Why do you feel it is a bacterial issue?

Just bc of all the research I’ve done and the way it’s distributed, and the small dark spots with the yellow halos... I could be wrong though! Do you have a better idea? I’d prefer it NOT to be bacterial! Haha

It could be bacterial. Makes me wonder what is making the plant prone to infection?

Not sure! Probably bc it came from Home Depot and they kill everything haha

Could be stalk/petiole desease that effect the leaf. Not spread, only certain leaf attached efected.

I have the same philo from Home Depot and have been non stop struggling with it. Lol

@petrushka you actually just said something that kind of put me on to something else which is a way better problem to have than bacteria. Considering your dew drops... I have those too, but I live in super hot, humid, muggy, northeast Florida, so transpiration is pretty common here. That’s what your “dew drops” are- the plant is transpiring extra water through its leaves (kind of like sweat). The fact that you’re getting it in NY with the same spots makes me think it’s Edema (or oedema)- basically the plants roots are taking up more moisture than it needs, faster than it needs, and it’s causing some rupturing in the leaf cells. This prob has to do with finding the right balance between light, air circulation, soil, or proper nutrition (not having certain nutrients in the soil, or the plant not being to absorb them due to soil ph).... for ME. I think yours might be due to temperature. If it’s cool or cold there and you water with warm or tepid water, the difference in temperature can cause the edema too. Also. If you’re misting or using a humidifier, you prob don’t need to since that would just contribute to the transpiration. Let me know what you think!

yes, i thought it might be exudation on my big Philo subinsicum. it's in my partially obstructed west window (gets some late warm sun) - huge leaf mass compared to pot (7"), it's in very free draining jungle mix and the temps are 68-75F and my humidity is never lower then 70% since i have a lot of large plants indoors. and from time to time i let them go slightly drier. so i am pretty sure my watering is OK.

yes, i thought about edema, but it looks different on my other aroids...i have alocasias and anthuriums too. it appears as darker areas on leaf margins and tips, not spots. and if i withhold water or put the plants on heat-mat for a day or two it goes away. I am propagating African Masks that a very sensitive to the amount of moisture they get when young. the heat mat helps to dissipate this dark edema areas if caught early, otherwise they yellow and the leaf slowly declines.

but my Philo 'Xanadu' doesn't have dew (or only sometimes) and it has well defined spots like on yours and they appear on new leaves but like smudged spots, yellowish. that's why i am thinking it's bacterial. but then, i took a sep cutting of 'Xanadu' in FL - it was clean for almost 6mo, and then it started doing this smudging spots like my other plant. it was isolated too, so..may be it's nutritional. I give my aroids supplemental Cal-Mag and flush them regularly,etc. but feed with balanced 10-10-10 ferilizer (liquid, since they are on wicks).

here's a pic of my dewing philo: 28" from the soil and largest leaf at 16", grown in 7" pot on a single 3/8" rope wick, not in self-watering pot - so the moisture comes only thru the wick threaded from the bottom , a little on the bottom and up the side outside the coir-matting (like in wire baskets), the mix is 3 parts African violet mix (about 10% perlite, compost, soome bark, but mostly peat) 3parts coco-peat , 4 parts large perlite and 3 parts bark (half is coco-chips actually): so roughly 6 parts moisture retentive, 7 parts aerating/draining, so to speak.

and this wall is 3' wide . it's a pretty healthy plant except for those dewing spots.

after a while where dew drop was on the underside it dries up into a spot.

is that what happens with regular exudation on philos? i think not..so back to square one..

and here's my new leaf on 'Xanadu' - already spotty. kind of blurred margin, but later they start looking like yours on the 1st pic.

