Portulacaria Afra Dying!

amber

Hello Folks-

I've read about all I can stand about portulacaria afras and I'm still clueless. I received a beautiful plant as a gift in December, and it's been going downhill ever since. I am confined to indoor growing, and my indoor climate is anything but steady. It has been hot & dry here in Denver over the last couple of months, but it was cool and temperate inside for most of the winter. I have a set up that includes fluorescent lights (on a 14 hour Light timer) near a window, and a bunch of other plants that are healthy (and some that aren't so healthy). This summer has been so hot & dry that I recently bought a humidifier which seems to be helping most of my trees. So, now that I've described the set up, here's the sad history of my tree:
The first photo is of the tree back in December. It was georgeous, but had some scale & mealy bugs. I picked all of them off over the next couple of months & I haven't found any in a couple of months. It started dropping leaves as soon as I got it home, but I figured that it was just adjusting to its new home. When they just kept dropping, and stems started dropping too, I knew something was terribly wrong. After the leaves shriveled up & fell off, the stems would gradually decline, turning yellow & soft until they fell off. The portion of the stem left after the node would callous over & often sprout new leaves.
I checked the soil & roots, and everything looked fine. The soil was free draining & not compacted. After reading a ton on the internet, I repotted it in new, clean soil that was a mix of my local nursery's clay & organic bonsail soil & a bunch of rock, just in case.
I visted the nursery that it came from in March or April & the portulacaria they still had in stock looked about the same as mine. It was nearly leafless, and had some of those fragile yellow stems. I thought maybe I had a plant with a fungal problem. The second photo is of the stems I plucked off today.
I talked to a local succulent expert & he recommended a Captan foliar spray. I've given that a try a few times over the last month, and no change. I'm still losing stems & leaves.
The third, sad picture was taken today. I bought a small portulacaria in June, repotted it in the same soil mix & placed it near the sick one to act as a canary in a coal mine, so to speak. So far, it is doing beautifully.
Does anyone know what is happening? I've read a lot of forums that say portulacaria is easy to take care of, but I've had a terrible time with this guy. I sure would appreciate any advice that you helpful folks might have.
Thank You So Much!
Amber

Attached Images

	elephant bush compressed.JPG (26.2 KB, 65 views)
	elephant bush stems.JPG (10.2 KB, 28 views)
	elephant bush 07-07 compressed.JPG (23.7 KB, 64 views)

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nsmar4211

First off, P. afra are going to struggle inside . Even in a sunny windowsill here in Florida, they don't do so good.

You don't say how often you water yours? Yellow mushy stems is too much water. You say it's in clay and organic soil........get it out of that mix, that's way too heavy for a p. afra, espically one inside. Unless by "clay" you mean turface (hard particles of fired clay)? Half of mine are in straight turface and love it, and they are out in the blistering Florida sun. I've even used parakeet gravel (not the limestone stuff, the sand stuff) because it drained well and they were happy. Sounds to me like yours is suffering from too much water.

Don't spray it with anything!!!!!! Any kind of oily spray will cause it to drop all of its leaves! I'd be willing to bet you're not having a pest problem. I've acquired a few with mealy bugs and scale myself, a simply spraying of soapy water took care of that. But right now, you don't want to be adding chemicals to it.

Don't worry about humidity with the p.afra, they are succulents and are meant for low humidity areas. I've never killed one by underwatering it, I've hurt a few by overwatering or neglecting to notice the drainholes were blocked.


Here's what I would do: Don't water it. Put away the watering can. Wait until the top inch of the soil is dry before even thinking about watering it. Indoors (in a/c?) it may be a week, 10 days, etc. There's still hope for it. Don't spray it with anything! If you're really brave, take it out of the pot, rinse all the soil off the roots, and repot it into straight inorganic bonsai soil. Don't water it after repotting for a couple of days. You can always feed it fertilizer in the water, so don't worry about having organics in the soil. Once new leaves start coming out, water it well and then let it dry again. Yellow leaves, mushy stems, that's overwatering (or dead roots.... ).

Let us know how it's doing in a few days of not being watered........ and we'll go from there .

Susan and crew

PS Never give it a humidity tray or set it in water, you'll rot the roots off....


www.susanszoocrew.com

amber

Hi Susan & Crew-

Thanks for the reply! Yes, you guessed correctly, I meant to say fired clay particles. It's the local store's mix & it looks like 1/2 inorganic & 1/2 bark-like organic stuff. I mixed that with an equal part of lava rock when I repotted, so I'd guess it's pretty close to 3/4 inorganic. I've tried not to water it too offten. I wait until the leaves that are left shrivel up a little before I water, and never more than once a week. I check the moisture with a chopstick & my finger before it gets a drink, but I guess I still might be over doing it. The spray I used was a wettable powder, so no oil there, but Captan isn't listed for succulents so I didn't have much hope for it anyhow. I suppose I could still be overdoing the water. I'll try to keep from watering it so often and just keep an eye on it.

Thanks Again!
Amber

Attila

Portulacarias love be repotted in the hottest time of the year. So, the first thing I would do is to take it out of the pot, wash away any soil, and remove all the rotted pieces of root. Then I would plant it in 100% lava rock or pumice, letting it dry between waterings. This would guarantee 100% chance of recovery. Sprays do more harm than help.

As long as the plant is not completely rotten, succulents ALLWAYS recover when correcting the soil conditions, even when they have absolutely no roots left. You can take a cutting as thick as your thigh, plant it in pumice or sand, and you will have 100% success in rooting them, as long as the weather is hot and dry. First, the plant loses all, or most of its leaves, then it grows new ones.

Regards,
Attila

nsmar4211

It's easy to overwater p. afra, espically inside. Outside Ive got some that get watered every day, but in 90+ heat it's not gonna hurt LOL. There's no way of putting it outside? Even in the shade? Sunny windowsill?
Try waiting a day past the day you think it needs water... friend of mine hardly every waters his and somehow they're still growing . Like I said, there's still hope, they bounce back good.
Let us knowhow it's doing in a few days

susan and crew