What am I doing wrong?
This is my second hurricane fern. The first one I had for about a year and then it started to look to have root rot so I tried cleaning it up and repotting but it did not survive. I just got a new one last week and it was in seemingly good condition when I recieved it. I quickly repotted and since it was quite wet I waited a few days to water, checked the soil using a moisture meter, and based on the reading of two and soil feeling dry, used Greg’s recommended 275mL watering. I will say by the time I went to water, quite a bit of bottom yellowing had started, now a few days later, the bottom leaves look even worse. She’s near about a foot from a west facing window that does not get direct light. Help. I love the way these plants look and want to be successful! #HappyPlants
6” pot with drainage
Last watered 1 year ago
2
Hi @FirstCeratiola 👋. Ahhh the ferns, they can be so finicky. Definitely not an easy plant to keep in the house. But you’re in Florida so that’s a plus right there 👍 They love humid climates. Being too wet isn’t good for the plant and repotting can be traumatic so there may be a couple of things going on. She may be reacting to the quick change from being wet and then being in dry soil that didn’t get watered for a couple of days. Hopefully it’s just shock and trying to adjust to the new environment and not that root rot had already started before you got her. I would try to make no changes to her for a couple of weeks - your west window with no direct light is good (East window even better). Keep the humidity up, and if possible keep good airflow around her. An open window if the temperature is warm, or a gentle breeze from a fan? Airflow helps prevent moisture from just sitting there tempting mold & mildew or pests. Use the water meter before the next scheduled watering and snooze if necessary. I have a wavy leaf birds nest fern and we struggled in the beginning. Overwatering can lead to crown rot with these guys so really be careful with water 💦. Everything I see says they don’t like to dry out, but I let mine get to where the soil is slightly moist before watering. Mine’s in a plastic pot so I lift her up to see how heavy she is compared to how heavy she got when last watered. Hope that helps!
@MariansOasis thank you. I’ll try to wait it out. She just looks like exactly how the other one started to go… I hate this lol