Hm. It’s certainly weird and doesn’t seem to be contributing negatively to the overall health of your plants? Mine’s been doing well since I removed the affected leaves. I’ll post again if they show back up or spread to any other plant.

but it looks uggly! i hate it! at one point i cut off at least a third of leaves on Xanadu. and i keep spraying it, coddling it, trying to make it better :)...it's better but then it gets worse and i don't know why. this year i will put it out on the balcony to see what it does to it, if it doesn't do MUCH better, i'll chuck it! i got a lemon and no amount of sugar (care) can make it sweeter ;)!.

but i'm still persevering with giant Philo. can you being in FL try to observe if you see exudation on undersides of philos - will they then spot or not?

and by the way, my giant philo is a cutting from Miami, and it was NOT spotted when i cut,rooted and grew it (in NY) for may be close to a year...which makes me think deficiency..but what kind?

I will definitely keep an eye on mine and let you know what happens. It seems to be doing well thus far. The only other thing I did was give it a neem oil spray down maybe a week ago. Have you tried flushing the pot? It could be an accumulation of salts/fertilizer that’s causing a deficiency or other problem...

yes, i flush them regularly. and also do a shower rinse and spray with neem too.

i think i pretty much tried everything at this point ;(...

Hi did you ever find a out what caused the spots or a solution ? I‘ve Had a philodendron peadtra for 1 month and I’ve just noticed loads of leaves have gone spotty! The only thing I can think of was I sprayed it recently with water ...Ionly because I thought they liked that? perhaps not?

On the under side of the leaf is an orange hard blob under each spot - almost like harden sap. I was wondering if it could that the plant got too hot and too much sun (I keep it in the conservatory, I know its not ideal but I have just put up some sun sail las today to give it more shade/heat protection)

so maybe, the sprayed water heating Up on The leaves burnt the holes it and then the cells oozed as they ruptured making thee blobs on the underside ?

And maybe now the holes have becomes weaken areas suspectible to infection?

on mine it was either thrips or bacterial. when i had thrips, i had those hard spots of dried sap on underside as you describe.

your spots have halo around dark middle - that's characteristic of fungal. yours don't look like mine though.

are you sure it's not scale on underside? can you take a close-up of underside spots? can you scrape them off? can you recognize scale, if it's scale?

Hi! I am inclined to believe that this was fungal... My plant was essentially rotting from the inside out from a fungal mold.... I realized this too late, as the plant died. I tried everything and every treatment... It lost leaf by leaf until I could finally see that inside the trunk itself was mold, just eating it away.

Now wait.... the whole thing “Died” but I knew better than to trust it, so I put it outside to let nature run its course, and within a few weeks, I had green shoots, and it has started to come back. I have two new full, healthy leaves, and since it’s spring, it’s growing super fast.

I didnt have the hard sap issue that you are having though!

I realized I am commenting from a different account lol, but it’sme!

you mean you're 'jenn landrum' from prior posts about fungal?

i actually chucked my philo 'xanadu' as i got tired of fighting it. as far as my huge philo: i soil drenched with Azamax (it's super concentrated neem extract that acts as systemic against insects but also as anti-bacterial). i repeated it sev times and then i noticed that new leaves had fewer spots. so i cut off and rerooted the tips and chucked the rest. and kept repeating drenches. so far - it's ok. there is some exudation that i think might be natural, but it does not leave yellow spots. i really hated them. so i have some hope that it might be ok.

i examined many philos while in Miami : most of them have these spots. i think it's some sort of bacterial infection that is endemic :).

Thanks for your Messages! I felt felt helpless last night. I totally love this plant and feel quite ill about it being riddled with pests and disease. it’s good to know there’s people out there for support :)

i took some photos this morning in better light (uk). I couldn’t see any bugs like scale

but what might be the start of spider mite colonies - yuk! Not sure though in the pics it’s the small white dots.

They seem attached on invisble web. The only thing that makes me think this is the move when I breath over them. Lots of what look like water drops- but this is normal right? There’s lots on the stems.

