Black leaves is a defiinite sign of overwatering. Watering as you do, on a schedule, every Saturday is giving the plant far more water than it can use. You haven't said whether it drains well. The saucer below I assume is rather large as well and what do you do with the drained water there--does it sit in there for extended times. it should be dumped within minutes after allwing for a full drain. If left there too long, it invites such water to be drawn back up to the roots that have just rid itself of. Fertilizer: do you fertilize your ficus and how often. By watering as you do, every week, chances are the soil never gets to dry down between waterings. You may notice the soil is not wet.....but I suspect the roots are very wet and if, as I suspect as well, this watering method has built up water around the roots to the extent they are drowning and beginning...maybe in the late stages of rotting. When the process of rotting begins, the roots, surrounded by water, stops being able to take up nourishment. Even when surrounded by water, no water is being drawn up to the plant's tissue. The leaves soon die and turn black. Sixty-two degrees poses no problem...it would rather like such temperature as long as the leaves do not touch the cold window glass. The blackening of leaves would not appear so abruptly if it were ...say...near a window or door that is constantly being opened and closed. If the majority of your plant's leaves are ...as you say...then I am afraid there is not enough time to reverse the damage. I don't know how you feel about tackling the job of unearthing it, inspecting the roots for damage. This involves moving the plant to a place where it can be removed from the container. Many newspapers spread out or a plastic dropsheet might be used. The first sign of rotting will come from the smell. If this is the case, then you have no choice but to cut back as you have to to retain healthy roots. Soil there is undoubtedly soggy and must be replaced. Then you can examine whether the bottom of the container has what will keep the soil up away from the drainage holes when you water. Shards of clay works well. A little bit of "No Damp" a fungicide,added to water will help kill any bacteria which is adding to the rotting of the roots. Follow directions on bottle. It is recommended that when using, warm water be used. Standard potting mix is OK to replace soil with. Back into the room that can provide good light. Usually Ficus likes bright light, no direct sun, but at this time of season it should be put in such direct light to achieve some sort of intensity. A southern or western exposure would be your best bet.

It is probably too late to do anything now. The time to winterize was right after the grass stopped growing and before the first frost. I'm thinking you're having a pretty good "frost" right now up there, because we are almost getting it in Texas. Similarly, the time to seed was in the fall, not in the upcoming spring. If you try to seed in the spring, you will end up with a lot of crabgrass by July. I would watch it over the winter and check back with the current condition of the grass in early March. There is something you can do now, which won't hurt anything and might help with your disease. Corn meal is an organic approach to disease control. One of the early decomposers of corn is a fungus called Trichoderma (try ko DER ma). Trichoderma is a predatory fungus which preys on other fungi...like pythium. It is also a weak, but not insignificant, organic fertilizer. I used corn meal exclusively for many years when the cost was down around $3 for a 50-pound bag. It was only when the price went above $10 that I changed to alfalfa pellets. Invariably, though, I use some corn meal every year for my own fungal disease control. The application rate is 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet or (10 kilos per 100 square meters). You can use more and not hurt a thing. You can put it down now or wait until the snow melts. I am also hearing more and more about using a simple soap as a non-chemical approach to fungal disease control. Yes I realize soap is a chemical but it not the deadly, harsh, fungicides you see on the market. I'm talking about baby shampoo or any other clear shampoo. These are very simple soaps without any antibacterial qualities. The application rate is 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet (roughly 3 ounces per 100 square meters). You can use 2x, 4x or more and it won't hurt a thing. This should be sprayed on the grass, not snow. The soap will also help with your drainage, because it allows water to penetrate deeper into the soil. Now the question is what to do about the grass in the spring. There are a lot of magical, unexplainable things that happen to the soil and lawns in the cold of winter. If you have a blend of grasses, then there's a great chance the disease will be gone no matter what you do. Also there is a reasonable chance the grass will return by itself where it is brown now. Do not jump the gun on fertilizing. Spring grass will grow like gangbusters in the spring. The time to fertilize is after the grass stops the really fast growth. You and your lawn mower will know when that is. Usually it is in May to late May. Then, if you are using chemical fertilizers, you can fertilize. If