r/plantclinic

Hi all,

I am distraught. Over a plant.

We bought this Norfolk pine as a silly little Charlie Brown Christmas tree a couple of years ago. It survived a year of pure neglect while I was finishing my internship. It was finally thriving and so beautiful and our neighbors donkeys ate it down to the stem. I read that the new growth comes from the top of the plant (which they ate) and tips or mature branches (which they ate). Is this plant doomed? I looked into propagating as well which seems difficult and also would require a healthy tip of a mature branch.

So this is a cactus with velvelty thick leaves and it usually sprouts new ones and the previous branches dry out and leave those indented scars but now all of these branches have started to wilt together the only firm one is the one at the top, is it normal or what fo i do to save it , it is outside our main door so in the daytime it gets light throughout not from directly above but enough and we water it once every few days like our gardener waters it so maybe it could be more than required the soil is the same as we got from the nursery

I got this dragon fruit plant a like 2 years back and it was growing healthily with little cute leaves. I trim the "fruits" away occasionally to make it neat.

And then one period of time, the leaves slowly started wilting, so i trim and cut it (my other plant got infested by thrips, i got paranoid and i don't know if this was infected by some other bugs too as there was whitish substances on it) then slowly, it keeps dying and dying and went almost bald. I then gave up and didnt bother it much anymore and was just waiting for it to die.

But then slowly over time, it continued growing these "fruits" and it grew very long, as pictured. it doesnt seem to be dying anymore, but the problem is, the fruits get so long but the leaves doesn't grow?!?
Since it seem to be trying so hard to grow, i feel sad for throwing it away, any way to save it and make it go back to normal?? Its so ugly now :(

It is indoors, not near a window
Pot has only one small drainage hole, bottom watering, i soak it for about 5 minutes, around once a week.
Not sure what soil because it was from the store, but the soil is hard as a constipated shit lol.

Hi!

So I think I overdid it, as here heat and light hours are a lot, and I feel myself drying, I assumed my plants were too.. And have my first (hopefully only) casualty. My Christmas cactus has lost their base roots, root rot due to over watering. I believe pot choice was not ideal alzo, although it has drainage, it keeps the moisture too long. The trunk base still is hard not mushy to touch.

Usually I only water when soil is completely dried and leaves tend to look a little wrinkled. But now I believe they couldn't drink and I didn't catch it and gave water sooner than I should have.

The pot is outdoor, partial direct light, summer sunnis out from 7:30 to 21 hours, max temp of 35 for now.

I have taken them out to dry and change pot and soil. Should I pot as is, do I cut the base? I will wait at least 24 hrs to report to see if the base changes. Also, will try to propagate some leaves.

Hi all,

I have this ex nursery dracaena, she’s one of my most treasure houseplants. Been completely fine for years. She gets direct light for an hour or two in the morning, bright light for another 2 and then diffuse light the rest of the day. Watering on a schedule every 10 to 14 days but I always check the soil is dry before watering otherwise we skip. She started losing leaves at an increased rate, i noticed the roots had escaped the bottom of the pot, and the soil had started retaining more moisture so I have repotted her in a soil blend recommended for dracanea. Its only getting worse, I was prepared for shock with the repot but almost every single leaf is now dead, dying or shows some sign of stress. Is there anything else I can do to help her out, Or is this just a pray and see situation? I really dont want to lose her 😔

I just got this alocasia and have never received a plant out of soil. What should I plant it into? Any tips would be greatly appreciated! Its going to be going into a self watering pot, in a mini greenhouse under a grow light, and humidity that sits around 75%-82%. Thank you!

My spotted laurel is losing some of its leaves lately, and i noticed this little "web" near the base of the leaves. Also I'm seeing little white dots all over the plant, especially where the web is. Are these pests? How can I remove them?

I water my plant every 15 days or so, it's located in an office so it gets little natural light, but it's 12h/day under an artificial light.

I've been keeping them in leca for about 7 months, the roots were growing like crazy but then the leaves started curling and yellowing out of the blue.

I thought it might be some kind of over watering due to the roots always escaping the pot into the water reservoir, so I changed to this mix with perlite, bark, vermiculite and a bit of vermicompost.

They've been sitting like this for about a month already, facing the window, I've been watering them when the top 2/3 of soil is completely dry.

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong 😞

What could be the problem?

As the title says, what is the issue? Too much or not enough water or a fungus?

The pictures are taken outdoors as recently I moved the plant on the terrace (no direct sun) but before it was staying indoors.

Recently my aloe got weird white spots on most of the leaves.

I tried to squish the leaves and expect few big ones, all of them are soft and can be squeezed between two fingers. The soil feels dry both with fingers and with a stick. But I fear to water it again to worsen the situation if there is rot in the roots or a fungus.

Before the recent heatwave in Europe, the plant was looking happy, nice and the leaves were stiff.

What do you suggest?

I’ve had these monsteras and this pothos for a couple years now all indoors. I’ve been maintaining them as normal and keep them at a south facing window that gets filtered sunlight via the curtain and closed blinds. They’ve all been living in vases with water and they’ve been growing fine. I’ve also put a bit of tropical potting mix in the water for nutrition and I’ve had no problems (until now.)

I noticed yesterday there was this weird foam at the top where the water line is and it smells Terrible, like plants in a lake terrible. I tried to get rid of the foam by dumping out water until it was gone and filled it back up with fresh water, still retaining the little potting mix I leave at the bottom and some water so it doesn’t shock the plant. I also made sure to remove any rotting roots and checked if everything was the right color (everything was fine on the plants). Another note: when I tap the glass, trapped air/gas(?) rises to the surface from under the potting mix.

