I have had the same problem. I hope someone can help you!

Stush is the Bantel's guru here. Why do men always disappear when you want them?

trifasciatas, if underwatered, generally seem to get deflated and wrinkled a bit. More warmth and light should help the 'Bantel's' a lot. How is the actual soil?? Could it be the roots are mostly confined to a small ball of peat based mix (from when the plant was in the nursery) in the center, with your new mix after repotting on the outside? What is your soil mix? Maybe when you water you are wetting the outside of the root zone but the central mix (IF a very different soil) is staying dry (or visa versa, the outside soil is fast draining/drying and the center is staying moist). Just a though.

Good advise from Woodnative. Myself, I can't answer this. I had bantal's before and it would just rot and die for me also. These latest ones I got grow very well for me and I neglect them a lot. They are downstairs in my cool basement under shop lights and not babied at all. Their in a window box with 50% soil mix with some perlite and course sand. Not the usual mix I use. Now I use maybe 10% soil with 80% grit with 10% what ever I have around. It changes every time I mix up some. Planing to use some carbon with new mixes. My son gave me a lot from his filter changes in his fish tank.

Best advise I could add is keep warm and dry. Water well when you do and let dry out well after. Not to let water sit in a dish under the pot. Give it plenty of bright light. Not what I do to mine but can't explain why mine are doing so well?

When underwatered, the leaves sort of curl in and get wrinkly as Woodnative mentioned.

I grow mine in a very porous, coarse mix, and water infrequently during the Winter. I give it as much light as possible in an east-facing window, watering early in the day so that it has as many hours to dry as possible.

Josh

Mine are all in 50/50 perilite and cactus mix. All the other plants are doing great! I just watered Monday night and lost another leaf by Tuesday night. I'm reading to just give up and wait for it to die so I can justify to my husband that I should order a kirkii pulchra ;)

Ok, one other thought would be...a role model. Let me explain, I have a golden hahnii and it was dying about a year ago. I got a hahnii black star and put it in the same pot as a role model. Now, everyone is happy.

So, I have the idea that I could put the Bantel's with a Laurentii in the same pot and see if the Laurentii can be a good role model for it. Has anyone found that Bantel's does better in a mixed pot of sans?

Thanks.

Honestly, the Laurentii is not looking that great either. Maybe I'm only good with hahniis?!?

Miss Linguist, I think you might have solved the mystery of sans giving up and dying. I had a lot of trouble with growing Bantal's Sensation until I got over twenty of them. Planted up in a large group. There is more information dealing with the 'Mind of Plants' now. In pots next to each other is not the same as sharing a pot together.

My sans did the same thing last month when I watered. (And then of course I water again three weeks later and it's absolutely fine) None of the other rhizomes or leaves are showing signs of rot or degredation. I suspect the root ball just still has a lot of water retentive soil, even though I'd repotted it in a gritty mix when I purchased it last year, and tried to wash out as much of the water retentive soil as I could.

I repotted this with my laurentii in the same pot last week. I think they might have both been planted too shallow...The Bantel's had some very concerning hollow rhizomes, but I got those cleaned up. It did have a lot of healthy little roots on the good rhizomes, so I feel better about the health of those. Hopefully both types of plants will help each other.

This is going to be interesting, Miss Linquist. I cannot wait to see what you have to say about their progress in a couple of months. Thank you for sharing.

They seem to have survived the first watering without any lost leaves...looks optimistic.

just to muddy the waters so to speak- some sans do better in shallow pots; S. Hahnii seam to love bulb pots. Just saying.

Update: No leaf loss since the 2/16/17 repotting, in which I placed the Bantel's in the same pot as Laurenti. I had planted them deeper than in the previous pot, which I think helped. The leaves from one rhizome sometimes droop, but it appears to be because of limited support from the soil--I just push more soil around it and it's fine.

Rocks. I use rocks to prop things up until they are well rooted and then I remove and reuse the rocks. In Florida we have sand. When I visit areas that have rocks I bring them home. Airline are cramping my rock collecting with their weight limits!