Help with a recovering Viridis plant

[anonenium]

been away for alot longer than i wanted to be and my viridis plant got hit hard because of it.

it was left unwatered for about 2 weeks, most of the leaves have shriveled, and although the trunk and all the branches are still bright green im worried about it surviving.

other that flooding the pot it is in with water and throwing a small amount of growing hormone on it is their anything i can do to help it recover.

and of the leaves that fall off, what value might they have to be put into extraction if they came off as part of a drought?

thank you.

 

[pinkoyd]

So were the leaves crispy dried shriveled or leathery shriveled and they rehydrated when you watered the plant? It make s a difference. If they are able to rehydrate there likely was no damage to the roots. If they are crispy and dead then the roots may have suffered some damage.

Often they will recover just fine given time and keeping the soil evenly moist. Since I don't know the exact status of your plant I can't be too helpful but be aware that if it has lost most of it's leaves it is unable to transpire much water and the soil will stay moist much longer than normal, which makes it much more prone to waterlogging if you water on your normal schedule.

The safest way that I know to save a plant under these circumstances is to remove all the soil from the roots and re-pot it in a very light mix. Like 3/4 perlite or pumice and 1/4 compost of potting soil. The roots will get adequate oxygen to the roots and it is almost impossible to overwater with that mix.

Good luck and let us know what happens.

Any leaves that fell off retain their original alkaloid profile, and may in fact be slightly higher than normal.

 

[anonenium]

not a single leaf fell off and some are still greenish but even the brownest ones arnt really crispy (ie i can move them around fairly readily without cracking) but they are very shriveled.

since yesterday i poured some growth hormone into some water and then waterlogged the soil, letting the water drain freely from the bottom, if thats a bad idea let me know but i live in the ropics and evaporation happens fast, the soil as is being about 1.4 to 1/3 cleaned beach sand, soil and the bottom layer of the pot is a mat of coconut husks to absorb water.

if this is not ideal let me know.

the main thing i worry about is that the tips of the stems have become blackish and are drooping and im not sure how new stems will develop given that those ones wont work, will new shorts form out of a lower node?

i guess the whole problem was surface area, i should have taken it inside since those jungle plants are use to very little sunlight, because the babies are doing great despite the problem (although where i put the plant it does not get direct sunlight until 1030 or 11 in the morning.

in the long run for the big plant this may actually be good for it, make it more hardy, but i dont know where the new leaves will spring forth from because as is the plant has 11 branches and i dont know enough about these things to know where new leaves will grow from.

thank you pinkoyd.

 

[anonenium]

Just a little update.


i did not change the soil out although i went in and put back in a ceramic watering spike back in i was using to water it for a long time and am now keeping that thing full all the time.

the leaves have for the most part turned a darker brown but their still flexible/leatheryish, i would say its save to assume they are not going to remain on but so far not a single one of the withered leaves has fallen off.

also i took some growth hormone and put it in some water and a spray bottle and i sprayed the entire plant with it trying to get the hormone water into the joints where the branches split off where those little leaves form a pocket, i doubt it would help but i thought i would try.

not sure what else i can do right now, soil is moist, spike is in the braches and stem are still green so im not sure what else their is left to do.

if anyone has any more ideas other than just wait it out and hope i would appreciate it greatly.

thank you very much for reading.

 

[anonenium]

Ok i was asked to upload a few photos so here you go

they are green but its obvious its having problems

as a bonus here are the two babies, some how despite having to go just as long without water the little ones were just fine.

 

[anonenium]

Ok well i either did something ok or very stupid

the virids wasnt doing anything so a short while ago i uprotted it gently, trying to keep as much of the roots as i could intact.

many but not all of the roots are still white so i went in and started pruning all the braches and black roots the i took what remained, laid it on its side in a long pot and then buries in the hope that given the roots were more than a foots long and whit, if laid on their side and they survived i should see allot of plants sprout through the surface at some point, although it may take a while.

also threw some growth hormone on it with the water after i packed the soil down and watered it.

so im not sure what else to do, if its a bad idea what i did please let me know, otherwise im hoping that by spreading out a foot worth of roots in a trough planters that in the long run i might not save the one plant but i will have a ton of babies pop up like aspens in a few months.

any advise would be really appreciated.

thank you.

 

[Vine and leaf]

Just a question - why couldn't you just be patient?

What do you mean the plant "didn't do anything?"

