I've been battling this for months. My apologies for the long post. The current wave is pretty aggressive and is affecting multiple plants. I'm going to lose at least two if I can't resolve this. I'm at my wit's end and am desperate for help.

I was fertilizing my plants last August or so and was inattentive. I overfertilized a number of plants. Overfertilization symptoms took quite some time to appear. It took anywhere from 2 to 8 months. Some plants are only now showing symptoms. My hibiscus was the first to show it, then my banana tree and so on. Leaves were getting the "Yellow Death", as I call it, and dying. This was happening quite quickly.

I leached them. There was a significant improvement. Then the yellowing and leaf death returned. I leached again, same thing. I've replaced soil and had to leach and same thing. I've rinsed all soil off of roots and rinsed the roots and reported. Many, if not all, of the most afflicted plants were rootbound and needed repotting. This has been done and plants received new soil.

My theories is that the root ball is so dense that it wasn't possible to leach them. The banana's roots are like nothing I've seen. It was in a square container and the roots are like a brick. They remind me of rebar in concrete. Rinsing the roots with a mild sprayer barely made a dent in the trapped soil. The long-acting fertilizer spheres in the soil were a definite factor. None of the plants are still in that soil. Another theory is that my grow lights are on for too long. Some are experiencing upward growth that can be described as steroidal.

I've dealt with overfertilization before and never had this issue. A leaching or two and things were good.

I really need help!!! It's quite aggressive with some plants. The most afflicted plants have lost a decent amount of once-beautiful foliage. It can take as little as two days for leaves to go from slight discolouration to school bus yellow.

Bump. I really need some advice. I don't want to lose several plants.

Please help! This is actually distressing me quite a bit. My plants are therapeutic in many ways. Caring for them is an essential part of my self-care. I'm an addictions social worker in a frontline role that's rather intense. My plants help me to clear my head after 8-12 hours of intense and oftentimes very tragic situations. Them being sick and me being unable to help them does the opposite.

Fertilizer burn is almost instantaneous, like just one or two days tops. The leaves will turn yellow then brown on the leaf margins, not the leaf middles. It sounds like you are overdoing the fertilizer. Fertilizer accounts for only 3% of the nutrients plants need, the other 97% they make themselves through photosynthesis. If you fertilizer every other month with fertilizer mixed at half strength, during active growth, your plants would have more than enough. You aren't actually fertilizing the plant, you are bulking up the soil so the plants can use what they need and they really don't need very much.

Leaf yellowing could be caused by over or underwatering. Overwatered plant leaves go yellow because there is not enough oxygen in the soil for them to utilize iron and other trace minerals. Underwatered leaves turn yellow because the roots are compromised and can't support them.

The lights shouldn't be on for more than 14 hrs or so a day but I suspect you don't have strong enough lights. When the light is insufficient but causing the plants to stay overwarm, the plants will respond just as you described. They are growing desperately towards the light while the warmth stimulates excessive growth. That leads to another problem: Too many leaves for the compromised roots to support.

These are just guesses as you haven't provided photos of plants or lights or specs on the lights.

What DaisyI said, she won't steer you wrong.

I wanted someone else with more experience to comment before voicing any opinions.

You mention, "the current wave is pretty aggressive."

So this has happened before. Did they recover fully the previous times, partially?
Something in their care, whether fertilizing or over/under-watering is probably doing this and the fact it's happened several times means it's repeatable.

Bad because it keeps happening but good because there's something happening each cycle that starts it over again. Hopefully we can figure it out.

You mention hibiscus and a banana tree.

What else?

Pictures?

TheChef said:
I leached them. There was a significant improvement. Then the yellowing and leaf death returned. I leached again, same thing. I've replaced soil and had to leach and same thing. I've rinsed all soil off of roots and rinsed the roots and reported. Many, if not all, of the most afflicted plants were rootbound and needed repotting. This has been done and plants received new soil.

Please describe leaching so we're all on the same page.

Part of why I'm curious about the other plant types is that between all of the possible over-fertilizing, leachings, root rinsing, repotting...they're just exhausted.

If they were mine I'd back off the fertilizer completely for the time being.
Going back to whatever is causing these cycles, if they get better that makes fertilization more likely. If they don't get better we look for something else.

I'd stop leaching and rinsing roots and changing soil. Set them somewhere with a bit less light than what they're used to. Keep doing research on what might be triggering this, but without doing anything to the plants except letting them chill and adjust for a couple weeks.

Just me, any opinions welcomed.

Pictures could really help us.

Don't want you to lose them.

Thank you for your help! My wife actually said the same about the plants being adopted. The grow lights being used are two full spectrum 100 watt lights at 60% and elevated approximately 2.5' to 2.75', possibly more, above the plants. Both are decent quality and I'd deemed their spectrums to be fine for the plants. Those under the larger lights are loving it. No etifoliation, just beautiful and vibrant foliage. The Other lights are grow light strips. We use one set for lower-light plants and seedlings and they like it. The other has more of a a sunlike spectrum and is for smaller plants before they graduate to the larger ones or those who don't require that amount of light. I had the grow lights on for 13 hrs, recently dialled it back to 10 and is at 8.

