I have a dumb cane plant that is only 1 1/2 years old. it grew fast. Now this summer it grew a flower, but in the dirt is a white spongy thing in the soil...can you tell me what this might be and can it hurt the plant? Thanks you

Hello @deborahmwatts7 and welcome,
Can you share a photo of this? It could be a mold or fungus, but a picture would sure be a help.

Warm welcome from the Pacific Northwest - waay across the country from you. Yes, please post a photo if you can and some wise soul will chime in.

Is it a house plant or outside? If it's inside, you should remove the white spongy thing, as it's probably mold. You may be over watering the pot. Take about an inch or two of soil off the top of the pot and replace it with fresh soil. Try sprinkling a little cinnamon powder on top of the new soil. It may inhibit the growth of new mold.

When you said the plant grew quickly, could it be it has outgrown its present pot?

Would it be advisable to dunk the entire root ball in a vinegar/water solution and start with all new potting soil?

from the Florida panhandle. If it's outside might it be a stinkhorn?

Puffball mushroom?

Hey @deborahmwatts7 in New Jersey,
how is your dumb cane doing?

greene said:Would it be advisable to dunk the entire root ball in a vinegar/water solution and start with all new potting soil?

Wouldn't vinegar kill the plant?

Deborah!

You might be able to ID exactly which Dieffenbachia it is, if I'm guessing right about what Dumb cane is.

http://garden.org/plants/searc...
Dumbcane (Dieffenbachia 'Tropic Marianne')

I think it's hard to know how harmful the thing is, unless someone recognizes exactly what it is. The consensus seems to be "maybe a fungus, mold or mushroom". I think that many would not bother most plants, but is soil that encourages mushrooms really the best kind of soil for a potted plant?

If it is any kind of mold, fungus or mushroom, it can't hurt to remove as much of it as you can without hurting many roots. In my yard, burying wood chips under the soil caused a lot of fungus. But the Pacific Northwest and NJ are two very different climates, so you might have some different cause. What do you fertilize with? If you do a lot of spot composting, and that mushroom (or whatever) is growing right out of some buried compost, maybe you should compost scraps in a separate pile before burying them near the plants.

I hope you write back to let us know what it is, or with more details.

My guess is that, if it is any kind of mold, fungus or mushroom, it showed up because it had lots of organic matter to eat and favorable conditions. If you starve it, and maybe water it less, it will get hungry and at least the above-ground part will disappear on its own.

Can the Dumb Cane survive a frost? If not, I guess it's an indoor plant.

One possible alternative to dunking the whole rootball would be to eplace as much soil as convenient, like re-potting.

Another, easier alternative is to water with rather dilute Hydrogen Peroxide for a while. Dilute enough, it won't hurt the roots. You can also spray leaves with it, if they seem to have a fungus infection

Start with "drugstore peroxide" which is 3%.
Then dilute it either 1/32 or 1/16 to get 0.1% or 0.2%.
Many people use it stronger, so these are very safe concentrations.

For 0.1% H2O2:
1 ounce of peroxide per Quart of water
or
1/2 cup of peroxide per Gallon


For 0.2% H2O2:
2 ounces of peroxide per Quart of water
or
1 cup of peroxide per Gallon

For the vinegar suggestion, I didn't intend that vinegar be applied to the leaves of the plant - which would be harmful especially out in the hot sun.! Only that after scraping off the mold (or whatever it is?) give the root ball a soaking in a very dilute vinegar/water bath before re-potting and topping with fresh soil.

Since we don't have a photo of the plant or the stuff growing on the soil, and since the OP has not checked back in to read/comment, I figure we could all just keep throwing out various ideas hoping that one will hit the mark. Seems to me each of the ideas have some merit.

The fact that this plant recently made a flower indicates it is healthy enough and in conditions appropriate enough to do so. Deborah didn't mention any issues with the plant, just the soil.

Vinegar has a very low PH. I wouldn't use it as a treatment of this type for soil or roots, especially on something that likely has no relationship to the plant. If there is organic matter in the pot, it will decompose. There may be too much for optimal conditions but unless the plant is suffering from chlorosis or has some other foliage issue, I wouldn't treat it for anything. It might be happier if repotted if it's been in the same pot/soil for 18 months but I would think that would be because of root congestion, not the unknown product of decomposition being discussed in the soil. After 18 months, any organic matter has likely reached its' final stages of decomposition. The presence of some type of fungus/mushroom is evidence of that. People don't take medications without having something wrong with them, or knowing what's wrong with them, this kind of treatment seems similar to doing that, IMVHO. Like if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

>> The fact that this plant recently made a flower indicates it is healthy enough and in conditions appropriate enough to do so.

>> After 18 months, any organic matter has likely reached its' final stages of decomposition.

Those are good points. Even so, if I had mushrooms popping up in an indoor pot, I would be inclined to re-pot, maybe just out of squeamishness.

My husband bought me a beautiful dumb can plant but it looks like it has powder on the leaves

@Plantkeeper, you already started a new thread yesterday that has several replies, this thread is from 2013 and was started by someone that had asked a question about their plant.
To see your thread, go to the Home page or you can click on your profile page and click on » View posts made by Plantkeeper.



Edited to add: And I see you already found and posted there!