All For Gardening
is it burning or something eating my neon?
In Pothos

is it burning or something eating my neon?


I don’t understand what’s on the leaves. I’m using really low led light and it’s anyway too far from my photos. Humidity in room always good. I googled that its could be insects. Could be? I don’t see anyone. Help please what to do 🙏

by Either_Lake_5325

2 Comments

  2. Ctougas01

    Are those the oldest leaves? And what are its growing conditions (substrate, amount light, water schedule, humidity)? My first guess is according to what you said (low light), that might be the issue.

    LIGHTING CONDITIONS:
    Less light means a lower photosynthetic rate, meaning a lower evapotranspiration rate and therefore, a lower water intake. In short, your plant will drink less water, making your substrate dry slower, giving more chances to root rot. The same logic applies to a plant with lower foliage, the less leaves, the less water it will absorb.

    SUBSTRATE AND HUMIDITY
    According to your lighting and foliage current conditions, your substrate stays humid for a longer period of time than it should, creating ideal conditions for root rot.
    Pothos prefer a chunky aerated substrate and especially if you tend to water too much. A layer of rock at the bottom, chunky orchid bark mixed with Leca and perlite and tropical soil. Try to create a gradient from chunky at the bottom to slowly finer at the top by mixing the bottom and slowly adding more and more tropical soil on top. This is my recipe for pots without and with drainage holes. People will scream at you if you don’t have drainage holes, that’s why you have to adapt your soil accordingly (chunkier so it can dry faster). But in your case, prioritize pot with drainage holes.

    WATERING SCHEDULE
    So many things (amount of light, room temperature, type of soil and plants, amount of water given) influence the watering schedule, so the “water once a week” rule doesn’t work for everyone. To determine the frequency, note on a calendar when you first water your plants. Let the first 5 cm dry before the second watering session and count the number of days between the first and second watering sessions. So if it has been 8 days since the last time you watered them, water them every 8 days. That frequency may be different for each of your plants, but at some point, it’s better to let them dry a little bit longer than over watering them.

    Stick method : You can use the stick method to see if your plant is ready to be watered which consists of putting a stick 3-4 inches in the soil, take it out and look how dirty it got. If the soil is damp, the stick will be dirty, no need to water. If it’s moist, you’ll see a bit of dirt sticking to it. In bright light and hot conditions, I’ll water at that stage, but not during winter. When it’s clean, time to water. You can put a little post-it on each of your pots saying the amount of days before watering. If you are a real plant freak like me, but still struggle to keep a consistent and regular watering schedule, you can also directly write into your calendar which plant needs to be watered on which day and include that into your daily routine. You’ll know that in your home with your specific conditions, each plant will need a specific watering schedule that will certainly differ from someone else’s home.

    With drainage holes, you can give it a shower in your sink and you can let the water fully drain out before putting it back in his plate. Water it when the first 2-3 inches are completely dry. Showering it when you water it is definitely a good thing, it keeps it clean from dust (no gas exchange issues because of clogged pores -white mineral deposits that we often see on crassulas’ leaves), it makes sure that its soil is fpully moist and that the excess of water drains out in the shower and it’s a great pest prevention.

    YELLOWING LEAVES :
    When the water intake is disturbed and suddenly reduced (it can be caused by lower amount of light and/or temperature and/or smaller foliage that reduces the photosynthetic rate and/or root rot), plants reaction is to get rid of their older leaves to reduce the evapotranspiration.
    Don’t remove the older yellowing leaves until they are crispy dry. Your plant is recycling the nitrogen and magnesium from the chlorophyll and the other nutrients as well, making it lose its green color and exposing the yellow pigments of the leaves (that’s why the leaves turn yellow), to redistribute it to the new leaf and/or root growth points. So yeah, once they go yellow, there’s no coming back for them.
    By not removing those leaves, you won’t have to fertilize the soil too often, so less risks of over fertilizing and burning your plants’ roots. Plants are excellent recycling machines that evolved to optimize all their nutrients, so they can survive longer in case of a nutrients deficiency in the soil by shedding their older leaves.

    RECOMMANDATIONS
    Look at the roots, cut the rotting roots with a disinfected clean cutter, switch it in a chunky substrate and move it next to a window. Notice how long it takes to dry and if it’s still too humid, either water less often or raise the room temperature or add more perlite and orchid bark into your substrate

    I hope this helps! 😁

Write A Comment

Pin