Monday 16 November 2015

Kalanchoe Care Chapter 7: Root Rot

Alright you, I think I've finally cornered what's making you so ill: Root Rot! (Lots of pictures ahead)



 Now, as I said in Chapter 6  ,This plant has been acting strange over the last few days. It's been exhibiting signs of over watering such as soft, wrinkled, almost mushy leaves and drooping lower stems.










Looks like it's time for a last ditch effort to save this plant: De Potting! I know I already re potted this but this time, it's STAYING out!










As you can see, it did quite a bit of growing over the summer. Not only does is have a rather tough Root Ball at it's base, it has dug down quite a bit.
Now, it was those loose hanging roots that were in the aforementioned dry patch.

Now it has been relocated into a recovery pot back with the other plants so it may still have light.

I just have it supported with a few chopsticks so that the roots will have good air circulation.



As you can see in the top right picture, the Stem itself is not showing ANY signs of rotting. No black, no mush... which is what's got me scratching my head so badly! For crying out loud, all my other Kals have super tough, almost woody bases like that but they're all happy. :(

After a little bit more horticultural noodling over my morning Barn Chores and dog walk, I came to the conclusion that it's possibly it's the Root base that is causing so much suffering.

So, I VERY gently massaged the base to remove as much dirt as I could while damaging as few roots as possible. Still no mushy roots but the dirt was unnervingly moist. (technically it was holding on to it's tiny watering from it's surgery the other day.)





Looking at the bottom right picture, The roots are ANYTHING but black, mushy or rotting. So Why are you so unhappy?




I've now decided that if it won't turn around in another few days, I'm going to take some advice from This Site and whack up this plant into cuttings. Why so many? Because it will increase my chances of it surviving in an afterlife of sorts.

God Bless.
Later! A.M.

P.S. I'm still annoyed that I don't know which color it is.... even worse is it is and has been showing so much flowering promise. :'(


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