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Why is my fittonia suddenly declining?

4 years ago

This is my first time posting on here so please bear with me.

I’ve had my fittonia plant since the end of April. For 6 months, it had been thriving. I’m located in Chicago. I have it placed about 6 feet from a west facing window, it gets direct sunlight for about 2-3 hours of the day. I also had it in a self watering pot for the last 6 months. At the end of October, I noticed that it was losing leaves at a rapid pace- I thought maybe due to the seasonal changes it wasn’t receiving enough light for being in a self watering pot so I repotted it in a small regular pot with drainage holes. Since the temperatures started dropping, we’ve turned the heat back on and the table the fittonia is on is above a heating vent. Thinking that it would protect it from the heating vent air, and also because I know it’s a moisture-loving plant, I misted it and placed a glass dome over it. It’s been a week since I did that and now many of the leaves are getting slimy and essentially turning to complete mush. Does anyone have any ideas what is going on here and what I can do to help it thrive again?


Comments (2)

  • 4 years ago

    6 feet from modern windows is pretty far ...

    but you just repotted it... its in shock.. so i would give it some time to settle down.. before you start applying too many more remedies ...

    hard to tell from the pic.. but did you moisten your media before use??? .. looks a bit dryish from this pic ...

    its stressed not hungry.. fert is not a response at this time

    all my plants are over a forced air furnace duct ... they are usually under the windows .. so where else would my plants be .... i doubt thats a direct issue at this time... but it can make all your pots dry faster ....

    aslo.. the furnace hasnt been blasting long enough to have seriously redu ed humidity in your house .. if that is ever an issue... its more of a late jan / feb issue ... and even then.. if you arent sparking yourself when you walk across carpeting dragging your feet.. then the humidity isnt realy that low ... i doubt that is an issue at this time...

    most of us think misting is useless ...

    one week is not long enough to get over transplant shock.. be patient ...

    ken

  • 4 years ago

    The medium looks very water-retentive, which leaves me to wonder how you determine when it's time to water, and what type of medium you used when you repotted or potted up?

    There is a good chance the initial loss of foliage stemmed from root problems, perhaps a fungal infection. If you increased the size of the pot when you repotted or potted up, it's a good bet that would have compounded the problem.

    The level of light 6 feet from the window is only 1/36 of the level AT the window, so it's a good bet the plant needs more light.

    Fungal infections on a plant's above-ground parts can occur systemically by way of the root pathway, or they can occur when fungal spores have a prolonged moist period which stimulates germination of the spores. The cloche you placed over the plant provides a prolonged period of dead air and relative humidity levels likely at 100%, which is a perfect environment for fungal infections to get a start.

    Misting really is very ineffective. On average, misting marginally raises RH of the air surrounding the plant for maybe 10 minutes, but there are an additional 1,430 minutes in each day during which it has no affect at all, unless you're misting every few minutes all day long.

    "Does anyone have any ideas what is going on here and what I can do to help it thrive again?" Yes. Plants are programmed to tolerate growing conditions within varying parameters. E.g., some plants will not tolerate RH being below a certain level, like 50% or even more. Most plants are very intolerant of soggy media and media that compacts and holds little oxygen. When we ask our plants to tolerate conditions at or near the limits Mother Nature, it unbalances their systems so they're like a wobbly spinning top instead of one perfectly balanced. Additional stress can make their systems falter and spin out of control to the degree the organism loses viability (dies).

    Somewhere near the middle of the range of every factor the plant WILL tolerate is a sweet spot. Nearly every houseplant on earth had or has the potential to become very nearly a perfect specimen. All it takes is a grower working toward the ability to provide all cultural conditions in the plant's sweet spot.

    That might sound at first like a daunting task, but it isn't. The factors that cause the most issues are related to soil choice, light levels, and nutritional supplementation. Concern about watering habits and soil moisture levels are significantly reduced by using a fast-draining and well-aerated medium. Fertilizing becomes monkey-easy when using a high quality grow medium. Even those who know almost nothing about plants or grow media can almost instantly become a better grower than 9 of 10 hobby growers by avoiding the pitfalls the other 90% of growers are trying to deal with. I can attest to this because at 9 years old, my granddaughter took an interest in growing things and grandpa helped get her set up with pots, media, and fertilizer. She did remarkably well until they all died from neglect when she discovered boys .... or they discovered her.

    Al