I’ve had this Schefflera Actinophylla for about a month and a half. It was doing very well and we would water it lightly about every week. It never showed signs of over-watering.

Starting last week, a single leaf turned black. It accidentally got out on direct sunlight that day for about an hour. We live in Sacramento, CA so initially I thought it was heat stressed due to our hot summers. We also lightly fertilized it with diluted miracle-gro about two weeks ago. This same fertilizer mixture was used on other houseplants and outdoor plants, and they are all fine except this one.

Well now the whole stem is black, along with black leaves that are falling off (except for the top leaves which are green). I’m a novice green-thumb and I’m worried that I did something to it now. Is there any hope for this plant?