Fast forward to today; I checked again and it’s back just as bad like nothing happened. Does anyone have any ideas what this is?? I’ve tried to do a search on this but so far I get results for potted plants and nothing on plants that have only ever lived in a vase with water. I’ve also searched up what causes the lake smell and it’s due to algae but the water I give my plants are usually drinking water (tho I’m not opposed to accepting algae to be the cause.)

extra note; my lucky bamboo in the background isn’t as bad and my hunch is that it’s from the potting mix in the other vases plus the new summer heat. And, because I admit I don’t know much, I’d rather ask plant experts to know for sure whats wrong and what I could do to fix it.

Sorry this was such a long post, thank you to everyone who has the patience to read through! I tried to cover as much relevant info as I could and if anyone has any questions feel free to ask em!

Hello! I’m visiting my grandma for her birthday and her indoor peace lily that she got when my grandfather passed 9 years ago looks like it’s had enough of this mortal coil. My grandma said it was just wilty one day about 5 weeks ago. She hasn’t seen any bugs, didn’t move it, and can’t figure out what when wrong since nothing changed in her care for it. It doesn’t appear over or under-watered to me. It’s occupied this same spot for the last 9 years, and I’m not sure how much light it gets, but it’s always been very healthy.

She took it to the nursery about 3 weeks ago to repot it and provide it some support, and they told her it would look better by this point, but it’s not looking good to my untrained eye. She doesn’t know what kind of soil they used or if they did any other treatments or fertilizer for it. Does anyone know what might be wrong and if there is any hope to salvage this trooper?

EDIT- thank you everyone, I’m hopeless with plants and it meant a lot to me and my grandma to have your input and expertise. And holy moly, y’all have some gorgeous peace lilies! Based on your suggestions, I waterboarded the hell out of it, and that’s how I learned the pot has no drainage hole. So when I get back from being out of state this week, I’ll go back over and repot it for her in a pot that has one. Send us your good vibes until then 🤞and again, THANK YOU SO MUCH!

This banana is pretty new, I got it a few weeks ago and potted it in mineral substrate. Now I looked inside and the roots have exploded down into the water reservoir. (The brown parts on some roots are residue from stone sediments in the water, not rotting)
My question is, is this ok? How can I prevent root rot?
The plant seems happy, it’s rapidly bringing out new leaves - like I’m used to with small banana plants. It has a nice sunny spot (directly next to a roof window going south) and it uses a LOT of water, the levels reach the lowest point at least once a weak. All signs for me that it’s doing good.
But I am worried abt the roots sitting in the water constantly, especially if it’s mixed with nutrients for mineral substrate, is there a possibility that the nutrient mix (using it the intended way, correctly mixed with water) is too strong for the roots to sit in directly?
Thanks for any input - I’m just a pretty new plant parent and trying to learn more :D

Hi guys, I need some help with my boston fern. Bought it 2 months ago and it was sitting in my bedroom on the north facing window, i was trying to give her as much light as i could, opening the blinds during sunset etc. I water it whenever the couple top centimeters of soil are dry. I always bottom watered her, pot has drainage holes and I'm always waiting for as much water to drip after watering before i put it back in the pot. It was growing beautifully until the heat waves happened last week. She started to have dry fronds and i pruned her a little bit and gave her a good drink. I was out of the house for 5 days now and after that time she is looking worse and worse everyday. First two photos are from today and the 3rd is from when I bought it.

Monstera houseplant I got from a neighbor and have had for a bit under a year. I’d say it’s always had these roots stemming from the middle of it but I’m not sure why?

Gets indirect sunlight all day and I water around twice a week.

She's lost around 70% of her leaves at this point.

Leaves started falling out approx 2 months ago. Then I noticed that the ground was approx 1/3 from the bottom still wet after a month without watering. I got her out for a day to dry out, returned it, then watered it well with not tap water and half strength fertilizer.

Then after approx 3 weeks i noticed that one of the 5 branches was almost completely out and i noticed that the baby leaves were black at their stems on this branch.

I got it out of the pot again to see that it's 2/3 wet after 3 weeks - even though i drilled holes on the pot, aerated the ground with sticks etc. So I assumed it was drowning - got it out of the pot again and put it in a slightly more sunny spot (still indirect light) and left it for approx 5 days to dry out completely. By then all leaves fell off the one branch, and it started degrading, black on top, a bit mushy to the touch.

Then I returned it to the spot on the image where it used to sit and used to be healthy for a full year that I've had it. Indirect weak light.

Leaves were curved down (before they were always straight) but they stopped falling off and I thought ok good it's finally recovering since I let the ground dry out.

But now a few days later I've had this massive chunk of healthy looking leaves fall out in ~24 hours again.

Roots look healthy. I was going to repot with different soil once it stabilizes and gets some of its strength back a bit but it's not.

At this point I'm completely clueless as to what's going on and how to help it. Please help.

A friend gave me this plant last year and it’s never really stood up. Friend told me it was a snake plant and looked like this because (she was told) it was grown from a prop of the main plant. It used to have a couple of classic snake-type blades, but I pruned them because they weren’t looking good. Does anyone know why it is so droopy and curled in on itself? The parts I cut out were always tall and wide, but never stood tall.

Snake sits about three feet away from a south facing window and I try (super hard) not to overwater it. It gets a drink every couple of weeks if the soil is dry, about half a cup or more.

The leaves look and feel healthy, so I don’t think it’s a watering issue…maybe it’s just not meant to stand up? Or is it not a snake plant? Should I trim the leaves back to where they start to flop?

Ignore the inch plants on the left. Looking for info about Professor Snake in the green pot on the right.

I left for four days and came back to my cucumbers being very crunchy and frail with these yellow spots. I gave them a pretty deep watering before i left and it gets at least six hours of light a day. Please tell me they’re just thirsty and not diseased.