Tracey:

How do you grow your columnea? And what do you mean by neglect?

I have 20+ varieties and treat them all the same: Reservoir water and continually fertilize (1/4 strength). I let them go semi-dry and leech out the pots every six to eight weeks.

I have a healthy 'Midnight Lantern' in an unobstructed south window and another under lights (12-14 hours per day).

I grow my AVs, episcias and chiritas the same way. Don't know if this helps you.

Linda

i grow them like i do all my other plants (av's, episcias etc). The neglect is possibly letting them go too dry. It just seems to be more tempermental. I have several outside right now too. They probably get about 10 hours of light in my plant room. I might give it another try and keep and try it in the greenhouse. I don't know if humidity if a factor for those or not. I dont' see my gauge any where.

i use all the same soil mix (for wicking 1-1-1) for my plants. I was just hoping for a reason.. something i could fix.

This may not help a lot in fuinding a solution......
but I find that some columnea just do this. They will just drop their leaves and the stems dry out and die. Taking cuttings regularly and replanting gets around this for me.

it was the first repotting since i bought it in April. Now i wish i had potted it! :(

Your problem is a mystery to me. I have never been a great columnea grower. They need more humidity than I have in dry California, I guess. They also hate to dry out. And, they hate heavy dense soil. But 1-1-1 doesn't sound bad to me. What might work though is to increase the perlite consituant to 2 parts, or increase the perlite and sphagnum peat to two parts, thus cutting the vermiculite to a half part. Or, if you can find, coarse peat, switch to that. It will give a more open epiphytic type mix. Some people use fine bark in their mix too. But, bark will decompose and make a very fine silt like compost with time, so they need to be transplanted to new mix after a year or two. To make the best plants, root a number of cuttings and pot them together, such as ten cuttings in a five inch pot. Pinch them and let them branch to make a really full compact plant.

Jon