Question
Hi I emailed you before about cyclmen, well I have another question.  I have a Janet Craig plant,and it has spots on the leaves and browning leaf tips. Can you tell me what's going on with it and what I can do? I also have a hanging plant----I don't know what it is, can you tell me what it is and how I can make it fuller? As you can tell I don't know much about plants. Thank you, Martha Ladd

Answer
Hi Martha,

Thanks for the photos.

Your Janet Craig 'compacta' is a plant that invariably has some leaves that develop brown tips that progress until most of the leaf is brown. Imperfect watering and lack of ideal light are the primary causes of this. Using hard water is a secondary cause.

Because it is hard to provide ideal conditions outside of the greenhouse, you have to accept that some of this leaf discoloration is inevitable. However, you can minimize it by allowing the top half inch of soil to dry out before watering thoroughly (See info about pot size below.) and providing lots of bright indirect light all day long. If your tap water is hard, switch to filtered, distilled or rainwater.

Your Janet Craig is in a pot that is too large. All of the extra soil added to the large pot will absorb and retain water for a long time. This will cause the roots to slowly rot and the plant will eventually die. I suggest that you unpot your plant and put it back into the pot that it came in or into the smallest pot that the roots will fit into snugly. Using too large a pot is the single most common plantcare mistake.

Your hanging plant is called Pothos. It is often mistaken for Philodendron. Pothos do not branch and they do not put out new stems from the soil. There are two things you can do to create a fuller plant.

First, any stem that is pruned will produce new growth starting at the cut end. Thus, if you want more growth close to the pot, then you have to prune back a stem or two to within a few inches of the pot. It is best to prune back the longest stems.

The cuttings that you cut off can be rooted in water. After they have developed roots that are about an inch long, these cuttings can be inserted in the base of the original plant. Use a pencil to poke a hole into the soil, put the roots and lower part of the stem into the hole, and then press the soil in tight around it.

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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