The drops under the leaves are sticky and have turned brown, this bleeds into the lead top side giviving the yellow/seethrough dots in the original pick. Maybe they arent normal Drops? Could be Signs of bites or sun damage? What do you think? Should I spray anyway incase it’s spide mites? If it bacterial how can I treat it? Thanks x

Ah looks like not all my pics went up. Is there a liMIT?

Here at work the ones with what I think could be spider mites. If you look on a phone maybe you can zoom in like I can?

Shall cut off the leaf ?

can you see these pics?

Yes, it is “Jenn Landrum” on another account- I am not sure how I accidentally made two and can’t get back into my old account!

@HU- to me, if you have tiny moving white things suspended in a web, that is TELL TALE, you’ve got spider mites... the good news is, they are way more treatable than some of these viruses, or even mealy bugs- the DEMONS of the plant world.

What I suspect is that they moved in over the winter when you stopped watering as much and when the plant was relatively dormant. They take advantage of the dry conditons, and the plant’s weakened state. They are none too fond of humidity. The sticky stuff you see is “honeydew” or the secretions of the mites where they’ve been sucking the juices out of the plant.

You can start by physically removing the web and any visible mites with cotton swabs dipped in isopropyl alcohol and then blasting the rest with water. Then I would treat The whole plant with Neem as petruska mentioned. You can get a concentrated Neem oil and dilute it in a spray bottle with a small drop of mild dish soap and spray the entire plant, all surfaces. The Neem oil and mild insecticidal soap will knock down any remaining spider mites, but I would keep the plant quarantined for at least another week, and re-treat it again in 7 days to knock down any newly hatched mites. You might have to re-treat again depending on how bad the initial infestation was.

Spider mites as previously mentioned do not like humidity, so you can purchase a small humidifier to keep them away if you live in a drier area or are still running a lot of heat. This would actually be very beneficial to your plant as well. I live in Florida, where it’s ultra humid, and just starting running one this past winter and have never seen my plants thrive so much. I didn’t think they could possibly want more humidity, but they did! Haha

I hope this helps! Let us know how the mite battle goes!

totally agree that it looks like mites. no need to cut off the leaf. if you do not have neem oil, spray with mild dish soap solution: 2tsp per quart of water. do not rinse, let it dry naturally. respray ev 2nd day for 1 week. watch might need to spray once a week again until you no signs of tiny white dots.

Thanks! I'm on it, sprayed a few leaves with Neudoff pyro today. I hate the idea of pesticides but I felt desperate. Pests on plants are a relatively new thing for me, I've only had to fight fungus gnats so far - still going. Thanks for your confirmations I'm feeling confident now that it's a mite problem - fingers crossed and treatable. Thanks for the neem recipes i'll make some tomorrow! I bought a small bottle of neem oil originally in case my kids picked up head lice - they never did - guess it'll come in handy now for the plant kids! lol. I only bought the my philly a month ago so I guess it must had been harbouring the mites when I bought it - thats annoying, shame as it looked so healthy and i trusted the garden centre. Guess they cant check all of their plants and mites hide up. But it makes me think twice before I invest again, she cost a pretty penny! Do you think its best to spray the other plants near by? The thought of an infestations is quite stressful. There a moss post in the middle of the pot that the vine cling too. Should i spray that too? thinking mites could hide in it or am I overthinking ? lol

yep, spray everything including the post and soil surface and the pot surfaces too. hope you do not have more then a dozen ;) clustered together.

there is no way the nurseries and shops can prevent this from happening. that's why I keep all new stuff separately for a few weeks and spray everything and soil drench too.

Help!!! I have little dots all over my philodendron jungle boogie and don't know what to do:(

I got it from home Depot 4 weeks ago it only had some dots now my plants covered. I see no bugs. I checked the roots for rot and I have reported... don't know what to do???

