Care errors - soil waterlogging
Symptoms of waterlogged flowers
How to understand that we have a plant suffering from waterlogging? Leaf fall is one of the symptoms. In a number of plants, such as citrus, they fall off in the literal sense - darken and fall off. In others, for example, in aroid (aglaonema, diffenbachia) or marant, they darken, but still stay on the stems for a long time. In plants that form leaf rosettes or pseudo rosettes (yuccas, dracens), the leaves do not darken immediately, but initially discolor, turn pale yellow. But in other cases, the characteristic difference between leaves that die from waterlogging is darkening of the leaf. The leaf does not just turn yellow, it darkens, the color becomes from a healthy juicy green dirty swamp shade, gradually turns into brown. If waterlogging was preceded by drying, then the leaf first turns yellow, then the petiole of the leaf and the leaf itself darkens.
Decayed roots are stratified, the upper layer of the root becomes dirty gray, peels off if you run your fingers, a thin rigid core remains. These roots all died from waterlogging.
these are healthy living roots - green, yellowish or whitish, in some plants juicy brown.
Sudden or gradual flying of leaves, blackening of shoots, damp sour earth...
The trunk still seems alive, green, but the roots have rotted, the plant can no longer be saved.When the plant does not have enough water, the leaves always turn yellow, while the leaf tissues may lose their elasticity, droop, or may remain dry. After watering, the turgor recovers, the leaves become elastic again. If there is insufficient nutrition, mesenteric chlorosis may appear, the leaves do not droop, continue to grow, but become smaller. When waterlogged, the leaves may lose their elasticity, droop, but after watering the elasticity is not restored, and the darkening of the leaves, on the contrary, increases. Sometimes the leaves can fall off even without darkening - still green. But leaf fall can also occur from watering with cold water. Ideally, the water temperature for irrigation should be 2-3 ° C higher than the temperature in the room, but not lower than 22 ° C. Cold water is not absorbed by the roots, causes the suction roots to die from hypothermia, and, as a result, the leaves fall.
As for the hardness of the water, it cannot be the cause of the sudden fall of the leaves and the death of the plant. If you water the plants with hard water, even the most capricious, sensitive to excess salts, the plants will not begin to lose leaves en masse. All harm manifests itself gradually: first, chlorous spots appear, the tips or edges of the leaves brown, one or two leaves turn yellow, new leaves grow small and the plant looks depressed, but leaf fall does not occur.
With a massive drop of leaves, when the leaves fall off not one after another, but dozens at once, the reasons may be as follows: sharp hypothermia (for example, during transportation home), watering with concentrated fertilizer (burning roots), severe drying, and only hygrophytes and mesohygrophytes fly around en masse (and there are not many of them), and waterlogging. Naturally, the first two reasons can be easily calculated, and it is also possible to distinguish drying from waterlogging, but for this the plant must be removed from the pot. It is not always possible to feel the soil with your finger at a depth (for example, the roots have grown a lot), and only when you take the plant out of the pot can you establish whether the soil is wet inside the root coma.
Some growers pull to the last, not wanting to take out the plant and inspect the roots. They are either selflessly confident that there was no waterlogging, or they are afraid that an unscheduled transplant will damage the plant. But if there is even the slightest suspicion of waterlogging, do not even doubt - take out and examine the roots. Sometimes the root system of plants grows in this way: at the top the roots are not thick, the soil dries easily between them, and at the bottom of the pot the roots twist a dense ring, the interweaving of the roots makes it difficult to dry and at the bottom of the pot the soil dries for a very long time. This is especially aggravated by the fact that the holes at the bottom of the pot are small, clogged with pebbles or grains of earth.
On the mandarin, the result of waterlogging and acidification of the earth. Chlorosis - lack of various trace elements.
Such a deplorable state is the result of hypothermia of the root system: watering with cold water or a plant left with damp earth on a cold balcony, outside.There is also a deplorable symptom characteristic of the strongest prolonged waterlogging - darkening, blackening and wilting of the tops of the shoots. If a similar picture occurred, then the case is already very much launched, often it is simply impossible to save the plant. If the tops of all shoots are rotted (yellowed or darkened), there is nothing to save. A similar picture is possible only with severe hypothermia of the roots, and never occurs during re-drying. When re-drying, wilting begins with old leaves, with lower shoots, the trunk is exposed from below. When waterlogged, the leaves wilt in any part of the crown, but more often from above, from the tops of the shoots.
And of course, any softening of stems or leaves in plants with fleshy parts of the body, and these are yuccas, dracens, diffenbachia, any succulents (stools, adeniums, etc.), cacti - a sure sign of excess humidity.
