Question
I have a small pond with papayrus and water lillys, in the window of my health center in North Carolina. This is the second summer in the window. The room is cool, but the window does get a lot of sun. I add a gallon of water daily to the pond (it does have chlorine in it). The mature papayrus leaves have always turned brown at the tips so I prune those when necessary, but now the new shoots are also getting brown spots. What can be happening? I just trimmed the roots in the pond since the roots had overtaken the space. What can I do? Thank you, Deborah Jones

Answer
Plants aren't my forte (I have a bit of a brown thumb) but this is what I think.  Dead leaves brown obviously. Sometimes you'll get healthy leaves though that get brown spots on them that then turn brown.  I think that that may be some fungal rot.  If a tropical plant doesn't get enough heat and light, it will have more problems.  Since the room is cool, the plant may need more heat even if it gets enough light.  You can add an aquarium heater to the pond itself to raise the temperature of the water (but not the air).  I've brought my dwarf papyrus indoors to try to overwinter it inside in the past, and it always dies within a few months.  The leaves turn brown and mushy.  It's simply not warm or bright enough in the basement even with grow lights.  How much of the papyrus is actually wet? It may be too wet.  Fungus grows when it's cool and wet.  Only the roots need to be kept wet.  The less of the leaves that are in the pond, the less rot that should occur.  I assume when you add a gallon of water, you remove some?  If not, the pond loses a gallon a day?  How big is the pond?  If you're not adding dechlorinator, the chlorine in time can also kill off plants.  I suggest dechlorinating the water even if it's just a small percentage of the total pond volume.  Do you fertilize the papyrus.  Too much fertilizer can also harm plants.  I hope I've at least given you some ideas to look into.  Good luck!

Robyn
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