you are using organic fertilizers, like alfalfa pellets, you can fertilize any time, but you still don't need to help it along early. For example if you don't do anything you'll likely have to mow every 5 days. If you fertilize with chemicals you'll likely have to mow every 2-3 days to keep it from getting too tall before mowing again. If you use an organic fertilizer, the growth won't be as spectacular as with chemicals, but you will likely notice a little extra boost. Your watering regimen sounded good to me. Once per week is the max for the hottest part of summer. Of course Mother Nature helps out, too. With temps below 70 you should not water more frequently than once a month. When you do water apply a full inch. Use cat food or tuna cans to measure the time it takes your sprinklers to fill them up. That's your target. Mine takes 8 full hours to fill the cans. My neighbor's system takes 20 minutes. Every system is different. When the temps get into the 70s you can move to once every 3 weeks. Temps in the 80s you can water every other week. If you ever get temps in the 90s then go to every 7 days. Always apply the full inch unless you've had rain, and then just supply the rest of the inch you didn't get from rain. The reason for this deep and infrequent watering is to allow the surface of the soil to completely dry out before you water again. Weed seeds are on the surface and need continual moisture to germinate. If you deprive them of that, then you won't have weeds. It also helps to keep the grass mowed up at least 3.5 inches. Tall grass needs less water than short grass. Tall grass grows deeper roots to get that deep water you're applying. Tall grass shades out any weed seedlings that might germinate and helps suppress them or shade them out altogether. Tall grass does not grow any faster than short grass. I'm out of ideas...somehow that seems like the info was scattered all over the map, but that's all the more clear my brain is working right now. Hope that helps.

I've had a Dieffenbachia plant that started life as a High School Biology Project. I am about to turn 60. It has been up to the ceiling several times in it's existence. I have to air layer it about every 3 years for that reason. It produces babies around it's base as well as propagating new ones from the left over stem after air layering. It started in mid west Kansas and has moved to Oklahoma, Missouri, California and now South Texas. I think mine is immortal since it hasn't died or even been sick in all this time. Perhaps it's longevity is due to being named (Ralph) and is spoken to daily...

G - for some reason your most recent post shows up in the 'Activity' tab on my user page, but not here. I sort of deduced you were in some manner a part of the medical care community by way of your phraseology. Edited to say: The lost post showed up around 5PM Christmas Eve - strange, that. .... I always find it fascinating to see evidence of how our physiology and pathophysiology is really not that fundamentally different from our green relatives. Like how animals will occasionally find walling off (like plants do in CODIT) to be the most viable - or only - way to control an infection (e.g. abscesses or TBC granulomas). Or the whole thing about the ability to fend off (opportunistic) infections/infestations as a function of overall vitality levels you reference over and over. I see many similarities as well, even with my pitifully limited knowledge compared to yours, and it makes me tend to want to draw parallels and comparisons between plants and animals. The problem with doing that, even if the equivalence offers a path to instant understanding, is, a lot of folks know what anthropomorphism is and have often point to it as a logical fallacy. I often refer to and get away with using phrases like 'plant central and its chemical messengers' because it saves a ton of writing and I'm pedantic enough as it is. I use those terms to convey the idea that, for the most part, plants' responses to their world are more orderly (until they can't be) than it would seem. To illustrate that I'm intentionally being anthropomorphic, I usually recognize it in advance by setting the word/phrase apart with "quotes" or an 'apostrophe', which seems to work reasonably well. But to get back to the topic at hand: Yes ....... "Older plants that become infected often remain viable for a period after infection but usually die. Often, seemingly healthy basal shoots or leaves will occur, only to collapse from the infection after a short time when the pathogen spreads systemically into the new growth." That's the most fitting description of what I have seen happening with my plant. And while you have avoided spelling it out so far (or well, maybe you did: "followed by involvement and death of the whole organism") my conclusion is that what I have at hand is a systemic infection that is too advanced now to be controlled. Sooo, aside from sitting the plant under some lights and hoping for a miracle I guess I should look at getting another set of cuttings from the mother plant for a second try... I'm not sure what additional info you're looking for, but: For vascular wilt diseases, think of the xylem as where the battle takes place. Vascular wilts can also be bacterial or caused by water molds (oomycetes). Usually the