Hi anyone, Just to clarify, im from wet and miserable England.I was given a Pachira Aquatica as a house warming present and was told not to water too much. Im not a greenfingers indiviaual so it would get half pint of water every 4 days(ish) about 2 weeks ago she started dropping all her leaves (my plant is a girl!) and growing baby ones,then i noticed that she was sopping wet, so i stopped watering her after checking a few sites. she is now drying out quite well...BUT.... ihave noticed little black bug/fly things over her base only, i dont know if these are dangerous or not, also the bark seems wet too, underneath not on top as if it is seperating. Now she has about 10 leaves and is looking very droopy...have i killed her?? Can i save her???
You probably have fungus gnats (sometimes called fruit flies), likely from overwatering them. You can get fungus gnat killer from a gardening centre. The best stuff I used was in a powder form that you dust over the soil, and when you water your plant it'll get down in the soil that way. Also, these bugs love moisture, but only live in the top part of your soil, so when you go to your gardening centre, get a small bag of sand and layer a few centimetres on top of the soil after you put the fungus gnat treatment on the soil. By the way, it sounds like you've been overwatering.. that can lead to root rot.. might want to check some other posts re that. Maybe think about getting a mister for the leaves. During dryer winter months, you want to water less frequently, but she'll still need some moisture & will love getting her leaves misted.