@petrushka (7b) -- THANK YOU!! I've been panic-searching to see what I can do about my poor philodendron (someday, I will learn that 75% off at the big box store is never the bargain it seems at the time) and its blighty ick with what I have on hand since I can't exactly pop on down to the garden center --- and luckily I have Azamax. The information you provided saved me time and calmed me down and I appreciate it <3

i'm glad my info was of use! :)

I can report on my 'clean' philo cuttings from December: they got spots on older leaves now too :(, while new come out and stay clean for awhile.

i'm out of azamax though..

you'll need to repeat azamax treatments periodically ..like forever?!..may be..

I have checked inground philo's like mine in Miami FL and sometimes they are clean, but the older leaves seem to always get these spots..i wish some experienced nursery specialist from FL would chime in with some suggestions.. but not yet!

I’m not sure if I have the same plants as the rest of you, but mine send to look similar to the first picture. I’ve had it for years but it doesn’t get much larger than it is because the leaves continue to turn yellow, gets small spots, or the new leaves bloom with a partial brown shriveled leaf. There also seems to be some brown sticky substance, as though someone splashed Coke or Pepsi on the leaves! The small spots are creepy to me, but uncertain what to do for it. Has anyone got a clue? I’m past desperate! Thank you!

The brown spot on your plant is scale!

I suggest examining your plant thoroughly for these spots and Scraping them off with your fingernail. Then, spray the entire plant with alcohol twice a week. Also, get a pesticide soap containing pyrethrin (I’ve tried Safer Brand) and spray the plant according to instructions. this process needs to get repeated for two months to ensure full eradication.

continue to examine your plant For these pesky pests. examine And treat other houseplants before they multiply.

Good luck!

Is this same spots everyone is talking about on here? Please help

I have a xanadu that has been doing this for two years. New leaves all of the time and they are clean but slowly get the spots and eventually die off. The plant is now starting to weaken overall and I'm afraid I'm going to lose the entire thing.

some dew can be caused by mites. so it is necessary to eliminate them if they are present first.

aside from mites, i am convinced that it is bacterial.

bacterial is impossible to eradicate with retail remedies. the one that worked for me to slow down spotting (but NOT to eliminate it) is Azamax soil drenches. it is super strong extract of neem. i do it sporadically, perhaps if applied ev 2 weeks it might reduce it much more. don't know, may be will try this year.

my super vigorous Philo subinsicum is very robust despite it.

just stumbled on the article (in polish :), but ggogle-translates) about nectaries on philos to attract ants :(..not very attractive to me...pics are just like mine...

nectaries

I had the Philodendron green Princess , have lots of this dark brown spots on the leaves when I bought from Home Depot, just newly arrival was still on plastic bag, I thought this was thier real leaves spots and I find it pretty.

I just leave it alone and my Philo is growing real big and healthy. All I do is washed the leaves with dish soap and peroxide mix in water. The new leaves has no brown spots and all looking healthy..so just leave the brown spots it does not hurt the plant. It's not fungal, or any pests.

They are extrafloral nectaries.

I panicked last month and thought I had na infestation since it started to cover even the new leaves.

I started treatment and started cutting off the 'infected' leaves and now my plant is struggling to get back.

Wish I knew what they were back.

Most fluff pieces on the internet about philodendron care never mentions these. Tells you how seriously you should take those 'advice'.

i found another study article that says that only some species of Philos have them (nectaries). some are on petioles, some on leaves.

it is sort of an obscure unstudied subject. i am glad finaly i can relax (after chucking my Xanadu after 3 years of this torture..). but am keeping my P. subinsicum. i noticed that they produce less of dew when it's cooler and they have less moisture.

if you rinse the leaves with dew in the warm shower the spots won't develop as badly.

I have had this plant for 29-30 years! My Uncke owned a florist back then . I didn’t start having this problem until two years ago ; it was always just beautiful and full of dark lush leaves . After a few years of every leaf turning yellow with cracks and holes I decided to put it out on my deck and let it go naturally. Well, it survived and I brought back in and it was starting to grow nice ,healthy leaves; I was so happy everytime I looked at it and no yellow spots until this morning!