pathogen enters through a compromised root or through cracks that often form at root laterals, but there are several other POEs, like stomata, hydathodes, insect penetrations, grafting, notching, poor pruning practices ..... Even though both xylem and phloem are accessible to the pathogen, and the phloem is rich in sugars, it usually 'chooses' xylem tracheary elements that provide a nutritionally poor environment. It's widely thought that this occurs because the high osmotic pressure of living phloem cells makes penetration difficult. Symptoms of the disease are usually made manifest acropetally, which is why I wasn't convinced the disease was localized in the termination of the foliage. Which leads me to my next set of questions: - Can these fungal pathogens survive outside a host for some time? Definitely. Spores can survive (even over-winter outdoors) in soil, plant debris, dead host tissues (bark, .....) an infected water source, in insect vectors. Spores can also form a hard mass that includes a food source, and the pathogen can survive as mycelium/ hyphae. As in: Can I reuse the pot and soil mix for the new cuttings or do I have to treat them in some way beforehand (with heat for example)? Right now I feel like just letting them dry out completely should suffice. Given the persistence of the pathogen, you shouldn't reuse the soil or the pot w/o treating it. I would clean the pot thoroughly and soak in a .05% solution of water/sodium hyperchlorite (9 parts water: 1 part household bleach @ 5.25% so-hypo). Rinse thoroughly and allow to dry in full sun. You can reuse the soil w/o worry about fungal infections if you bring a pot of water to a boil, add the soil, cover the pot, return water to a boil, turn the burner off and allow to cool w/o removing the lid, strain, allow to dry. - Can you give me a quick reminder for the correct handling of cuttings? I remember the following: Make clean cuts with a sharp blade to avoid jagged or crushed edges (another parallel to human medicine) and sprinkle the cuts with cinnamon. Best to use something razor sharp - I'm thinking scalpels, for you. I normally use a straight edge razor blade (I buy in boxes of 100) or any of 3 high carbon steel tools I keep sharp on a 3,000 grit water stone to way beyond shaving sharp. For better results, skip the cinnamon - flowers of sulfur is widely available and much more effective as a fungicide. No need to use anything else on propagules if you're using a rooting aid that includes a prophylactic fungicide. Be sure to include at least one node of the trunk for each cutting. Depending on the distance between nodes, 2-3 nodes beneath the soil line is best. At least 2 nodes above the soil line is a good call, too. If one of the distal nodes fail to push a branch from the leaf axil, you have a spare/spares. If you want a single stem and you see more than one axillary branch, rub one off after roots are established enough that you won't be breaking a bunch of roots if the propagule is disturbed, rub one axillary branch off (or snip with sharp scissors) and retain the preexisting leaf for the time being (food factory). I use mostly gritty mix for cuttings, and the uppermost of the nodes covered by soil will tend toward going dry unless the propagule is tented, you're diligent about spritzing (the soil) to keep the top moist, or you covering it (soil). I often cut a slit in Al foil and fashion a loose cover from that in order to ensure the entire soil mass remains moist. If ever you're using a medium that supports a perched water column, please to be sure the proximal end of the propagule is not submerged in the perched water (hypoxia/ anoxia). Cut leaves in half to reduce foliage that has to be supported. This is often a judgment call, but it's better to err on the side of too much reduction of foliage rather than not enough. The drought stress can cause abscission of ALL of the foliage, which is very counterproductive and to be avoided. You'll often hear that NO foliage should be removed, but those with a long history of repotting and propagation know that you have to be able to adjust your thinking at times, so there is no hard/fast rule when it comes to adjusting the volume of foliage to arrive at the desired end. Plant immediately in soil (I'll use the 5:1:1 mix now) and water daily until enough roots have formed. Hold back fertilizer until there's new growth. Depending on the plant material, it's sometimes better to wait for callus to form over the wound before you stick the propagule. For instance, dormant deciduous cuttings, most evergreen cuttings, and a good measure of succulents do best by waiting an appropriate interval for that plant. I've pruned Aeonium in Feb and left the snippings on a paper towel on the basement work bench. Roots grew from the stems and the snippings too right off in mid-May when I decided they'd earned the right to remain viable by virtue of their mulishness. After taking the cuttings I won't be able to plant them for a day and I'll have to transport them. What would be the best way to handle that? Wrap the cut ends in a clean paper towel? Dry or wet? A moist paper towel in a bag or simply lay the cuttings on their side and cover with the moistened medium you intend to use. Whew! You really made me think!I hope that was what you were looking for. Al