Dracaena deremensis.

So, no one wants to fess up. Well I have some. Like my jade.

What's sun?

Okay... I confess... I do have a bulb that's a bit burnt on a leaf tip... but it's from too much fertilizer. I mixed a bit too heavily in one gallon container, I think... oops! No photo, though.

Flora, LOL! It's been cloudy here a lot more than usual too. Not a fan!

Fittonia.

Anthurium.

Aglaonema.

This has progressed to dead spots, should have taken this pic sooner when it was clearer.

Dieffenbachia.

These all happened this fall, when the sun's angle got so low there wasn't enough shade on the front porch. A learning experience and the bar is set to do better by these plants next summer.

Isn't it nice that there is always something to learn! We can always do better, except for those times when we don't. Those times are okay, too. I really miss the E/W covered porches I had at my other house. Sun and/or light could come in under the roof some, and yet the plants were protected from the odd hail and rain. Here I have a sort of silly, hot south-facing corner-of-a-tall-fence sitting area with a roof, but it is really hot there in summer. It was really hot last spring, and I put my bay tree out on a day that was hotter than I expected. Here's my bay tree now.

I think these Philo leaves have burned while inside, in east window.

Looks like a burned spot on Philo 'Micans.'

Sorry newer Philos, I now realize you're not all like plain green heart-leaf kind I've had forever.

Purple. thanks for posting these. It's good to know one isn't alone with one's sunburned plant--it happens to many of us. I agree with aseedisapromise that it's nice there's always something to learn.

Here is my philo gloriosum, still growing out of a bad, over-heated moment this summer. I'm not sure whether this is due to sunburn or more general heat stress. It occurred, all at once, on every leaf the plant had at the time. New leaves don't have it.

Amanda

Yeah, the least I can do if I mess up like that is share it, right? I'm not to proud to share bad examples.

Hmm, not totally sure that's "regular" sunburn on your leaf. Could it have gotten too much sun while it had water on its' leaves? That would qualify as sunburn. I don't know what else might do that. Glad the new leaves are unmarred, looks like a pretty plant!

It's ideal to learn from one's own mistakes. It's ideally generous to allow others to learn from them.

The damage on my philo's leaves came from a combination of too hot, too dry (soil), too sunny. It's my fault; I was growing it in more light than it wants in an attempt to get it to look less sprawling. After that leaf damage, which I consider the plant's way of having the "love me for who I am and don't try to change me" talk with me, I modified my behavior. Our relationship is going much better now. ;)

I should have included something in the photo to show size. That leaf is about 10" long.

Amanda

Wow! That is a big leaf, hard to tell from a pic. Not familiar with that Philo, is it a vine or one of the uprights? I usually burn every plant I get, sort of accidentally but not completely, looking for the max amount of sun they can handle. The tricky ones are those that take days or weeks for the sunburn to become visible.

"Our relationship is going much better now." Hahaha!

That semi-accidental sunburning is a worthwhile experiment.

P gloriosum grows along the ground. It has soil-surface-level stems (rhizomes?) that root as they go along, but I don't believe it climbs and it's definitely not upright or self-heading. It sends out very large leaves at what seem like kind-of random angles. The leaves are so beautiful, though, they're worth the sometimes awkward-looking growth habit.

For looking so exotic, it's easy to grow in a regular house, although perhaps not easy to grow to absolute, spotless perfection. The new leaves scar easily.

Amanda

Here is a link that might be useful: some more P. gloriosum info

Some plants look better when sunburned. lol.

Especially succulents...depending on the burn.

Crassulas turn red in sun..some say chilly nights have something to do with it.

My Wax Begonia looks better when red. During winter, leaves revert to green.

Brown and grey blotches are unattractive, but red foliage is appealing.

That's a good point about some plants having hidden colors that can show up in tons of sun, but I don't consider those things sunburn, Toni, those are healthy pigments that the plants you mentioned (and many others) can develop in ideal conditions. A good thing people do on purpose (if possible.) A sunburned spot can start as gray, orange, yellow, white, but the spot or whole leaf always turns brown, is permanently damaged and unable to continue photosynthesis, an accident on the part of the grower.

Morning,

Hey Purp.

One summer, I placed a Euphorbia, 'which I believed a cactus,' on the front porch.

A day or two later, I noticed the entire plant was red.
Do you think it was sunburned?
Nowadays, I appreciate red hues, but at the time, it scared the daylights out of me since the Euphorbia was around a long, long time.

I almost killed a group of Orchids one summer. They were placed on the third tier on shelf. Behind were thick bushes, under that stupid Maple tree.
Two days later I went to check. EVERY leaf was brown-red. They came in ASAP.

Too much sun, 'even in shade, outdoors,' is one of two reasons I don't take most tropicals outdoors.

Number 1 being ants and spiders. :)

Heck, some tropicals in the front plant room burn...foliage turned white/gray.

There's also heat-stroke to worry over. Another problem.

Anyway, good morning, :)

"A day or two later, I noticed the entire plant was red.
Do you think it was sunburned? " Only if it progressed to brown as a result. Wish I knew the particular plant to know if red is a healthy color for it, but it would have turned from red to brown and dead if it was burned.

If the leaves/plant are not harmed, it's not sunburn, in my personal definition. Changing colors can be a healthy thing. It's not easy to know if one is new to a plant, or putting something outside for the first time. Like you said, neither of us has much patience for easing them into it, though that's a way to avoid most sunburns on plants capable of being where we want to ease them to.

