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amber_patterson88

Ficus ‘Audrey’ Help Please Brown Spots & Gnats

6 years ago

Hi! Got a Ficus Audrey recently. On 12/1/19. From a greenery. It was doing fantastic. I let it acclimate to my home them on 12/12/19 noticed the first & only brown leaf, 12/13/19 watered Audrey well. Stuck a puppy pee mat under her pot to collect water & now look. The soil is still damp- with now 5+ gnats. And many more brown leaves. One leaf was so brown I plucked off and if you look in the back of the photo, the tree is releasing white sap when I plucked it off. While making this post- I picked up the pot and realized the puppy mat was kinda soaked. The drainage holes have like white mildew/mold/fungus that is slightly on the dirt in the hole. Now what do I do? Leave it be? Let the bottom dry out? Aerate the dirt? One person told me to water the plant with dish soap mixed water to kill fungus and gnats. I guess the spots are root rot? Or I still on top of messing up the mat overwatered it?? :( ... Sorry Audrey.






Soapy water
Leave it be

Comments (4)

  • 6 years ago

    Aside from fungus gnats, Audrey may also be dealing with some bacterial and/or fungal disease. I say that because even new growth, stem and leaves appear to be affected. If that's the case, my suggestion would be to quarantine Audrey, wash the roots, scrub the pot very well, then re-plant it in fresh, new potting mix. And, of course, avoid over-watering it.

  • 5 years ago

    Whoever suggested Amber should destroy root lipid membranes (by watering with a solution of dishsoap and water) to kill fungus gnats, should have their license to give advice about plants revoked.

    Old post, so I don't know if you still have the plant or not, but the necrotic leaf tips and margins are symptomatic of a compromised root system, more specifically, an inability of the root system to efficiently move water to the plant's most distal parts (leaf tips/margins). This is a direct result of the volume of oxygen (in the root zone) being insufficient to drive normal root function. In most cases, the reason for a dearth of oxygen in the rootzone is resultant of a chronic excess of water in the grow medium, but however unlikely, it's still possible soil compaction alone, w/o the specter of over-watering, could be the root cause (no pun).

    Neither is there anything in the images to suggest bacterial issues or one of the fungaluglies are in play.

    Al

  • 3 years ago

    Did you figure this out? im having th

    e exact issue!

  • 3 years ago

    If you're seeing the same symptoms in various states of severity on several leaves, there is very likely an issue affecting root health/ function; however, if involvement doesn't extend beyond the single leaf, I would say that it's not likely anything to be concerned about. The reason I'm suggesting this is, when I enlarge the image, it appears that the leaf suffered a mechanical injury, a crack, probably due to the leaf being folded at some point in time. At the center of the lesion, you can see lighter tissue that forms an obtuse angle of about 135*, with the bottom leg of the crack extending beyond the boundary of the lesion. If the crack I'm talking about were clock hands, the top hand would be at about 1 o'clock and the bottom hand at about 5 o'clock.

    Let us know if more than 1 leaf is involved. If it is, let us know how you determine when it's time to water and how you actually go about watering. The devil is very often in the details, but there are no details.

    Al