Hi everyone

Have been reading up on this site for quite some time now and find the community to be very helpful nad friendly. I am a new member now and this is my first post.

I recently (three weeks ago) bought a small rooted salvia plant from a local nursery (was just luck that they had been growing some). It had many leaves for such a small plant, about over 30, although all of them pretty small and quite light of colour, slightly yellow. Over the weeks that i have had it most of the leaves have fallen off, first started to brown at the edges and then drop after a few days, some also had little holes in. Now there are only about 11 leaves left, some which are very small and curled up.

The new growth, which is not much, is alot greener, but has now also started browning at the tips. She also seems to be growing extremely slow, 1 new set of leaves in a week, which are still quite small.
Conditions:
The plant is in a humidity dome, as the nursury had it in a tunnel with misters and so forth. THe RH in the room is under 50, and inside the dome ranging between 77 and 80. Been cutting holes in daily. I misted it twice a day for the first 2 and a half weeks but decided to stop misting it now, have read up about debates of misting and decided to try let the plant adapt to no misting.
I have the plant in quite a big pot, about 40cm (dont know the volume) and the plant is still very small. It is summer here, temps are just under 80 degrees. I have the pot standing on my desk by the window that gets direct morning light between 8 and 10 and then shaded by trees between 10 and 11. The rest of the day the room is still quite light. During the morning i have a light curtain shading the plant, I would like to know if I should just leave the curtain open to give the plant more light, (which is morning sun only), although the temp rises to about 82-83 and humidity drops about 5-8% (to low 70).

I am using normal potting soil with perlite and worm castings mixed in, also have a few earthworms in the pot now. The soil is well draining and i let the soil dry between waterings, about once a week.

Is there anything I am clearly doing wrong or do i just need to give the plant time to adapt? Growth was fine at the begining but has slowed drasticly and I am afraid that it is going backwards faster that growing as new leaves also seem to be getting problems.

I can get pictures if that will help, but it wont be good quality...

Help would bwe much appreciated

These salvia plants can be extremely sensitive with their leaf rot. Mine was rotting from the day I got it, and there was nothing I could do to slow its death. I'm sure you still have hope though, and I do hope someone else chimes in with some good advice, but these things are a real hassle to care for.

Hey Tjpot,

Unless the "little holes" you mention having seen in the leaves are produced by a plague, which should be visible, the problems seem due to acclimating issues. If the plant came from a nursery, chances are it was used to a very high relative humidity (90%+) and if the ambient outside of your humidity dome is very dry, holes might have been premature.

Perhaps the pale color in the leaves when you got it was just a result of lack of light, specially if the cutting was inside of a box for a few days. If the new shoots are greener, that's a good sign. If they curl up and brown at the edges, and you are not overwatering, most likely the environment is not humid enough.

Misting can be a way to intervene in cases of serious dehydration, but with good humidity it is not needed. Actually, the usual suggestions to keep the plant away from direct sun have more to do with dehydration than anything else. Sun rays won't hurt the plant, but will highly speed up dehydration.

A large pot is good for salvia, it needs a lot of root space. Did you transplant it there very early?

Pictures would be good to give more accurate feedback, but at the moment, I would keep the humidity inside of the dome at a maximum, keep checking the soil to make sure it does not dry out too much, and give the plant more light.

It was only a few of the leaves that had spots and holes in them, but they are gone now, the newer leaves do not have holes in. Newest set of leaves is also not curling, but the set before that curls down very badly, was the first new set in its new home.

Yes i transplanted the plant in the first week that I got it.

Is there a way to be able to tell that the leaves are dried out by looking or feeling the leaves?

I have also read somewhere that one should cut the brown parts of the leaf off, is that true or does it do more damage than good?

I will add photos off how it looked when i got it, how it looks now, and the pot by the the window. You cant see much detail of the leaves though.

Also a have flat containers with water in the pot to help with the humidity, that wouldn't cause any problems would it?

No, recipients with water to raise humidity won't hurt - just renew the water often so it doesn't become stained.



Normally dry leaves will become more sturdy and curled, and the color in the dried edges will be light to dark brown. When it's rot for excess of water the color is darker, almost black, and the tissue is softer. In that case cutting the rotten parts makes sense since they are diseased, but I don't think cutting dry edges is necessary.

At first glance I'd say your plant has had some extra adaptation stress, but in that sense she should recover fine. The other problem you have, related to the slow growth rate and the light green color, is most likely lack of light. If you cannot give her more light (preferably indirect, until it settles better) consider supplementing it with a good T4/T5 fluorescent tube or two.

Well the older curled up leaves that are left feel a bit crisp, but the new ones are softer, should they be fine or should i rather mist the plant to make sure it does not dry out? Would like to be able to have her to be able to survive without the misting.

If i put a 80W daylight CFL on the wondowsill would it make a difference? Seeing that most of the light would anyway go in other directions? Is there anything i could buy to stick to the window to create partial shade?

If you are not misting currently, don't start doing it and concentrate your efforts in making sure the dome environment has a high humidity level (90% if possible). Once the plant is growing nice green leaves, you can try again to slowly adapt it to lower humidity rates, but now it's about making her life easy.

A good daylight CFL will definitely work. You can put it as close as you want since it barely radiates heat, and if you want to direct as much light as possible, get a little reflector or a proper lamp setting to fit the CFL. To create partial shade in the window (and I'm assuming you refer to sunlight, not the CFL) you can use light clear cloth, baking paper or onionskin paper. But again, unless the sun is very intense, as long as the environment inside of the dome is kept humid you should have no problem with some direct sunlight. I've seen salvia plants in full sun during summer, inside of plastic greenhouses with high humidity, doing perfectly fine.

Okay i will try to get the humidity up for now, any advice on doing that? Arleady have a tray with water in and spray the inside of the dome in the mornings (could do that more regularly), but the humidity doesn't seem to go much above 80%

I will try the baking paper for this week if I can't get humidity higher, seeing that I can only get my cfl this weekend.

Thank you for the help

Oh and also, would making holes in the top or middle or near the bottom of the dome be best to retain humidity? I take it holes at the top would help most for keeping temperatures down, down how does it have an effect on humidity, if any?

Hi there,
Sorry to bother everyone again, but I'm quite concerned with my plant as I think it is on its way to its end... It has just stopped growing and the leaves are looking worse, those that are left...
I would've thought that it could be root rot or something as the plant has not come back yet after being in pretty constant conditions for a month now... But I only water the plant once a week and the top level of soil is quite dry before I water again.
Here is a photo of how it looks now.
Please help, I would really like to save my plant if I can.