Black On Coffee Tree

//Black On Coffee Tree

Although it’s impossible to diagnose a problem from a photo alone, here are our impressions and the questions to ask that should lead you to some help.
1. This does not immediately strike us as a disease problem. Fungi, bacterial and viral problems on houseplants have a different look.
2. Browning on leaf margins such as we see here is usually caused by either drying out in between waterings, fertilizer burn or a combination of the two – see below.
3. Has this plant been in the same pot for a long time? Since we can’t see the container, it’s difficult to know if it’s too small for the plant at this point. But what happens to all container plants as they get larger is that the pots become congested with roots and this makes it harder to hold water in that container. So you might be watering as you always have been, but because the plant is root bound that same amount of water is no longer enough. If the plant has been in the same container for three years or more it needs to be repotted.
4. Has the plant been moved to a new location that might have more sunlight or be drier because it’s close to a heating unit? If so, that can cause the soil to dry more quickly.
5. Did you fertilize in the last two months, and if so, was the fertilizer either mixed slightly too strongly or applied to a dry plant? Either of these can lead to fertilizer burn. If you think that this might be the problem, flush the soil with lots of water, repot if the plant is root bound, and in the future mix at low rates and never fertilize a thirsty plant.

By | 2015-12-02T21:33:20-08:00 December 2nd, 2015|House Plants|0 Comments

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