Here are some photos. You can see how stripped some plants are. I've since removed them, but you can see copious amounts of mineral deposits in both dracaenas' soil.

We have very hard water here. I'd imagine that at least partially accounts for some of the deposits.

I can't help you judge your light efficiency as you gave me how much energy they use, not how bright they are.

Anything drawn up into a plant from the soil: moisture, fertilizer, salts and solids (minerals) in the water, is pushed up and out. Up the stem, out the branches to the leaves, then leaf edges. Everything ends up at a leaf edge. The up and out process continues until the moisture (doing the transporting) is used up. So the lower leaf edges will always show the most damage from fertilizers, salts and solids in the water. Some plants are a lot more sensitive than others.

Have you tried using RO water or bottled water? Maybe try it on just a couple plants. I have a very small RO system (and a table top water distillery on order) because some plants just can't handle our tap water.

DaisyI said:

Have you tried using RO water or bottled water? Maybe tst a couple plants. I have a very small RO system (and a table top water distillery on order) becry it on just a couple plants. I have a very small RO system (and a table top water distillery on order) because some plants just can't handle our tap water.

Great post on water movement, thank you.

We have very good local water, and low chlorine treatment.

But luckily I also have an 80 gallon tank of RO water on hand.
Never for long term but it seems to have helped several times.

"Very hard water" would indicate high mineral and dissolved solids in the water. You can find water quality reports on line for your water municipality but if you have mineral buildup in your coffee pot and toilet, you already know the answer.

DaisyI, may I get your opinion on this short article?

https://ecowaternebraska.com/b...

Thanks

Plants don't rely on water to get their nutrients, they rely on soil. The main purpose of water is transport and photosynthesis. Some nutrients come from water but not enough so that's why we use fertilizer. So.... my opinion is the guy is not a botanist. I wouldn't worry about using RO water.

I have two friends, both of whom grow the most incredible orchids. Both use RO water exclusively. One because he lives in the Virginia Range where there's arsenic in the tap water (residual from mining) and the other because he has a well (wells are known for hard water). The biggest problem with RO water is the amount of waste water you produce. You have to send it somewhere. I water my yard but I don't make that much. I'm not sure what they do. I'll have to ask sometime. Every gallon of RO water produces about 3 gallons of waste water.

Thank you.

Figured you'd have some good feedback.

Thank you for your help! Some of the plants are improving, others holding steady with no further damage and three appear to be worsening.

That's an excellent point about the water used. I've never seen such hard water in my life until moving here. We're using a Brita filter in the meantime, but will be getting some distilled water. What interests me is your home water distillery. What type of distillation setup is it? Is it essentially a boiling flask, a condenser and vessel for the distillation? I'm not giving it the best description. I can get my grandfather's distillation setup that uses lab glassware and heating mantle. He used it for alcohol for wine, but it's simply a matter of boiling points.

I don't know what RO water is. Where would I find it? The water here just isn't good for houseplants. I'd imagine that it's good for boosting certain micronutrients, but I don't know about its pH or exact mineral concentrations. I'll test it with pH test strips. I'm curious as to the exact mineral concentrations and which minerals. I'd a few samples to a lab for what I suspect would be assays to determine mineral content. GC/MS would be overkill, but it'd be interesting to see the results.

Are there test kits to test water for its overall mineral concentration? Basically a kit that tests tapwater softness. I'm very much into testing soil and the chemistry side of things, but the test kit I have isn't overly effective. It's the LusterLeaf test kit. I used to have the kit's older incarnation and found it to be more accurate and easier to use. I'm looking at kits with liquid reagents. It's easier for me to measure a volume in a graduated cylinder or volumetric flask than it is to open up a gelatine capsule and receive results that I don't feel are accurate enough.

My father was an analytical chemistry professor and it REALLY shows at times, especially when it comes to testing procedure and results.

TheChef said:
I don't know what RO water is. Where would I find it? The water here just isn't good for houseplants.

Reverse osmosis.
Some aquarium stores sell it, our customers buy about 100 gallons per month, at 50 cents per gallon.

Did you ever say where you live? If you are in the U.S., you can find reports for your tap water from the local water district. Google "water quality report for (name of your city) "

RO systems remove dissolved solids from water so are great in areas with hard water. Ours is very small, only capable of processing a few gallons a day. The biggest problem is the amount of waste - for every 4 gallons of water you process, 1 is usable and 3 are waste. We dump our waste water into the garden but larger systems, it goes down the drain.

Distilleries don't have as much waste but do leave residue behind. Think of your coffee pot on steroids. The countertop versions are much more compact and user friendly than the old fashioned stills were. I built one once with a lot of copper wire and boiling pots of water and catch pots. It took up about half my kitchen. Now, the unit is self contained - pour in water, plug it in and put a pitcher under the spout. It looks a lot like a water hot pot with an extra pitcher.