So, not too long ago I made a post about my adansonii getting yellowing leaves. This wasn't happening when I had the plant outside during the summer and only started when I brought it inside. I see that yellowing could be due to water, light, fertilization, or soil.
Water: plant tends to get dry in less than a week. When it was outside I tended to water about every five days (and yes, the pot was actually dry). Strangely, even after bringing it inside, it dries out about as often. As you can see, it's a terracotta pot, and also an orchid pot with extra holes. So it's definitely not too wet. I watered it Saturday and I just checked and its pot is dry AF.
Soil: I have it in equal parts Miracle Grow potting soil, perlite, and orchid bark. So, a 1:1:1 mix. I've read this is a good aroid mix. I have to add, and I don't know if it's relevant or not: the orchid bark isn't actually orchid bark. It's "Ferti-lome Orchid Bark", which is actually a mix of bark, charcoal, and lava rocks. Needless to say, this is *super* well-draining. I have some of my other plants in the stuff (Thai constellation and some pothos plants) and they seem to be doing great, but I'm wondering if the rocks could be damaging my roots or if the charcoal could be altering the soil's pH.
Light: I had the plant outside until about mid-October when temps dropped. Outside it was mostly in the shade (southern USA), but got a few hours of direct light from about 8-11 AM. After bringing it inside I had it under 2 Barrina T8 strip lights and it grew well but started dropping a couple of lower leaves. I upped the lighting to 3 strip lights, and started fertilizing more often. The yellowing stopped for a while, I then backed off on the fertilizing a little bit. Now I have some *rapid* dying off of the leaves. Just had 5 leaves die off or start to die off in the past week.
Fertilizer: I think I might be overdoing it. After the initial yellowing about a month ago, I read that adansonii likes a good bit of fertilizer. So I started fertilizing with Miracle Grow all purpose fertilizer (24-8-16) at nearly every watering. The yellowing stopped, but this was about the time I added an additional grow light, so I messed up by changing two variables at the same time. Anyway, the plant seemed to be doing great so I backed off on the fertilizing,and now I'm seeing a rapid dying off of lower leaves.
Roots: I haven't checked them yet. I have that set for this Saturday if no one has any better ideas. But I mentioned the super loose potting mix. I have noticed that when I water the plant the water drains more slowly now. So, is this something that can be caused by rott binding?
Possible ideas for what's happening…
1) I'm not watering enough, because I don't see any possible way I'm watering too often.
2) The water draining from the pot more slowly makes me wonder if roots are slowing the drainage. And if that's the case, if the pot is still bone dry after less than 5 days, that might make me wonder if the pot is underwatered do to more roots growing in the pot. Plant grows, produces more roots…*all other things being equal* that's going to speed up water uptake and possibly require more frequent watering, right? Add in the additional light and I can see how growth could be the added variable that tips the scales.
3) The main light is directly above the plant,and it's the lower leaves that are dying off. So is it possible that this is simply due to the newer growth growing so much that it blocks the lower leaves from getting any meaningful light? It's also a fairly bushy pot with multiple plants, so there's actually a significant bit of new growth covering up the older leaves.
Only thing I haven't done is check the pot. And I'm not gonna do that until Saturday, because I might have to break the pot and I'm not expecting the plant stores to be open on Christmas (**happy Christmas,everyone**). But before that, is there anything obvious that would cause this?
by soFATZfilm9000
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