Help my cardboard palm is browning and yellowing!!!
I came home from college and I found my cardboard palm like this😭 I found a puddle of water in the ceramic pot the nursery one was sitting in. I left my mom in charge of it. The roots look fine but the soil is definitely wet on the bottom. Should I just let it dry out and hope for the best? Or is it getting too much direct sun? Any advice will help!
3ft to light, indirect
6” pot with drainage
Last watered 6 days ago
4
Best Answer
@FunJacaranda do you have a sense of whether the plant may have been dehydrated before it was last watered (perhaps excessively). Or is your sense that the yellowing is due to excessive water alone? They the roots are fine even though there was standing water in the cache pot leads me to deduce that perhaps the plant suffered what fern clearly a lot stress damage prior to the addition of water that was pooled—-because if the roots are fine that means the excessive water could not have been there all that long without affecting the roots. I’m not going to sugar coat it, but I will conclude with a pep talk for what to me seems to be a rather grim situation. Normally, it is recommended that each damaged leaf is removed. However, the standard practice in this situation, eacch leaf in inspected and removed on a leaf by leaf Bair seems to me like it would result in very little foliage remaining. As such, the appropriate focus is: whethwr the plants ability to engage in photosynthesis can be salvaged through careful selection of which leaves to remove or merely how to preserving the ability to engage in any photosynthesis. Perhaps it might be better articulate this way: be very mindful in exercising caution in how you proceed in treating the plant. It’s kind of like the dilemma a patient has when they need a surgery but the anesthesia itself could be fatal. To that end: Focus on removing the leaves that are completely brown or shriveled first, as they're unlikely to recover. For partially affected leaves, consider trimming only the severely yellow or damaged portions, allowing the healthier parts to support the plant until new growth emerges. Prioritize preserving the parts that still contain green chlorophyll to maintain the plant's ability to photosynthesize. Next as the plant is in a fragile and weakened state, it’s care requirements for lighting must account for this. , a light meter can be purchased for $12 on Amazon. Usually these plants want 500-1500 fc. Presently, a range of 500-800 is optimal as the risk of additional light stress can be mitigated. Next, the plant will need to by carefully monitored so that the range hydration levels does not fluctuate unnecessarily or too extremely. So be extra entered in deciding when to water and how. I would go ahead and treat with an antifungal soil drench such as Bonide Revitalize available on Amazon or Arber’s anti pest and anti fungal formulas. You can include these concentration in the water when you water them. It will give your plant a boost in tbe event that is has a defense against infection now. If you’re unfamiliar with soil drenches hmu. As to expectations these plants are not fast growers. It could take two years in quarantine before it’s ready for inclusion around your other houseplants. Quarantine will reduce the risk the plant succumbs to a pathogen that could spread to other plants. Now for the pep talk. To me, my plants are the very things I use to survive PTSD. The interaction action I have with them, the nuturing, creating beauty to my environment and bringing life into the world through propogating plants—they are what I rely on to survive. My mom knows this. Yet this matter of life or death type situation nonetheless fails to Leonor her to even look at my plants long enough to notice when they are dying ;(I have some of my plants at her house because she likes them as decor). To me it’s like she knows they are my dolls. So there is a lot complexity that can be played into when others don’t rise to the occasion of plant sitting. You would think if someone asked us to pet sit that the expectation is that you don’t return home to a pet that exhibits the physical manifestation of malnourishment. But “plant blindness” is a real thing in culture. Which in principal should not mean that we can’t have expectations of plant sitters. It just means that any neglect by someone entrusted to care for our plants will have a disproportionate impact on us. It is what it is. Your posting was emotionally neutral so my discussion on the emotional component was not meant to be a reflection on your mom. One day I came home from law school and the Amazon parrot I had raised from before she had feathers after she hatched (like I bottle fed her), she was just gone. No cages no perches. No dead body. No warning beforehand. She just gave her away lol. At least you have your plant to save. Next, this is a cycad. It is an ancient plant —often called a living fossil. It predates the dinosaurs. And whatever killed it the dinosaurs, the cycads endured. So your patient is one of the most resilient in the history of the earth. It’s a fighter. Be optimistic. Lastly, there have been many plants at my moms house that have been subjected to her prerogatives, I have learned that the silver lining to these situations is that you get better at bringing plants back from the dead with experience and one day when you look back at these occasions you’ll have that “we’ve been through a lot together” moments. And those are probably the list special of them all. Good luck
@TexanExpat thank you for all the advice!! I don’t really know if it was stressed before the water but it very well could have been. I also just ordered a light meter so I will know if it’s getting enough or too much light in about a week or so