Question
I just found this site yestrday and have already read most of your advice.  I am very impressed with your knowledge.
I have five housplants and have questions about each of them.
1) Dieffenbachia.  It is in an 8 inch diameter pot, 1 foot tall from top of soil to top of plant.  This plant is doing very good, it is getting new leaves and seems to be happy.  I have it by an eastern window.  My only concern is that some of the leaves have a slight yellowing at the tips and some of the newer, smaller leaves have no light markings at all.  
2) Philodendron.  It is in an eleven inch hanging pot.  There are a few longer vines that have no leaves.  I recently removed some of the soil, wound them back inside the pot, and put the soil back, hoping they will root from there.  It is healthy, just very sparse.  There are only about a dozen leaves on it, but it has started to get a couple new leaves.  It is in a western window that gets good afternoon/evening sun.
3) Dracaena Janet Craig.  My poor, poor dracaena.  This plant and the "ficus" I will mention next were bought when my husband and I married and moved into our first home 3 years ago.  I am emotionally attached to them and I want to do right by them.  The dracaena is in a one foot pot.  The leaf span is 8 inches across and it stands 8 inches high.  It has brown tips and is missing a few leaves that I removed.  It is at the same eastern window. It's only a few inches taller than when I got it.  Should I removed the leaves with brown tips? There are several of them.  If i do, how should I remove them?  I have ripped other leaves off in a downward motion from the stalk, but should I be using clippers?
4) Ficus benjamina.  When I bought this it was a foot tall.  It grew and grew.  It was doing pretty good.  I took it outside to repot it one day and decided to leave it outside to get some sun.  It was outside for a few day and in this time all the leaves shriveled turned yellow and fell off.  I think it was hotter to the plant than I had thought because even the trunk ended up dead.  Before I had reppotted it, I pruned off some branches and one healthy branch, I had decided to try and root in water.  Well, it rooted!  So now my big tree is long gone and i have a single branch that is doing quite well in an eastern window.  It has new growth on it, but it is so tiny.  It is only 8 inches tall in a 6 inch diameter pot.  The "main" trunk is the thickness of a coffee stirrer, and about as strong!  It has about 2 dozen leaves on it, some are very large "original leaves" from the branch, the new leaves are about the size of a dime and there are 7 smaller branches off of this main trunk.  You can understand my dilemma in trying to prune... I could easily prune a couple branches and half the tree would be gone!  I hate to give up on it because it is part of that first tree.  It's the only part that survived.
5) I am not positive what this last plant is.  I believe it is a ming aralia, a tiny one.  I am waiting on some pictures of it that i can send to you.  It is one trunk, about the width of a woman's finger, that branches off and it is about a foot tall total and in a 6 inch pot near an eastern window.  It has many new leaves and branches, but I am not sure how to prune or shape it.  I would like to cut the main trunk where it branches off to begin a second trunk, but I am not sure if that would work.  I don't want to lose this plant (or any of my plants.)
My general questions for all the plants are:
a) are the above-mentioned pots too big?
b) how often should they be watered, do they need to dry out completely first?
c) what type of soil?  I've had bad experiences with Miracle-Grow and other discount store brands getting gnats and pests.  Should I go to a nursery and purchase special soil?  Sterile soil?
d) what kind of fetilizer do I need?  Is there a kind i can get that will work for each of them?  How often should each be fertilized?  I have heard bad things about liquid fertilizer, what other options do I have?
I truly appreciate any help you can offer me.  I have considered bringing them to a nursery to get answers, but my experience is that some workers are not properly trained and don't really know the specifics or they may try to sell their most expensive product.  I need real advice.  I figure with the spring approaching this is a good time to begin anew with a proper plant regimen.
Thank you so much.
Rebekah  

Answer
Hi Rebekah,

You have very many questions here. Let me see if I can answer them as efficiently as possible.

In general it is best not to repot your plants when they are new and after that only when they are utterly potbound and drying out every couple of days. That means that your choice of potting mix is not so important. When you do repot, go up one size only.

The best potting mix is a soilless, peat-based potting mix, such as Pro-mix.

Fertilizer is vastly overrated and is entirely unnecessary for plants that have had fresh soil added in the past year. For plants in older potting soil, fertilize at half strength monthly, but only when the plant is healthy and putting out lots of new growth. Fertilizer is NOT medicine ansd should not be used on ailing plants. Use a complete fertilizer that includes trace elements. Liquid fertilizers are fine. I have written an article on fertilizer that I will send to you if you email a request to me at my address below.

Plants cannot be watered by some predetermined schedule. They should be watered on an as-needed basis. The species, pot size, available light, temperature, and humidity all have an effect on a plant's water requirements. In general, the top inch or so of soil should dry out before a plant is watered. However, there are many exceptions to this. I have also written an article on plant watering that I will email to you on request.

You are correct about not getting good advice at nurseries. Even those who know what they are doing, don't understand the care requirements of plants kept indoors in peoples' homes. I do.

Your Dieffenbachia may or may not be in the right sized pot, depending on the thickness of the main stem. I don't think that the leaf coloration you described is a problem. A photo would be more revealing.

If your Philodendron has only a dozen leaves, then the 11 inch pot is definitely way too big. It will remain sparse as long as the pot is too large and the number of individual vines is too few. You might better consider chopping it up into lots of cuttings, rooting them and then potting them up together in a small pot. Keep your Philo pruned to maintain its fullness. Unpruned stems become leggy and sparse.

Your Janet Craig is also overpotted in a 12" pot. That may be the cause of the brown tips. If your tap water is on the hard side or if you have been fertilizing, that may also cause the leaf tipping. A photo would help me to better diagnose the problem. The discolored leaves are best removed by cutting the leaves lengthwise down the center of each leaf, then pulling them apart so they pull away cleanly from the stem where they are attached.

Ficus trees always drop their leaves when the light is changed. Evidently your original tree also got to dried out when it was outside. Your single-stemmed cutting would grow faster in a smaller pot. Top growth is reduced until the roots fill the pot. Provide as much light as possible to help develop the thickness of the main trunk.

Your Ming Aralia can be pruned. However, it is unlikely to produce multiple stems as a result of the pruning. New growth will emerge and grow straight up from a point just below where you make the pruning cut. To get a fuller plant, you need to have multiple stems growing in the same pot. A photo would help.

For future information, it is preferred that you post a single question at a time on AllExperts. I have a 4 question per day limit from everyone so that I can provide thorough answers, but not be overwhelmed. (I do not receive any compensation for answering questions.) You will receive better information from me in the future if you respect these limits

Please let me know if any of this is unclear or if you have any additional questions.
   
Regards,
Will Creed, Interior Landscaper
Horticultural Help, NYC

You can E-mail me directly at: [email protected]

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