Another symptom that is not entirely true and does not always indicate a specific plant, but still makes you think - the presence of mushroom mosquitoes. If a swarm of midges takes off from the pot, it means that you watered the flowers too abundantly, perhaps it was once or twice, and perhaps it became a habit to water excessively. Unlike mosquitoes, poduras (kolembolas) are white or dirty gray insects, about 1-2 mm, jumping on the surface of the earth in a pot - a sure sign that the flower is poured more than once.
Measures to save flooded plants
When you still found that the plant was flooded, you need to urgently take action. If you have established the fact of waterlogging after you removed the plant from the pot, then you will have a transplant. If the fact of waterlogging was determined by indirect signs (leaf fall, raw earth to the touch), then the need for transplantation depends on the severity of the situation.
- If the plant has lost one or two leaves, or wilted one twig in a mighty crown, and the soil in the pot is light enough, then you can not replant the plant, but only loosen the soil. After watering, especially abundant, the soil is blurred, and after drying, a dense crust forms on its surface. If this crust is not destroyed, then the roots suffer from a lack of air . If seeds are watered, the seedlings may not come to the surface of the earth and die from hypoxia.
- If there are small drainage holes in the pot, you can expand them or increase their number without removing the plant from the pot using a knife heated on the stove.
- Personally, I never try only to loosen the earth, it is not too reliable and justified in cases where a flooded plant in a very large pot, transplantation is difficult, or when the plant is transferred from a cold room to a warm one, and the very increase in temperature will accelerate the drying of the earth.
- In all other cases, it is better to transplant the plant.
Signs of the bay in orchids - the leaves of phalaenopsis turn yellow, they are sluggish, wrinkled. The bark dries for a very long time, from constant contact with a damp surface, the roots rot.
Rotten roots must be pruned. In some cases, the new pot will have to be picked up smaller than it was.So you take the plant out of the pot, and you have to determine the state of the earth and the roots. Still, is the earth damp and how much? Count when you last watered how much it dried. Sometimes a person is convinced that the earth has long been dry, a week has passed, say, after watering, and upon examination it turns out that the earth inside the pot is still very damp. Then try to remember what the weather was like, how it happened that the soil did not have time to dry out! It is important to at least try to analyze in order to prevent this, or calculate which plants could still be flooded. For some people, bays happen systematically over and over again. This suggests that it is necessary to radically revise the care system: perhaps change the land in the pots to a more structured, loose one, increase the drainage holes, add more drainage to the bottom of the pot; pour less water; rearrange plants in a warmer room or water less often when the ground is more dry. Sometimes you literally need to clap your hands so that you do not rise with a watering can over the plant ahead of time...
Examine the roots. The rotten ones can be seen immediately - they stratify if you grab the spine with two fingers and pull, the skin slides off it - it is brown or dark gray, a bunch of vessels similar to wire, a rigid rod remains under it. If such a stratification occurs, the root is rotten. Healthy roots do not stratify if you run over the surface with your fingers, the top layer will not come off. In some cases, the roots do not stratify, the fleshy juicy roots rot completely, and this is also visible immediately - they are dark, dirty gray or brown, sometimes softened. Often you can determine healthy roots and rotten by the contrast of appearance, some are light, white, light brown, others are dark, not only on the outside, but also on a break or places of a cliff.
There are times when rotten roots easily break off and, when the plant is removed from the pot, fall off along with the ground. If you definitely have not found rotten roots, but the earth and the root lump are damp, you need to dry them. To do this, we get wet with measles in any hygroscopic material: in a heap of old newspapers, in a roll of toilet paper. You can even put a plant with an open root system (without a pot) to dry for several hours.
Having discovered rotten roots, you need to cut them, no matter how many of them. This is a source of infection, there is nothing to regret. We cut everything down to healthy tissue. If the roots are fleshy, juicy, watery, then it is advisable to sprinkle the cut places with coal (wood, birch) or sulfur powder (sold in pet stores). If neither, push the activated charcoal tablet. If there are very few roots left, significantly less than there were, you need to transplant the plant into a smaller pot.
I have already said that in itself too spacious a pot, not filled with roots, does not contribute to the rapid growth of plants, and in some cases even harms. In a spacious pot, the plant is easier to pour. And even if watered carefully, the plant seeks to increase the root system, master a large surface of the earth and only then enhances the growth of the ground part.
