Help with snake plant! (Mushy leaf!)
Sukran Bahar Sener
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
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tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
4 years agoSukran Bahar Sener
4 years agoRelated Discussions
sans leaf mushy?
Comments (7)Sans roots tend to be orange, at least for the kind I have. Breaking them is not a problem. More will grow, and I usually remove at least half of them on purpose anyway when repotting. If there are any that are mushy, get rid of them - those are rotting. Root rot = mushy roots. If there is some kind of sour odor, that's not good - somethings's decomposing. Hopefully it was something in the old soil, not your plant. Let it get VERY dry before watering again, the fresh soil should help. Did you wash off the old soil before repotting? If not, you may want to do that, then let it dry for a day or two before putting it back in its' pot. Let the soil get dry every time before you water when it's cooler. Only when it's in tons of sun and heat will it need much water, but at no time will it tolerate sitting in soggy, stagnant soil....See Moremushy leaves killing one leaf at a time!
Comments (4)Stush knows way more about Sans than I do, but I think a watering or temperature issue is more likely than a pathogen, or is at least the root of a problem if it is a pathogen. I recently learned with a little experiment that heat is the most important element to growing Sans. Your room is too cool for it to grow, so it isn't using any water. Under those conditions, even a 50:50 mix will retain too much moisture, and the "moist zone" of your water meter is almost certainly too wet. I lost 3 of 4 Bantel's Sensation offsets before I learned this lesson. You might check my post titled "what a difference a little heat makes" to see for yourself how heat affects sans, and a cheap way to warm them in a cool room. Different cultivars are easier or harder to grow, also. Those with lots of variegation, e.g., less deep green tissue, don't have as much chlorophyll and therefore grow more slowly and are more susceptible to rot. Bantel's Sensation, Silver Hahnii, and Golden Hahnii are just three common cultivars that are more challenging to grow. If you don't know your cultivar, a photo would help. You might have a particularly tough one. If I encountered the problem you're having, I'd 1st take Stush's advice, but I'd also forego the water meter and let the plant all but dry out. I use a bamboo skewer to test my soil. I stick it all the way down to the bottom of the pot, wait a few seconds, then pull it up. When a Sans isn't actively growing, the skewer should just feel cool to your upper lip or cheek about halfway up the height of the pot. That means there's just barely enough moisture to keep the root hairs from shriveling up. I have a large Sans in less-than-ideal soil and too cool over the winter. To prevent rot, I use a strong stream from a squirt bottle to shoot a few streams right down into the soil every couple months or so (depends on your humidity, etc.). The moisture is quickly dispersed in the soil without me ever having to soak any part of it. When the weather warms up, I'll have to soak the plant in a bucket a few minutes to rehydrate any peat that has become hydrophobic from drying too much, but the squirt method kept it from rotting over the cold, damp winter (70% humidity and 55-65 degrees). Hope those ideas help, and you don't lose your plant....See MorePlease help!! Split Leaf Philodendron - yellowing, mushy leaves
Comments (10)Susan - Tiffany is pointing you in the right direction with her comments pertaining to root health. You simply can't hope for a healthy plant unless you can provide an environment conducive to a healthy root system; and even if you could make every other cultural factor that influences your plant perfect, it wouldn't make up for or counteract the limitations imposed by a sick roots. Using rocks as a drainage layer can be counter-productive or it can be helpful, depending on what's going on in the bottom of the pot. Used as a drainage layer, they are almost certainly counter-productive. Used as ballast, they can range from somewhat helpful to very helpful, depending on how they are situated in the pot. I'll try to illustrate with a little science. In the picture above, PWT means perched water table. Perched water is water the soil holds so tightly, it won't drain from the pot by the force of gravity alone. Most commercially prepared soils hold from 3-6" of perched water, meaning that if you water fully, until water is exiting the drain hole, after the pot stops draining, the bottom of the pot is fully saturated with water. Since water and nutrient uptake is energy driven and requires oxygen, you can easily imagine what effect the lack of oxygen has on root function. If you add a "drainage layer" water simply perches in the soil above the drainage layer (see the middle picture). Obviously, that's worse than the first picture because there is considerably less 'healthy' soil for the roots to use in the middle pic than in the first pic. Using ballast correctly reduces the amount of soil that the PWT can occupy. There is less soggy soil, so less excess water in the picture with ballast than in either picture, so even more ballast would be helpful. The problem is, the ballast doesn't fix the soil that causes the excess water to be retained. It just uses physics to reduce the amount of excess water the soil CAN hold. Are you still with me? What we CAN do, if you're up for it, is put together a strategy that will help you rid your planting of SOME of the limitations causing the problems that are related to water retention. The links that Tiffany left are good primers and can provide something of a framework of knowledge that can be expanded upon. With a little effort, you can very quickly learn to avoid all the most common pitfalls that bring people here, looking for help. I don't want to assume anything, so I'll keep an eye out for a reply and what you think of what I said. Thanks for the referral (thread you linked to), Tiff. ;-) I DO notice when you do that, and want you to know I appreciate it. Al...See MoreHelp with snake plant turning mushy!
Comments (38)Plant Lady, Seems you have a disease. There are a few that could spell disaster for you. One is Anthracnose of Sansevieria trifasciata. "This pathogen is host specific to Sansevieria and will not infect other crops. This disease first appears as small brown spots that often looked water soaked. As the disease progresses these spots will become increasingly larger and have the ability to completely stretch across the entire leaf. Dr. Norman’s research is showing that preventative sprays of these chemicals are effective at controlling Sansevieria anthracnose: Pageant, Heritage, Torque, Concert, thiophanate methyl, Affirm, Palladium, Disarm, Cease and Milstop. This typically isn’t a crop that needs to be sprayed and might present an opportunity to pick up some extra chemical sales in the south. There is no cure for this disease, prevention only so staying on top of this disease is key." Second is red spider mites. "It is better to use 3 in rotation if you want to eradicate them. Some good ones are Floramite, Avid, Pylon, Forbid, and Akari." You have to inspect the ends very carefully to see if it is mites or even something like meales. Myself, I would buy some cheap mouth wash with alcohol and make sure it does not have fluoride in it, some do. Mix a spoonful of Baking Soda in and shake well and spray down the plants in question. May help....See Morehc mcdole
4 years agotapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
4 years agolast modified: 4 years agoKaren S. (7b, NYC)
4 years agolast modified: 4 years agoSukran Bahar Sener
4 years agoStush2049 Pitts. PA, zone 6
4 years agoStush2049 Pitts. PA, zone 6
4 years agohc mcdole
4 years agohc mcdole
4 years agolast modified: 4 years agoStush2049 Pitts. PA, zone 6
4 years agoKaren S. (7b, NYC)
4 years agolast modified: 4 years agoSukran Bahar Sener
4 years agoKaren S. (7b, NYC)
4 years agotapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
4 years ago
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