off to google Jeff Searles....thanks cear! starry-you know...I have been finding that out over the years. It is very disappointing! Hi walli! Good to see you again. I have not been here in awhile. Got my spanish moss hanging from my trees...still envious of all yours up there in deLand! Ok, so, you are saying home depot in delray? I definitely want it as an indoor houseplant. I want a nice woven basket pot...going for that "1970s" vibe in my 1970s ranch house we are renovating! I mean...we aren't putting in orange shag carpeting or wood paneling or avocado colored appliances, lol...just like a little sprinkling of that look. :) thanks again guys...post if you see this tree anywhere in particular...I am going to call the HD in Delray.

Plants have their own sense of time that isn't measured by the hour hand on a clock, rather, day length (technically it's the length of the dark period) is what the plant pays attention too. When the day length signals the plant to grow, and other cultural conditions allow it to grow normally, your plant should from that point forward start producing healthy growth. It can't 'repair' the damaged growth, though that will eventually be shed and forgotten as the plant grows. What you're seeing is probably the result of an ongoing shedding process that may well have been instigated by conditions that affected the plant even before you acquired it. Your very best coursed of action is to make a good plan that A) ensures good root health B) takes advantages the plants more robust periods and makes allowances for when the plant would be better off without extra human generated stress C) has you ensuring cultural conditions in the area of light, temperature, and nutrition that subject the plant to the lowest level of stress you can comfortably manage. Fortunately, these things are much easier than they sound, but it's not realistic to expect to see the results of your efforts in a month or two. Choose a course, stick by it, be patient. If the course is a good one, your plant will cooperate. If it's not, it will let you know. Al

Hi g8trgirl5 and Al! I was just about to make a thread with almost all of the same issues. I hope it's okay if I add onto this thread instead of making my own since this situation seems similar to mine. I've been reading Al's posts on watering and soil and think I probably need to repot too. I've only had my tree (really, three different stalks in one pot) for a week and a half. I got it from Home Depot and I could see a few brown spots on leaves of one of the stalks but the rest of the stalks looked healthy. After bringing it home, I only gave it a "sip" of water as the soil seemed moist when I did the dowel test (with a bamboo knitting needles). The browning of the leaves has spread significantly over the past few days. This was one of the stalks 4 days ago: Today: A couple of the bottom leaves fell when I touched them, and the browning has begun on the other stalks. Now that it has dried out, I'm planning to water it thoroughly by flushing it out in the tub with water and tilting it to try to get this moisture-retaining soil to drain. Maybe the soil has accumulated too much salt. Should I fertilize it with Dynagro 9-3-6 after watering? Could this browning be the plant going into shock from the move to my apartment? I'm also worried that the browning is due to root rot from this soil. If this is root rot, should I repot it into the gritty mix or the 5-1-1 mix? I would completely get rid of the soil it is in (which looks similar to the picture the OP posted). Does it matter whether I use a clay, glazed ceramic, or plastic pot? As for light conditions, I have it near bay windows with very bright but filtered light from the West and Northwest. I'm in San Antonio (Zone 8 - south/central Texas). Should I take it out onto our shaded walkway/balcony after repotting? What direction should should it face? It frequently reaches 100 degrees F here, so I am worried that this summer heat might be too hot. Finally, I am also thinking to separate the three plants into three pots. What size pot should I use? My apologies for all of these questions, and my sincere thanks to anyone who can help answer them!

Thanks for the kind words! If you live in the USA, June is usually the best month for repotting, which is considerably more involved than potting up. You can pot up anytime, but potting up is a half measure which only partially alleviates the considerable stress associated with root congestion, and ensures the plant will remain limited in its ability to function until a pair of human hands gets into the middle of the root mass to correct the congestion and problem roots - roots that cross; grow straight up, down, or back toward the center of the root mass; and roots which are circling, girdling, or j-hooked. As you might have gleaned from the link I provided, water/moisture management is a critical part of care regimens for plants in pots. You can easily monitor moisture levels deep in the pot by using a "tell". More here: Using a 'tell' Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need plenty of air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support the kind of root health most growers would like to see; and, a healthy root system is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips leads to avoid over-watering leads to a residual build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil from tapwater and fertilizer solutions, which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma. It creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor. In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water. Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'. One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) would work better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half and serve as a pair. Sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell comes out dry or nearly so. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue. Al