A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The House Plant Forum Money Tree (Pachira) ill, please help

Hi everyone! I am new here, but was motivated to join because of the state of my poor Pachira (I've had it since July 2008).

I know most of the problem is due to me over-watering it this week. I had been on vacation and I was overzealous about making sure it was well watered when I got back (instead of using common sense and checking the soil).

The top part that has the new growth looks fine, but the bottom older leaves are yellowing, or spotty, or have brown tips.

I took the root-ball out of the pot, and there was a mild fungal odor, and I think there is mildew powder on the soil.

I cleaned out the main pot so there is no debris and no standing water (there was not very much standing water, but more than none), and I also checked the roots (no moldy black roots, thank goodness!).

I took some pictures and made additional comments for each picture, please take a look:

http://picasaweb.google.com/amharper/PachiraMoneyTree?feat=directlink

What should I do? Should I re-pot it? It doesn't look root-bound, but I'm worried about that white powdery substance (if it is in fact mildew) and smell (only noticeable when taken out of its container). Anything else I should do??

Thanks much!

Hi and welcome..

I'm not much of a houseplant 'guru' but I do have a few. I'd re-pot but not in much of a bigger pot. Take off the bad and damaged leaves and leave it dry out...

Not sure on the mildew situation..someone should be by soon with more advice.

Thanks, tamara! I'm going to wait a week before I consider re-potting, to let it recover from the over-watering shock (and see if letting it dry out helps). I think I will definitely have to re-pot it though, because I don't know how else to get rid of that mildew (if in fact that's what it is).

I pinched off some of the yellow leaves -- I wasn't sure whether to remove the entire stem from the trunk, or the leaves from the stem, so I removed a couple of leaves from the stem for now. The strange thing is, the yellowing leaves aren't like previous times -- where they get kind-of soft, and eventually fall off on their own. They feel like the rest of the leaves, except they've turned yellow.

Hey all! Since I didn't get any feedback other than from tamara (thanks!!), I followed her advice about leaf removal and re-potting.

After removing the leaves (I ended up removing the entire stem from the trunk, although I haven't been keeping a close eye to see if I have regrowth at the places I removed from) mid-November, I have had a couple more turn yellow that I removed. It's still getting new growth at the top that looks nice and healthy, but the older leaves are looking a little ragged (I left the yellow spotted leaves on, and the ones that were a little brown on the tips).

Even though it's winter, I decided I would re-pot today to make sure all possible mildew is gone (it was also getting loose in the pot from me pulling it out to check the mildew situation, and needed more soil).

I got rid of all of the old soil and a bunch of the root-ball. I then used a mixture of about 1:1:1 of pine bark (mostly fine), black lava rock (recommended pumice, but scoria is supposed to work just as well), and perlite (a little less of the perlite and a little more of the pine bark, because I was worried about it getting enough nutrients). I read about this elsewhere and the gardener's after-pictures were amazing, so I'm hoping it will work for me too!

I was going to mix some Osmocote in as well, but I forgot to bring it with me to work so I will add a pinch of it tomorrow. The advantages to this mixture is that it drains really well, but the lava rock and perlite help keep it moist longer (so don't have to water as often), and the bark provides nutrients as it breaks down over time. I'm a little worried that the lava rock I bought may be a little too coarse (medium-sized pieces instead of fine), but that was all that was available to me at the time.

Before putting the plastic pot with drainage holes back in the decorative pot (which doesn't have drainage holes), I put a bunch of river rock at the bottom to elevate the plastic pot from any water that runs through.

Hopefully this will rid me of the mildew problem, and encourage my plant's growth! It is now sitting a lot straighter in the pot (you can see in my old pictures that the trunk was at a severe angle) and I hope it is happy with it's new soil. There are a few new pictures I've taken after re-potting it:

http://picasaweb.google.com/amharper/PachiraMoneyTree?feat=directlink

I will post more pictures at a later date to follow up about it's progress.

One thing I did notice while changing the soil is that two of the trunks are dead (I think they were dead when I bought it, because they never grew leaves). I'm reluctant to remove them because it will ruin the braided look, but I will consider removing them at a later time (I think the re-potting and removal of roots is enough stress for one day). If my plant looks like it is doing well I will also start removing the more ragged-looking leaves.