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Posted 1M ago by @AlisonC509

#Philodendron

Hello! Just got this little guy <2 weeks ago. Greg id’d as a Brasil variety but I don’t think that’s right. It seemed dry when I opened it from shipment so I watered it, per the instructions with it. Greg is recommending watering 3/4 cup every 6 days. I just watered it today on that schedule. It looks worse than it did a few days ago. I thought these were supposed to be hard to kill! 😬 If I put it by the window it gets a few hours of sunlight a day. I moved it onto my kitchen table last week to see if it was getting too much sun.
1ft to light, direct
6” pot with drainage
Last watered 3 days ago
Greg is usually overzealous with watering recommendations at the start. It learns as you give it updates and snooze accordingly- I don't know much about philodendrons specifically, so I can't say if it looks a bit overwatered, sunburned, or possibly both, but it's always important to let soil dry out a bit between waterings. A good way to tell is the 'stick stick trick' where you put a bamboo skewer into the soil. If it comes out clean, it's ready for a drink. If it's damp or has soil sticking to it, hit that snooze button and check again in 2-3 days.
Hi! Welcome to Greg! This could be philodendron hederaceum. Getting into plant care is awesome but there is always a learning curve :) With your watering, please don’t follow the app without checking the soil yourself. There are a number of of ways you can do that: stick your finger in deep (at least 2 knuckles down)/ use a metal moisture meter/ use a wooden or bamboo chopstick/ use a Sustee moisture meter. When the app gives you a reminder, confirm whether the plant NEEDS to be watered and if not, snooze the reminder. I recommend watching some plant care videos - there are tons on YouTube. I like the watering videos by Swedish Plant Guy - I use the method he describes: take the pot to the sink, pour generous amounts of water over the soil until it runs out of the drainage holes in the bottom of the pot, wait until all drips are done and place the plant back. When thinking about light for this plant, aim to place the plant somewhere it can see the sky throughout the day but not get any intense afternoon sun directly on the plant. Hope that makes sense! The yellow leaf on your plant is showing that this baby is overwatered btw - cut it off and check your soil before watering next time (you can snooze Greg reminders) 🌿🌿
@WelsomeRhodotus thank you! I have snoozed some before but only for an outdoor mum that had gotten rain. Not all of my plants have drainage (like my snake plant, dracaena and money tree). This one does though. I just got a metal moisture meter. Tracked down what range they recommend for each type I have and checked 2-3 spots on each. My nepenthes pitcher plant was just watered and it was reading as moist, not wet, interestingly. I learned of the bamboo chopstick method recently but haven’t tried it!
@AlisonC509 nice! The metal moisture meters won’t work as well in certain substrates so if your nepenthes is currently in sphagnum or something like that, you won’t get an accurate reading. I have started experimenting with using Sustee moisture meters I bought on Amazon - they work with pretty much any common substrate which is handy. The wooden stick will work better for chunky mixes and sphagnum, the metal meter will work better for soil. Hope that helps!
@WelsomeRhodotus @CactusAdjacent when it comes to the bamboo chopsticks, before I order a box of 100 πŸ˜†, can you reuse them or just throw away each time? Obviously not back to back, but letting it dry out between checks.
@WelsomeRhodotus my nepenthes is in a chopped sphagnum, peat moss and perlite mix. That makes sense.
@AlisonC509 oh goodness you don’t need that many! lol πŸ˜‚ you can reuse it for sure, just may need to wait for the end to dry out or use the other end on the next plant
@AlisonC509 the Sustee will work better for that I think. You have to replace the biodegraded core every 9-12 months but they seem like pretty handy contraptions. The idea is to keep them living in the pot with your plant so it’s one per pot rather than one meter that you can use with lots of plants. Not super economical in terms of expense but one that I use with a few of my fussier plants at the moment
@WelsomeRhodotus thanks! Can you send a link of what you have? I did see those when I was shopping for the metal one. I like the idea of one I can leave in there haha.
@AlisonC509 these: Sustee Aquameter, Set of 5, Plant Soil Moisture Sensor (Green, Medium) https://a.co/d/4S7evXd I like the green ones but also got white ones. They have different sizes for different size pots and the idea is to place them so that they are at the level of the root ball. There’s videos on YouTube on how to prep them for use as well :)
@AlisonC509 I use these, it's like $2 for the pack πŸ˜‚ but yes, you can totally reuse them!
@WelsomeRhodotus thank you!
@CactusAdjacent thank you!
@AlisonC509 no problem!
@AlisonC509 I swear by wooden sticks. I use chopsticks. I never watered by schedule. I always check to see if the stick is wet. I have used the same sticks over and over for years.
@Just1More yea it seems for some of mine the schedule is ok, like my Venus fly trap. But 3-4 others have some level of yellowing or straight up brown and dead areas/leaves. I ordered some bamboo skewers - those should work fine right? One of the other commenters rec’d those. How long do you leave the stick in to check? And about halfway between edge of pot and root base?