Question
My Schefflera has had a rough time. When I brought it home from the farmer's market, it was beautiful. A few weeks later, the bottom leaves started to turn black and fall off, so I changed my watering routine. Shortly therafter, I noticed mealy bugs on it and sprayed with organic insecticide soap. Two days after that, I went to check the soil for moisture and saw what looked like tent caterpillers crawling out of the soil. I completely dumped out the soil, sprayed the roots with a hose and soaked the root ball 30 minutes in water then replanted it. Three days later, it started to wilt and had looked wilty for almost a week now. The leaves bend down by their stems and the stems at the site where they connect to the branch turn black, but the leaves are green and don't fall off. Will it survive? What can I do to give it the best chance? It is an indoor office plant and gets a little indirect light from windows and lots of flourescent light. I am supposed to spray it again for left over mealy bugs but am afraid to tax it anymore. What can I do?

Answer
Cheryl,

I am not sure if it will survive or not. You severely damaged the roots when you washed all the soil off and replanted it. The plant probably lost most of it's fine roots and that is what takes up water so now it is drooping because it is starved for water. You don't say how large it is, if it is quite large you may help it by cutting it back by half so the few roots have less top to support. You started out by overwatering it as your black leaves indicate. This plant does not like to be watered until the surface of the soil has been dry for at least 3 days. When you water it you should give it enough water that all the soil in the pot is moist and an hour later empty any excess in the drain pot under the plant. If you can't pick it up to empty it you can use a turkey baster to empty the drain tray.

Next time you see any kind of bugs or worms in the soil of a plant do not remove all the soil to get rid of them. Simply keep some extra bottles of rubbing alcohol handy and water the plant with rubbing alcohol straight or half rubbing alcohol and half water if it is a large plant. Rubbing alcohol will kill any insect or worm on contact and will not harm the plant. The alcohol evaporates quickly enough that the plant is never harmed and the insects and worms become fertilizer fast. The worms were probably actually the larva of fungus gnats that were attracted to the plant because the roots were rotting because it was being overwatered. Make sure you are not overwatering other plants and never leave them sitting in a drain tray full of water. Also never have house plants in pots with no drain holes, they will be drowning. House plants are not swamp plants and they hate sitting in water constantly!

As for spraying the plant again I would recommend that you mix rubbing alcohol 50/50 with water and add a tablespoon of your insecticidal soap to a quart of alcohol/water mix. Use that to spray the plant and it should be okay.

Lighting on weekends. If the lights are going to be off in the office all weekend try to move it close to the windows so it can get plenty of light over the weekend. That will keep your plant happier. Good luck!

Darlene