Hello all, ...from Europe again :). I hope it is all right to revive this topic almost a year later. Helen, I hope your plant still thrives. I happen to have some problems with my Stromanthe that I thought were rather similar. I took some actions already, it is too early to see the results though. Then I read through all of the above comments and still not sure. I got my plant around a year ago, it was rather small, and grew rapidly. It did have some very little dry ends since the beginning, nothing major. This is how it looks now. Constantly growing new, healthy leaves, but it only takes a couple of weeks tll they all become so dry on ends. I did remove alot of leaves already. I keep the soil moist and mist leaves every day, sometimes even a couple times a day. I give it showers monthly. The humidity in my flat is usually 50%. For a long time I believed it was the humidity issue. Could it be just that? On the other hand I do have Calathea lancifolia (which I believe has similar humidity preference) and it is doing fine. Maybe there is something wrong with the soil, thought, since it was planted in all purpose soil. Yesterday I repotted into a slightly bigger pot. Got rid of most of the soil while trying not to mess with the roots too much. They looked very healthy but started to overgrow the pot. I made a new mix (sort of). Since it is very hard to get the basic ingridents here, for "base" I used store bought soil with Osmocote fertilizer and it said "super light" on the package. They do not give actual information on the ingredients here though. It only said it is a 'peat soil' and is reach with humus. I am defnitely no expert on soil, all I can say it indeed was light and soft to touch, maybe it had some peat moss in it (?) and some perlite already, not much though. This is how it looks like, different to what it was in before for sure. To that I added alot of perlte (around 40 %) and just a tiny bit of orchid mix. I planted the Stromanthe with this mix I made in terracota pot. I am not sure if I did the right thing with all that. The soil soaked up alot of water. I would be very happy if anyone could comment on that.

Yep, it's definitely dryness response... I had forgotten to water mine, and that's what happened. Causes can be being rootbound, drop in humidity, and change in environmental conditions. Its certainly not scale, mealies or spider mite. As always, look at it with a jewellers loupe, or magnifying glass... As a keen gardener, I always carry a loupe when doing my indoor/outdoor rounds. This particular phenomenon is a sugary excretion - if not noticed quickly, it dries into a sticky crystalline spot, and leaves a transparent spot on the leaf underside. I have cleaned it off with soapy water, and a fresh water wipe afterwards Any little bugs will have been attracted to these sweet secretions, they are not the cause.

5:1:1 refers to the ratios of three ingredients : 5 parts pine bark, 1 part peat, 1 part perlite/pumice. I don’t know how to link sorry but you can type in the search box at the top of the screen. Read Als article first though. Your soil looks exactly like the sort of fine stuff it’s hard to get the watering right in. The roots I can see look ok. You want them firm, whitish and not smelly. Was just wondering if you knew the humidity, you don’t have to know it exactly. Some people have gadgets measuring this, sometimes it’s part of the houses climate control system, or they run humidifiers which tell them. Here in damp New Zealand we have DEhumidifiers, so I plugged that in to check the reading, think it was 50-60% in winter, but higher in summer when we’re not heating the house which dries the air. Yours can’t be too bad, looking at your other plants.

I believe the plant is suffering from too much water. I suggest you repot it while there's still a chance: remove the soil, wash the roots, and repot in new, barely damp soil, consisting of a mix of equal amounts regular potting soil and cactus soil. Actually, I recommend searching this site for 5-1-1 soil formula; but, if you can't procure that right away, the mix I mentioned should be fine for now. In any case, try not to use any of the existing soil, just in case it harbors any pests. Be careful that the pot is not too big for the roots. Particularly if there's been some root loss due to rotting, you plant may not need as large a pot as before. Last but not least, keep it in a draft-free location with indirect light, and try to find out what the relative humidity level is around the plant - anything below 50% would probably be insufficient for this plant.