Hi, I wasn't sure where to ask this so i'll post it here. We have an indoor shefflera plant that has been having trouble with leaves turning brown(starting from the tips) and falling off. This is actually the second plant this has happened to. The first one we got from a nursery and it happened so fast and aggressively the nursery didn't know what the cause was and so took the plant back. A few months later we got another one to replace it. We've owned this plant and had it indoors since about October. We repotted it into a 15" pot back in November i believe. It's potted in ferti-lome "ultimate potting mix". It gets watered i believe about once a month(gf cares for the indoor plants mostly). And i know she uses miracle liquid fertilizer each time she waters it, about 10 drops for a gallon of water. We usually water it in the spare bath tube and let it drain for a half hour before moving it back to the room. I know they don't like soggy feet, and i've never noticed it sitting in water. With this plant, the browning of the leaves has been slow and sporadic, it seems like sometimes a whole grouping will get affected and fall off in a week, and then nothing again for a little while and then maybe one here or there. We haven't noticed any bugs anywhere. We thought it was a fungus so we have used a fungicide maybe 2 or 3 times since we've owned the plant but just not sure if we are going in the right direction. Thanks! ( you can even see my concerned pug!) -Luke
http://mrec.ifas.ufl.edu/foliage/folnotes/scheffle.htm It looks like bacterial leaf spot. Schefflera is essentially dormant in a home in Winter and shouldn't need any feeding. Try only feeding the plant when you see new growth.
feeding makes sense i'll keep that in mind. any idea what would cause this or where it got it? like i said this is now the second umbrella plant we have fought this issue on. Just wondering if it's anything we are doing incorrect. -Luke
It may have had spores on it when you got it. They were just waiting for the right conditions to start growing. ( a stressed weakened plant)
That's a beautiful plant! Trouble is that Schefflera can not support that dense of a canopy growing indoors in low humidity. Even though it is a great houseplant, when it changes from their greenhouse to your dry home it might have to give up half or even two thirds of those leaves before it stabilizes and starts to grow in a more open, loose canopy of leaves. So that low humidity and perhaps fertilizer in winter are making those stressed-out conditions that SC mentioned. :)
Hey tom thanks for the compliment. we were at the nursery again yesterday(needed more potting soil for the growing garden seedlings!) and we brought some samples of the shefflera leaves. They were leaning towards a bacteria as well. so for now we went through and removed any leaves that had any signs of browning on it. Although with a bacteria it sounds like it may be a losing battle depending on how bad it progressively gets. -Luke
Yes bacteria, but the exact ID is irrelevant. The spores are almost everywhere we have houseplants. The real "cause" is the conditions you keep it in, since healthy plants have the defenses to easily fight off infections like this. Similar to us catching a common cold and then getting life-threatening pneumonia because we don't take care of ourselves. If you were able to fix the growing conditions (humidity, light, water, fertilizer, drainage, etc.) back to similar as what the original nursery had, then this bacteria would dissapear almost immediately.
Ah sounds good! Thanks for the advise Tom. We are hoping to keep this plant healthy, we do love it! -Luke