Substrate for aroid, bromeliad and other plants. Instead of a pot, a basket, a substrate: earth coconut fiber, coconut substrate, wine cork, pine bark and moss (its very smallness). The decaying anthurium transplanted into this mixture bloomed a month later, and releases a third bud.
If you tend to flood plants, then use clay pots to plant plants. But there is one important point: the inside of the pot should not be glazed. If the walls of the clay pot are glazed on the inside, it is no better than plastic.So, you need to pick up a pot for the root lump remaining after removing the rot. In this case, the rule will be effective: it is better to have less pot than more. It's okay if the pot is small, healthy roots grow, notify you with their appearance from drainage holes, and you just pass the plant into a larger pot and that's it. During the growing season, plants can be transplanted at any time and more than once. Most plants, if they get sick after transplantation, stop growing, then this is most often due to improper care after transplantation, and not from root injuries.
After transplantation, you cannot put plants in the sun, even the most photophilous ones, they should be under shade for a week. It is impossible to water plants on the same day, especially resuscitated from overflowing - these are generally watered in 2-3 days for the first time. Transplantable plants cannot be fertilized for 1-1.5 months. And when transplanting patients (including flooded ones), dry fertilizers cannot be added (no manure, no droppings, no granulated fertilizers). Do not plug the transplanted plant into a plastic bag. This very package sometimes becomes a real evil. The fact is that transplanted plants, devoid of watering, in the first days must be placed in conditions of high humidity. And many seek to shove the plant in a bag and tie stronger. In this case, the importance, of course, increases. But oxygen access is reduced. As we remember, the plant breathes both roots and leaves, if the plant was flooded, it especially needs fresh air, and if pathogens have developed on it - various spots of fungal or bacterial origin, then it simply needs fresh air!
Here you can do this: place the plant in a transparent bag, straighten its edges, but not tie it. If the weather is very hot, then you can spray 1-2 times a day, if the plants do not tolerate water on the leaves, then just put the pot on a wide tray of water on an inverted saucer.
If the plant has decayed tops, ends of shoots, they must be cut to healthy tissues. If possible, at the same time draw a plant - cut healthy twigs for rooting in order to be able to preserve at least something if the bay has already led to irreversible consequences. Sometimes it happens that the roots rot completely, but some of the shoots are still vigorous until they wither (this is temporary) and you can still cut cuttings from them. In some cases, when the roots rot, toxins (the aforementioned swamp gases, products of bacteria and fungi) and cut cuttings enter the vascular system of plants, even healthy cuttings do not take root, they are already doomed...
After transplantation, the flooded plant can be sprayed with growth stimulants (epin or amulet), only at night (most stimulants decompose in the light). If there are dark spots on the leaves that have rotted the tops of the shoots, then it is advisable to spray the plant with a fungicide, or add the fungicide to the water for watering. Of the fungicides suitable: Fundazol, Maxim, Hom, Oxich (and other copper containing drugs). 3-4 days after transplanting into fresh dry earth, the plant can be watered with a zircon solution.
If a plant with a wide rosette of leaves turned out to be flooded, in the form of a funnel, like in bromeliads, then it is necessary to dry the bases of the leaves. To do this, you first need to turn the plant down with leaves. When the water drains, pour 2-3 tablets of crushed activated carbon into the outlet. After 3-5 minutes, gently remove it with a soft fluffy brush. Many bromeliads rot when watered through a rosette of leaves in winter. Read more carefully the recommendations for growing a particular plant, and especially care in winter.
Another important point: after the bay, the soil in the pot turns sour: plant roots continue to release carbon dioxide, humus renewal slows down, and humic acids accumulate, which increases the acidity of the soil , many nutrients turn into a form that plants cannot digest. For example, iron passes into an oxidized form (F3 +), from which a rusty-brown crust forms on the surface of the earth. Oxidized iron is not absorbed, as a result, the plant shows all signs of its deficiency - severe chlorosis. This is especially noticeable on fruit plants: there are signs of calcium, iron, nitrogen deficiency. At this stage, some growers do not pay attention to the state of the soil, and are in a hurry to treat the investigation, not the cause. As a result, the plant continues to suffer, turn yellow. At times, it gets better (for example, after spraying with ferovite), and even worse after fertilizing the soil.
In such a situation, the only way out is to completely replace the land. And if you were in a hurry to apply fertilizers, then it is advisable to rinse the roots when transplanting under a stream of warm water. Then dry, remove rotten, sprinkle with coal and plant in fresh dry earth.
If you form a white or red salt crust on the surface of the earth, this is a signal: the earth dries for a long time! Such a salt crust must be removed, replace the top layer of the earth with a fresh one.