Question
Anthurium
Dear Darlene,
I need help!
I own 2 Anthurium plants which I purchased in Oct 09 from Home Depot. I replanted them in new pots a few weeks after I bought them. Both seemed to be doing OK, continued flowering and growing new leaves... until a week ago when I noticed that one of the plants started to get blotchy brown spots on the leaves (see picture attached). I treat both plants absolutely the same (same spot- side by side on a table about 1 meter away from a window with a SE exposure, same soil, water, fertilizer...)
What is wrong with my plant? Can you help me?
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Eva Georgiev
AnswerEva,
For starters, you should never buy a plant and immediately repot it, especially not in the fall. Tropical plants should only be repotted between April 1st and July 1st when the days are getting longer, never in the fall of the year when the days are getting shorter. During the shorter days even indoor tropical plants go dormant and their roots stop growing. Then they require a lot less water. When you repot in the fall you disturb the roots and because they are not growing they do not recuperate. It causes the plant to go into a kind of shock. You may have damaged the roots on one plant worse than the other and that is why even though you are treating them the same one is going downhill now.
The symptoms the one with problems is indicating is that it is getting too much water. It needs to get nearly dry between waterings and 30 minutes after you water it you need to empty the drain tray so it is not sitting in a tray full of water. That causes the roots to rot and you have brown spots on the roots exactly like you are experiencing. Cut back on the amount of water and the frequency of watering and you plant should recuperate. Good luck.
Darlene