There's definitely some gray area in between. One of my Thanksgiving cactus is in the sun all of the time. Its' leaves aren't so burned that they are damaged, but are a very light, unhealthy color. Not quite as dire as 'they' said it would be, but it's not ideal. I wouldn't recommend it, just wanted to see what would happen. The end of the experiment will be when the plants have been inside for a while and when some/all/none/which ones bloom...

How many of these leaves would there be at my house if I didn't keep burning them? (Supposed to be a burgundy Philo.) This one was sticking out from under the porch roof, no matter how I twisted the hanging arms of the pot. Chewed too. The plant retains it so far, so it must be doing something still but its' ability to photosynthesize has to be at least compromised, I think. I can't look at it much longer. That's the whole point really I guess. Accidentally making what should be pretty leaves ugly. At least it doesn't seem to kill stuff if you notice right away, like some other 'too much love' stuff folks can do to plants. Just hate when it's ME that ruins a great leaf.

It should be the pretty red color of the ones at the top, sad leaf bottom right corner.
{{gwi:89812}}

Closer:

'Tis the season to put plants outside. Here's some that I thought were getting plenty of sun inside, that they didn't need acclimation, especially since the first few days were mostly cloudy.

Older Echeveria leaf to the right, and one at the bottom, burned at the edges.

Wax Begonia leaf has a pattern where another leaf was partly covering it, a little crisp at the edge. Fuzzy, sorry, not much time today while it's there to photograph.

Jade plant (Crassula ovata.)

Kalanchoe beharensis on the left, Crassula on the right.

Peperomia clusiifolia. Ouch! Most of these burned plants don't bother me, so many new leaves will soon replace the older ones, but if I'd noticed this sooner, I would have moved this plant. New leaves should be fine, but I'm not happy about burning the already-beautiful ones it already had.

I don't know this succulent's name, but it's a little crispy. It grows really fast, whatever it is, thankfully. I would have removed the etiolated old growth on this soon anyway, but getting burned is probably not preferred by the plant.

I'm glad to see that you got some sun. All winter it seems I've seem storm after storm down your way on the weather maps. I guess your plants all got used to the cloudy stormy days, and the sunny ones were a surprise to them. I think the hardest thing is to get plants outside without burning them. I do okay until it gets warm out. This year I am going to try some out under the trees in the front, gradually moving them into more and more sun. However, it is going to snow tomorrow here, so this is on hold for now.

If I had a spot and patience for acclimation, this wouldn't have happened. You're right, it was the sudden change, these plants were doing great in this much exposure while outside last summer. Also a good example of how much stronger the sun is outside than through a window (and how the sun has been MIA for so much of the winter - not shining through the windows much at all.) It HAS been dreary pretty much all winter, unusual!

Crazy as this sounds,I wonder if covering 'em with black garbage bags would help any. Potential steam cooking maybe? Not sure.

Figured the idea would be to slowly uncover the plants bit by little bit.

Dumb idea?

*edited for redundancy ;)

This post was edited by asleep_in_the_garden on Sun, Apr 13, 14 at 17:01

Thanks, friend! As hot as it's been here already, I wouldn't get involved with any dark coverings, but the slowly uncovering part is a good idea - moving the shade instead of the plant. (I do this moving ground plants when it's hot, sit a lawn chair over it so it doesn't bake the first few days.)

There are other things I could have done, this is a big yard, stuff as simple as rearranging porch so the furniture was in the sun, plants in the shade. Could have set some under carport & we even have one of those tents that's just poles on the sides and a roof. Along the north wall of the house would have been fine (but 27 more steps to move each one next weekend.) I've just been too busy getting stuff ready to move to bother trying to acclimate plants. Really trying to keep them off of the ground (which is where most of the shade is,) until they get moved to the other house this weekend. Hopefully ants will not swarm into them before then, really hoping to not move ants with plants. If we weren't moving, I would have spread them all around to diff, more shady spots.

Sharing the pics mostly for reference when these things happen, until you burn a plant, you don't know what the 'burning point' is, and sunburn can look surprisingly different on diff plants. After doing nothing for so long while inside for winter, the swiftness of this sunburn thing was exciting in a wrong kind of way. No, I'm not advocating burning plants, just showing what they look like when it happens, for whatever reasons, might as well share pics so the situation is useful.

I'm sure this will surprise nobody at all, but I'm back with some sunburn pics from this spring. So... no, plants inside weren't getting as much sun as I thought. As soon as I put them on the other side of the glass, there was some burning. As in previous years, these damages were avoidable, if I'd been more conservative about placement the first few weeks. Since plants went out about a month earlier this year, I'd hoped the rays were weak enough, but I still made some mistakes. None of these plants look damaged, but the fugliness of the sunburn isn't desirable at all, appearance temporarily compromised.

Really hard-headed about Philodendrons, sheesh! 'Black Cardinal'

'Micans'

Flapjacks/paddle plant, Kalanchoe luciae

Aloes

The older leaves of this Kalanchoe fedtschenkoi (lavender scallops) are a bit burned. Time to remove them anyway, a new branch is forming at every node.

Euphorbia tithymaloides (formerly pedilanthes) devil's backbone/zigzag plant:

Gasteraloe

Aloe squarrosa

Hoya (should be green, I think. A relatively new NOID cutting I got in trade months ago.)

Chinese evergreen, Aglaonema 'Black Cherry'

Aglaonema modestum (plain green Chinese evergreen)

Another A. modestum leaf

Oops, I stuck this Hoya cutting in a spot I thought was similarly shady to the spot it was in before being cut. Wrong!

I love seeing you all take the damage in stride, learning and quickly just moving on. I tend to have a panic attack, sprinkled with some guilt; like an unfit plant mother. So for me, this was a nice reminder, to keep it fun and keep on learning. Great thread everyone.