I mean no offense, but...you had an expert psychotria grower give you advice. Then you totally didn't do any of what this person advises you to do, and instead did essentially the opposite. The whole time throwing "growth hormone" on the poor thing. Then after only a couple of weeks you get impatient again and do something even more drastic, which will probably doom what was left of your viridis.

What is with people's infatuation with making plants grow any quicker than they want to grow? Everyone who gets a four inch cutting in the mail within a week is asking about fertilizer for it, like it needs fertilizer already.

Anyone who wants to grow viridis needs to learn patience first. I am convinced that impatience even more than ignorance is what kills these plants. These are slow growing plants, for many many years. It's just what they do.

Respects,

 

[wearepeople]

at this point, wait and see.

Keep it in high humidity.

I have one that lost ALL of its leaves, then I neglected it for a long time. After a while, I dug it up, and repotted it in a smaller pot. I put it in a humidity chamber and it's growing new sets of leaves over the course of 2 or 3 months.

 

[wearepeople]

Also,

Vine and Leaf, there's no need to be critical of anonenium: growing plants, especially slow growers, comes with lessons. These lessons are almost impossible to learn without going through it. Sometimes killing plants along the way. All in good time.

Furthermore, anonenium may or may not be onto something. If by chance the plant recovers quickly, he/she may have discovered a method for to aid in the recovery of P. viridis. Radical experimentation can create solutions "outside the box".

Regards,
wap

 

[Ringworm]

Nah, Vine and Leaf is pretty much on point.
Sure it is unpalatable to hear and it might seem a bit harsh, but it is the truth.

Experimentation is fine if you have a 1000 plants and treat each block of 100 differently.

Anon, just relax, provide a humid but not overly wet environment, perhaps a touch more shade than normal and wait.
What ever you do, do NOT cause any stress to the plant in any way shape or form. Try to minimize any drastic environmental changes.

In regards to fertilizer and hormones, etc.... Actively growing plants require nutrition in such ways. Plants that are in shock are not growing, as such adding a fertilizer causes more stress and could actually cause root dieback in some cases.
This actually goes for watering as well, if the plant isn't actively growing, it's water needs are greatly reduced. Watering more to induce growing often causes more harm than good.

Little extra advice that isn't directly at the original poster:
If you decide you wish to grow some plants like Salvia or Psychotria, etc and have never grown a plant, do not rush out and obtain a Salvia or Psychotria. These are not difficult to grow, but they require a bit of knowledge and experience in cultivating them. Go out and buy a few flats of common, easy to grow plants. Coleus comes to mind. Grow 100 of them, they cost $.25 each, if you kill a bunch, oh well you learned at a discount. With time and confidence you can move up to plants that require a little more finesse.

If you are the type to travel for a few days here and there, many new technologies can help with the watering, but do not discount the old tech of things like 'double potting' they did and still do work wonderfully.

good luck,
Rw.

 

[anonenium]

Thank you for the responses and yes your correct about impatience.

i was just working off the suggestion from pinkoyd, i switched pots and soil only to find the roots were very deep and i could not find a 1 foot deep pot, so i cut off the roots that were black and had no white even at the tips replanted in the soil advised (there were not many of them mostly just roots near the surface, deciding to lay it on its side so the roots would have more room.

im just fortunate that before this happen i had two babies appear from the leaf pot so all said im slowly on my way, just one of those things where i really wish i did not end up being delayed on my trip for as long as i was.

thank you to everyone and yes your right i should do better especially for something in my care, here is hoping in a few months a bunch of stems will break the surface, viridis seem to be very slow but also very resilient.

 

[anonenium]

Well a tiny update

the plant i laid on its side, it now has 6 leaves sprouting from the base above ground along with another 3 or 4 "boil" like mounds which have appeared in the same area which im inclined to think will develop into something as well as one root shooting up away from the base out of the part laid on its side and one baby which came above ground out of my leaf pot all in the last few days.

in short looks like im well on my way to having at least 5 of these munchkins roaming around.

one question i had about the sideways plant, eventually ill have to repot it in about a year from now but as for all the shoots appearing out of the base none of them are popping out of the stump itself and i dont know if this is worthy of being a concern.

in a few years months this thing is going to be shooting out an absurd number of branches if all these little buds are a sign of anything at which point ill have to repot but that will be a while from now, until then i have three babies not related to the big one which are growing so its looking good.

wait and see indeed, than you to you guys for the help.