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My Fittonia is drooping

4 years ago

Hi,
My Fittonia was desperately in need of water so I gave it some. Normally the plant is fully recovered in about an hour but this time my plant kept drooping. I decided to give my plant some more water the next day but at the end of the day it still did not seem okay. A few of the leaves and stems looked sturdier then before but overall the plant did not look well. At this point I panicked and changed the potting soil because I tought that I had overwatered the plant. This obviously did not help. At the moment the plant is standing on a pebble tray but I don't see any positive changes. The leaves are not turning yellow, so I don't think I overwatered the plant.
Can someone help me figure out what is going on with my Fittonia? :)

Comments (5)

  • 4 years ago

    Can you post a picture?

  • 4 years ago



  • 4 years ago

    it was stressed ..


    you watered it ... did NOT give it time to recover ... so you watered it more ... frankly.. if your pot drains... i cant figure how you overwatered it ...


    and then.. you panicked.. and repotted an already stressed plant ...


    diagnosis ... your plant is stressed ...


    leave it alone .. presuming you used dampened media .. and watered it in properly ... then just leave it alone for a week or two ...


    too much love can be worse than not enough ... be patient ..


    ken


    ps: its stressed not hungry.. fert is not a response to stress ...

  • 4 years ago

    Thank you for your advise!

    Is it wise to let the plant stand on the pebble tray? I went for this option because I also noticed that the air in my house is very dry lately.

  • 4 years ago
    last modified: 4 years ago

    I can give you most of the information you'll need to reason through what's happening, but given what we know at this point, it will be up to you to decide what the likely cause of the wilting is.

    Plants in containers are always "stressed" because container gardening is inherently stressful to plants; too, stress comes in many forms and directions, and to varying degrees. "Stress" simply means the plant is growing under the influence of imperfect cultural conditions, or, perhaps more accurately, stress occurs when the plant is growing at or near the limits of what it is genetically programmed to tolerate. The key issue isn't whether or not a plant is stressed; rather, the questions are to what degree it's stressed and what is the CAUSE of the stress.

    If, when your plant first started wilting, you could still detect moisture in the soil with a "tell" or a finger, it's a pretty sure bet the cause wasn't under-watering. If a plant wilts while the soil is moist, it's usually one of three issues, 1) there is an excessive amount of water in the grow medium, which limits the root system's oxygen supply which in turn limits the plant's ability to efficiently take up and move water to all of its parts, or 2) a high level of dissolved solids (salts) have accumulated in the grow medium and soil solution. This can nullify the plant's ability to move water through its cells' permeable membrane (osmosis). The level of dissolved solids can reach levels so high that water stops moving into cells and begins to be pulled out of cells by the same mechanism that curing salt pulls water from the cells of meat like ham/ bacon/ sausage. When this reversal of water occurs, plasmalemma is torn from cell walls as the water moves out and the cell collapses. The scientific name for this disorder is 'plasmolysis', but commonly referred to as fertilizer burn., or 3) The root system is infected by a pathogen which limits its ability to take up water and nutrients dissolved therein.

    Did you inspect the roots when you repotted? Did they look healthy with white or tan fleshy tips, or did they smell sour, with many black or slimy roots? Often, fungal infections which cause root rot will create conditions such that when you tug on an affected root, the outer covering slides off and leaves behind the root's ventral core (vascular cylinder).

    Plants that wilt from over-watering usually perk up at night. This is because small openings in leaves (stomata) close during the dark cycle. This limits water loss through these openings, which allows the plant to rebuild its internal water pressure (turgidity) which relieves wilting to some degree.

    Is it wise to let the plant stand on the pebble tray? A humidity tray can be 'somewhat' helpful in that it slows evaporative water loss from the plant to the air surrounding it, which tends to increase the the plant's internal water pressure (turgidity) which helps to counter the tendency to wilt.

    Al

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