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hi everyone! i need some advice. so i’m still pretty new to plants,… | Plant Recovery Room | Planta-community

brittanie 🌱

hi everyone! i need some advice. so i’m still pretty new to plants, ive been caring for them for about 2 years now and im still learning everyday. i may have jumped in over my head by getting a thai but im so determined as this is one of my favorite plants. i’ve noticed the brown spots on its leaves are spreading. i have it in orchid bark and it’s in my brightest window and gets a few hours of dappled sunlight in the afternoon. i repotted it into orchid bark almost two weeks ago and i noticed a lot of its roots were falling off, so i tried my best to pull all the dead roots off and i was left with about 1/3 of its original roots but i put it back in the same pot as i thought my next size down would be too small. what do i do 😢 should i take it out of its pot to check the roots again and downsize or should i just let it be? any advice would be greatly appreciated as no one in my family really does plants and i have no one else to ask 💔 and hearing it from people in my opinion is better then just reading off google. thanks again!

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1 like 13 reacties

13 reacties

  1. Mateja

    Roots falling off generally indicate the potting medium is staying wet too long for the plant. The roots begin to rot away. It's good to remove the rotten ones. Let me look at your plant specs and come back with more comments.

    2 likes
  2. Mateja

    I can't see your plant specs but that's okay, I looked closer at one of the photos ☺️ How quickly a plant takes up the water in its medium is a combination of how big the foliage is, how big the root ball is, and how much medium there is in proportion to the root ball and foliage. Additionally, how much the pot drains and evaporates, and how much sun the spot gets. Monsteras tend to do well with their roots being on the snug side, so less extra potting medium around the root ball. But if you don't have a smaller pot, you can use a big one just don't fill it up all the way.

    3 likes
    • brittanie 🌱

      i’m still not too sure how to work this app so i’ll try to figure out the spec stuff not showing. should i go ahead and and downsize the pot and mix all purpose soil with the orchid bark? i also have perlite i can put into the mix! i just worry about shocking the plant from repotting it so much but i’ll definitely give it a shot. thank you so much!!!

      1 like
    • Mateja

      I think it's just your profile can be public or private, don't worry about that. I'm thinking about what zollol is saying about shock and how it might have effected your thai. When did you bring it home, what was its lighting and potting medium like where you bought it?

      1 like
    • brittanie 🌱

      i bought it from a publix i work at a little over a month ago but it was in the store for a week before i got it, and it was in like a normal not chunky soil. i also bought it with a little bit of browning but i just assumed it was bc it wasn’t in the right soil and just needed a repot. and i even trimmed the brown off but it just came back

      0 likes
    • Mateja

      Well your lighting situation doesn't seem too strong but probably stronger than Publix overhead lights. I wonder if the root rot had begun when you bought it, since it takes a while to lose 2/3 of a root ball of a plant that big. I just read some root rot literature and one thing I'd forgotten was after you remove the infected roots, you do want to report in fresh medium, because the bacteria overgrowth is still present in the old medium. So I think to save this monstera you should give it the full root treatment, make sure all the infected roots are cut away with clean snips, wash the roots in room temp water, pot it in fresh soil, just enough to cover the roots. I wouldn't expect to see any new growth for a while as it needs to put energy into healing and growing more roots. If the leaves look worse in a couple weeks, check out the roots again

      2 likes
    • brittanie 🌱

      i will do this! thank you so much for all your help i really appreciate it so much!!

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  3. Mateja

    Now a thai constellation expert might chime in and correct me if I'm wrong, but in my mind pure orchid bark as a potting medium for a big monsters like that would hold water a lot longer than an all-purpose soil. I noticed that when I was keeping an orchid in bark. So if it were my plant I would start with switching from bark to a well-draining soil.

    2 likes
  4. zollol

    Monsteras LOVE sun, but when placing a plant in a new location, you can easily shock and burn them. Consider placing the plant across the room and moving it closer to the window over a few weeks. Also, pin up those lower leaves for me 🤭

    1 like
    • Mateja

      It doesn't look like sunburn to me because the browning is at the tips and mostly in the variegated portions. Sunburn would be in patches wherever the sun hit. I think the leaves are browning from the plant's root rot or low ambient humidity.

      2 likes
    • zollol

      Not sunburn, shock. Common with new plants, people leave them in the sun and expect them to acclimate eventually, they wont, and most people wont act until leaves start dying.

      2 likes
    • brittanie 🌱

      i’ll try this out thank you! and i’ll get those leaves pinned up lol

      1 like
  5. Mateja

    The lighting in that spot seems good. The browning and curling leaves can be a couple different things, and personally I would get the roots in a healthy place before worrying about the leaves

    1 like