God I feel like such a dork right now. First and foremost I should provide the problem, my salvia divinorum has had blackening on the leaves pretty much since I got her (mid March- April I think?). At first it was just on the clipped leaves she had as a cutting, which I had assumed was normal. But as she grew taller and bigger leaves, they started getting big black or brown spots on the edges, starting at the tips too. I did some research and on this website;
http://entheology.com/research/salvia-divinorum-cultivation-the-easy-way; it said that leaves that have adapted to a certain condition of humidity will turn brown once those conditions change. However over the past two days its lost four of its larger leaves that have been blackened. It still appears to be making new growth at the top but those sneaky black spots are appearing on its largest set of leaves that still remain and in worried they are gonna fall off too. All those leaves were developed when the humidity index outside was over 50% (in my area summer is almost always muggy and humid and that starts early june).
Here's a rundown of her conditions.
-she's probably about 18-20" tall right now.
- she was recently repotted; probably about two weeks ago into fresh organic potting soil with worm castings.
- she stays on my back porch while Its warm out which is covered. Every so often a stray Sun beam will show through the trees just right and give her just one small sliver of direct sunlight for about a half an hour a day but other than that she stays in the shade.
- i try to water her once every few days. I dont usually let her soil dry out completely, just til it reaches a texture that feels more powdery than spongey. I have thought that it could be that I am watering too much but if I wait any longer she always seems to droop, which I know usually means she's thirsty. I water her with either purified or distilled water and sometimes collected rain water as Ive heard they can be sensitive to chlorine.
- only recently have the temperatures outside gone above 90°f and with almost a 100%humidity index and so I read that maybe the change in temperature could be the issue? I don't think the change has been too drastic, its stayed in the mid to upper 80s for the past two weeks, with maybe a couple cooler less humid days so I didn't think that would be such an issue
-Ive also thought that maybe she got some kind of disease and shed her diseased leaves? On some of the leaves there appear to be tiny yellow specks and Ive also noticed them on a couple of my bundleflowers too, which up until recently were sitting next to her. I know thats what's happening to my pineapple sage, its making new growth but all the old growth is browning and falling off. It appears to still have sooty mold although there are no aphids. Man, Mexican sages just dont like me xP
Also there are mushroom growing in her soil. They only pop up two at a time and usually seem to dry up and die out before I even go outside to check. I know potted plants in organic soil can sometimes have mushroom hitchhikers, infact a lot of mine do, and there aren't a lot of them so I dont think its the mycelium of the mushrooms choking out the roots.
I want experienced sally growers opinions here because All the research Ive been doing has just left me with more questions than answers. So my questions are; what do you think the cause of this could be, will this issue be fatal and what should I do differently? Honestly Ive done a lot of research on this subject already and there is A LOT of conflicting information out there about how to keep salvia happy.
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Topic: Whats wrong with sally? (Read 6303 times)
