Do you have questions about this week's content? Post them here to get the answers!
To Post Your Question:
Click on Reply and type your response in the text box. To post an image click on the Advanced link and then click on the image icon in the tool bar at the top of the text box. To post an attachment, click on the Advanced link and drag and drop your file in the attachment box. Click on Post to forum to submit your question or reply.
That's quite a clinch - he's either mating with it or eating it! We'll see what John says. And hunter flies are probably Elise's favorite insects after butterflies...
Cheers, Margery
Hi Grace! Based on your photos, although they are quite tiny, I think you may have a high salts problem. See if you can take a sample (pick out all the osmocote first) and test it in-house for salts level. If you don't have that equipment you could send it to a lab, e,g. the Peters Fertilizer Laboratory in PA, to be analyzed for salts, pH and more. There is discoloration around the outer edge of the leaf, which suggests high salts or high ammonium, and it sounds like you fertilized two ways when one might have been sufficient.Your temperatures and media sound good. In the winter you would probably want to fertilize more lightly than spring. If that is a 1/4 of a cup of Osmocote per 6.5" container that sounds like a lot, and the 20-10-20 would be more salts on top of that. Both likely have some ammonium N in them. You want no more than 12 ppm ammonium to avoid some phytotoxicity (seen as yellow leaf edges). - they would test for the ammonium levels with a soil test at Peters or any other full-service lab. The way to remediate a high soluble salts problem is to leach the pots with clear water on a sunny day (good drying conditions) and then to resume feeding. With slow-releaase fertilizer in the mix you don't have as much control over the salts leaching, but I still think it would help. You may not have been leaching enough (letting the water run out the bottom) when you have watered the plants under low-light, wintry conditions and the salts have just accumulated. Warmer growing temperatures that are coming soon will help you with this, and the plants should turn around if they are not extremely over-fertilized. Figure out how many ppm of fertilizer you are putting with on the 20-10-20, and perhaps just stop this for a few months - water with water for a while, rather than fertilizer-containing water, to reduce the salts load on the plants. If you put in the prescribed amount of slo-release, that should be enough to power the plants. If they start showing signs of low N, you can bring back the 20-10-20. Perhaps Stephanie will read this message and add some more comments to help you.
Hello! My experience with overwintering geraniums is very little watering and only fertilizing them once in the spring while they are indoors. From my experience, geraniums HATE to have their feet wet. I reccomend checking the roots for rot. They are very susceptible to bacterial and fungal root rots. They can also experience edema if they are being watered too much (which looks like blistering on the leaves). However, I would wait to see what the professors say! I only deal with mature plants and I'm unsure if these are cuttings you are talking about (so protocol may be a little different). Hope this helps!
Interesting thought, River, but not that I know of. Cyanobacteria help to clog water lines and create slime patches on some wet floors.
Cheers, Margery
A customer recently came in with her Myrtle topiary and it was absolutely covered in root mealybug. We treated it and gave it back to her so hopefully it lives…
