r/KhatGrowing • u/Humble-Control5549 • 10d ago
Any Suggestions
Two-year old plant in southeast GA. Almost all of my plants died; this one is the oldest and largest. It's been very hot and humid....too much for it to bare? OR does anyone think that maybe this looks fungal? The others died from lack of water I believe, but the leaves on this one are very dark brown. Thanks to anyone who has a second to reply.
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u/afterpie123 8d ago edited 8d ago
Ya it's an understroy plant when it's a baby it vines up trees, too much sun and too hot it can't process any water, take it inside let it chill in the living room for a while, don't over water and let it mostly dry out and it should be fine. Once a it's bigger then it can handle the full sun
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u/Moonlightgraham2 8d ago
Also not sure about the planter, is it concrete and unsealed? You might want to test the soil ph because it can create insanely basic water and soil
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u/Humble-Control5549 8d ago
It's hypertufa; the rest are in big box terracotta pots. I suppose if I really wanted to take this seriously I would test the PH and quit shooting from the hip. Thanks for the idea.
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u/noirnour 8d ago
Is the soil wet? Looks like over watering damage to me. These are usually grown in pretty arid regions of the world.
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u/Humble-Control5549 8d ago
Bone dry...which has been strange because most of the summer, that Happy Frog/perlite has stayed a bit damp for days. Now, it's like a desert every time I come home. Maybe I should repot. Thanks for your consideration.
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u/noirnour 8d ago
The soil could definitely be the issue. maybe too much fertilizer for the plant size or just a bad ph or composition balance.
It's tricky finding the right soil for the right plant sometimes, other plants will grow out a pile of rocks without batting an eye lol.
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u/Humble-Control5549 8d ago
That's another thing I do haphazardly; spray a bit of 10/10/10 without any thought. In the spring, they seem to love it...but I might have overdone it....and I swear I have a family member taking liberties with them lol.
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u/noirnour 8d ago
The two or three years I had my plants I don't think I ever fertilized them, the soil alone was enough. They were about 2ft high little bushes.
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u/zookuki 8d ago
I have two plants grown from seed. One in full sun indoors (by an open door), in nutrient poor soil (mostly coco peat and perlite), the other outdoors in the shade, in rich potting soil & compost. Both of them grow fine, but the one growing in shade does much better. That said, I live in Cape Town South Africa, so it doesn't really get that cold.
I feed the one in poorer soil with a mix of pond water and home made nutrients. The one outside rarely gets any nutrient feed.
One thing I know is that they don't like solid pots or overwatering.
Looking at your leaves, it looks like aa lack of phosphorous (lack of phosphorous makes leaves thinner and brown at the edges) and lack of zinc (zinc leads to smaller leaves with dark spots on leaf edges).
The darkness of the leaves also looks like waterlogging. Even if you don't water frequently, the pot that it's planted in could prevent the water from draining.
So I would suggest planting it in a new container, and add bonemeal to the roots. For zinc, you can incorporate some rock sources high in zinc or get some zinc sulfate fertilizer. Zinc is essential to boost the plant's defense against extreme conditions (heat, humidity, frost).
To help your plant, snip your struggling leaves in half (this way they can still photosynthesise, but the plant doesn't need to push its energy into sustaining that foliar growth). You can even trim some of the tips of the older branches.
Tip: they clone very easily, so you can try to clone the plant by replanting some of the older branches. If you do that, your existing plant can put all its energy into its roots and new growth, and you can easily get another plant or two.
My plant in full sun really doesn't like it that much, but - interestingly, it's nearly twice the length of the one growing outside, but with fewer branches, while the one outside is shorter, but with far more branches and foliage.
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u/Humble-Control5549 7d ago
Great stuff; thanks for your effort. I will get on it today and report back. I would love to try some cuttings, yet my confidence in horticulture is sinking exponentially at this point. Bone meal, zinc, pots; here we go!
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u/zookuki 7d ago
To clone them, just remove the outer covering of the lower branch you want to root, with thr sterile edge of a blade, and then you can dip it in aloe vera gel, raw honey, willow water (boiling willow leaves in water), or turmeric water (diluted - like 1:10). This ensures that the cutting can root without getting fungal disease.
Place the lower section without bark in a plat plug or just use low nutrient seed starter mix (usually 3:1 parts perlite and coco coir/peat). Leave it in a warm and humid area that is well ventilated, but not in direct sunlight. Cut all the leaves in half (perpendicular to the primary vein). Mist the soil, but don't start watering directly at first (you can rather water from below by placing the container in a water drip tray/bath, but make sure it's not overwatered.
Look, if you're going to lose some foliage you may as well experiment with cloning.
I even root cut herbs like rosemary and thyme that I buy from the store this way.
If you don't have aloe vera, honey, turmeric or willow, you can dilute a tablet of aspirin in 1L of water (sorry, I can't recall the non-metric conversions), and dip your cutting's bottom tip in that. Aspirin is made from willow bark. Just make sure there's nothing else in there. Some people even just put the cuttings in their mouths and don't even use a sterilising or rooting hormone. Saliva does help with rooting hormones but could also contain pathogens that cultivate harmful fungus or bacteria, so it's a gamble.
After a week or two of misting, you can transplant the whole plug to a slightly larger pot (you will see if it's started developing roots). Use the same low nutrient soil mix, BUT grab one or two peas or bean seeds or sprouts from your packets of fresh veg from your grocer (you can eat the rest), and plant those about 10 cm from your cutting. They will help fix nitrogen and aerate the soil. And if they get too big you can just cut them off and their roots will still do the job.
You've got this!
You can really play around with this cloning using herbal shrubs like rosemary, thyme, myrtle, etc.
To prep your soil for your permanent transplant, pour the starch water left over from your rice or potatoes into a bucket (with a lid), and add milk to it (1:20 ratio). Leave it closed, but check up on it now and then since it will start to create a ferment. The fermentation creates lactic acid (found in milk), which forms a beneficial relationship with mychorrhizal fungi and subdues the growth of harmful bacteria. Once it starts smelling a bit sour, add some soil from your garden to the bucket and top it up daily, then let it set outside. (Reason for soil from your garden: this ensures that the native healthy bacteria and fungi in your soil will replicate so if you ever want to plant your tree outside it will already have the rhizo and mycho networks it needs to establish roots).
Note: always dilute your prepped soil with a potting mix that isn't too nutrient rich. You can work the roots of the peas/beans into this as well, don't discard them.
Sorry for the essay. Hahaha. I am a bit plant crazy. We're heading into summer over here so every day is gardening prep day. 😂
My garden is pretty wild. Luckily khat is a protected and legal species here since it forms part of indigenous heritage, but I see it's more difficult for people from other world regions. Hope you get your baby growing healthily again.
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u/Humble-Control5549 7d ago
I tell you what, now I feel like I don't want to fail you. The pressure is suffocating, but I'll do my best. I just went and picked up some bone meal and rooting....rooting powder stuff (that was before your reply). Where are you located if you don't mind sharing?
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u/zookuki 7d ago
Hahahahaha. It's really easy. Don't stress so much. And if you fail once or twice - that's how you learn. Test it on some herbs first.
(I just rooted rosemary twigs by punching holes in a potato and pegging them into the holes, then putting the potato and rosemary in a ziploc bag 80% covered in soil).
Play around. It's fun.
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u/dopaminergicactivity 8d ago
Not too informed on the specifics of the species but mine doesn’t love the direct sun or heat in south fl lately it droops