I water when the soil is completely dry, probably every couple weeks. I just watered a few days ago and the dry leaves have gotten worse. I keep it inside and it gets mostly indirect sun with a coupled hours direct
by dazedmax
I water when the soil is completely dry, probably every couple weeks. I just watered a few days ago and the dry leaves have gotten worse. I keep it inside and it gets mostly indirect sun with a coupled hours direct
by dazedmax
3 Comments
If there is new growth, I wouldn’t worry.
Due to the presence of soggy yellow leaves, this would be !overwatering.
If you didn’t thoroughly repot into a !gritty mix, then that is probably why. The peat-heavy soil they’re sold in is great for their nursery growth, but not great for long term health. It can appear dry on top, while it holds water locked in at the roots too long. It also is too dense, causing the roots to not be able to get oxygen.
See !beginner tips and other bot replies below for more assistance, if needed.
There’s a few important clues about this plant. 1. It’s overall very plump. I don’t think this plant needs more water, overall. 2. The plant is a fairly pale green, almost yellow in spots. It’s showing no light stress. 3. The leaves that are shriveling are almost all mid-tier — not the bottom-most leaves that are normally used up as the leaves age or the plant needs water.
To me, this suggests that you have what might be a combination of interior crowding/shading and insufficient light. The fact that this plant is on the pale side tells me it’s getting *just enough*, but not thriving levels of light. Because burro’s tail grows so densely, you can have leaves shading over leaves. So, the plant sacrifices the leaves getting the least light because it can use those resources to grow more apical (end of stem) leaves that will grab more of the light. It’s not so bad that the plant is etiolating (stretching) exactly, but it is shifting things around to deal with its environment.
The other possibility is that there was some under-watering or stress event a while back that impacted these leaves and they are just now finishing getting sacrificed because of injury or some other stress.
TL;DR: For now, pull the dried leaves. Move the plant to a sunnier spot or get a grow light. Try to make sure the plant is getting light all over, not just directionally. Rotate it regularly. Burro’s tail is likely to sprout new gowth at nodes where it’s dropped the old one down the line if the spots are getting light.