AHHH! I guess I applied the mind set of cacti & succulents here since they prefer dry roots when it came to repot.

I really hope they will live...poor plants.

Yeah, you definitely don't want to treat tropicals the same way. You'll know soon if they'll live.

Drying out the roots likely killed all of the fine feeder roots that do all of the work.

Yes, apply what Dave wrote.

Also, the bark particles are very large, which will cause rapid draining at first....but after a time, the finer particles will migrate toward the bottom of the container, causing the upper inches to dry out too quickly and the bottom inches to remain wet for too long.

With this type of mix, you'll need to water frequently and lightly while the roots are colonizing the new mix.

Josh

I too am very new here and learning. I will give my experience with the 5:1:1 because you said, "I can't afford to water my plants that frequent base on my living schedule". I too have a very busy schedule. I have had many of my plants wilt too much with the 5:1:1 and I know it is because I don't water as often or my home is too dry, etc. I have had better success with cactus and succulent mix with 50% perlite. That seems to be the trick in my home. I think it has more to do with my living conditions and my schedule than that the 5:1:1 mix didn't work for some of my plants.

Maybe put the plants in a bag for humidity as they try to recover?

Good luck.

First off, the plants you have here are not particularly "easy" to care for plants, so it may take some time for recovery. The fittonia (first pic) needs lots of humidity and is best suited for a terrarium (in my opinion). I live in a subtropical region and this plant would wilt in the 5:1:1 mix very quickly. I gave up.

The humidity bag has worked for me when I had a plant almost near death due to under watering. Maybe give this a try. Good luck!

Agreed that drying the roots was an unfortunate choice. Even for anything that should be dry (like succulents) that must be allowed to occur naturally (can't be sped up w/ blow drying).

Agree too about the Fittonias requiring very high humidity & they would likely wilt from transplant shock, thirst too. I grow one on a pebble tray & still it requires watering maybe every 3rd day in a mix of African violet mix & perlite.

I've only ever been successful growing Fittonias in terrariums as suggested above or in the bathroom.

The environment I'm living here has high level of humidity, but I agree fittonias require very high humidity.

The good news is this morning I noticed the fittonias show a sign of recovery. Some of the leaves perks up. I'm so happy to see that!

What I did is amend the 5:1:1 mix by adding more potting soil (the one I mentioned in my post) into something close to 5:3:2. By doing this it loses the purpose of 5:1:1 mix already...but as you guys experienced maybe the 5:1:1 mix doesn't suits fittonias best. After that I kept misting it whenever I can (I know misting don't really help much but I did it as some sort of emergency treatment...well, better than not doing anything). Humidity bag seems like a good idea. I'll give it a try.

However the calathea still remain the same. Lets hope for the best.

Pls stop misting & allow the roots to recover & do their work, otherwise you're likely to rot the Fittonia.

I would not bag the Fittonia as you are watering it too much. The combination of that & the bag make it more & more likely to rot.

Are your plants outside or indoors? If you have them indoors your aircon will be drying the air quite a lot. Have you tried the Green Culture site? They'll give you the best advice on your situation and where to get the materials locally that you need. By the way, your zone would be much higher than 11b. For Changi it's 14a so yours would be pretty much the same.

Oh wow, that website could be useful. Thank you so much!

My plants are all indoors with a few in the balcony. Most of my indoor plants don't usually get air condition. They are separated in a room with filtered sky light.

If you don't mind me asking how did you figured changi's 14a? I've been looking around on web so far all I can gather is 11b in Singapore.

I searched the Changi weather station records (on the internet) and the lowest ever recorded minimum was 21.1, which is 14a. The 11 comes from that being the highest in the US, so everything above 10 was lumped together into 11 by those who didn't know better. The scale is in fact open ended. There have been discussions about zones on the Green Culture site before and generally they've said it's best to just ignore it.

The reason I mentioned aircons is that being on an island your humidity would stay high, but indoors airconditioning removes a lot of moisture.