Ask about treatment if you find any. Then I'd flush the pot (details below), fertilize with a 3:1:2 ratio fertilizer (miracle gro general purpose granules are easy to find and the right ratio), move it to the best window I had, and put two 100 or brighter led or cfl bulbs in it for 12 hours a day, using a timer. From then on, check soil moisture by pushing a sharpened 3/8" dowel all the way through to the bottom of the pot, and DO NOT WATER until the dowel comes out completely clean and dry (at that point there's still a lot of water inside the soil particles). When that happens, water until about 15% of the water exits the drain holes, let it drain, and then either tilt the pot at 45 degrees for 15-30 minutes after watering to remove excess water, or insert a wick into a drain hole and raise the pot up so the wick won't come in contact with the drained water. You can wait until the surface of the soil is dry to start checking the soil moisture, but after that you should check daily until you have a feel for how long it takes for the poor to dry up. About flushing: flush with lukewarm water, using about ten times the pot's capacity, then give it a weak solution of fertilizer. Use R/O (reverse osmosis) water if possible; water from supermarket water machines are usually $.39 per gallon, and that little pot will maybe need two or three gallons to do the job. My water is hard, so I used R/O water to flush, and because my tap water is hard I use water from my cheap faucet-mounted filter for regular watering. And the reason midsummer is the best time to do something stressful is that 1) ample summer sunlight generates much more energy from the leaves than even a lot of winter sunlight can provide, and 2) the plant is programmed to put energy into new growth in summer, whereas in winter it wants to store it for use in the spring. From several people's experience, including Al (talks), who knows whereof he speaks, if you take two healthy plants and repot one now and one next June, the second will be in better shape next fall than the one you repotted a year earlier. Sorry for my rambling post, and I hope it helps at least a little....See Morealocasia frydek leaves yellowing / dying
Comments (26)Need2SeeGreen -- I just got the mixes in today and they appear to be all the right sizes and are pre-sifted. The only bummer is I believe there is a little bit of sapwood in the bag of bark (but not in the gritty mix) -- the light colored bits. Should I pick those out when I make the 5-1-1? There's not a ton of them, but I remember reading most recommend removing it. For 5-1-1, I got bonsaijack's pre-sifted bark and perlite, and I'll buy the peat and lyme locally. For gritty, I just did a "custom mix" on their site as it was cheaper for 3.5 gallons "custom" mix than buying the ingredients from their site individually (go figure!). This way I was able to get the exact ingredients. I wanted the granite because it's heavy (my Jades need heavy mix to hold them up!). If you're looking for something light-weightm, the bonsaijack succulent mix appears identical except instead of granite it contains "Bonsai Block" (calcined clay), and it's suppose to be very light weight. If you have a ton of plants buying from them will probably be prohibitively expensive, but for my smaller apartment plants it was worth it! I'm making up my 5-1-1 mix this weekend and repotting, and will keep this thread updated so others can learn from my experience with the alocasia frydek and if repotting it fixes it! (it's still losing 1-2 leaves a week). Gritty "custom" mix (bark fines, pearlite, Turface) --- pre-sifted perlite (for my 5-1-1): --- Pre-sifted pine bark fines -- Not sure if I need to pick out the lighter bits?...See MoreS H
7 years agotapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
7 years agotapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
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7 years agotapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
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