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The money plant is not that it is a difficult herb to care for, but since it has fleshy leaves, you must be very careful with watering. Why? Because the fact that they are like this already tells us that they have a lot of water inside. But in the same way that a healthy specimen has its foliage like this, fleshy, a sick one could have it too soft or even rotten.
For this reason, it is important to find out why a money plant withers, and what can be done so that your situation does not get more complicated than necessary.
What to do if the leaves are soft?
Image – Wikimedia / W.carter
Let’s see first what we have to do in the event that the money plant have soft, or rotten leaves. In this case, we can be sure that the problem is that it has received a lot of watereither because it has been over-watered or because it has been raining for several days in a row.
Therefore, it is necessary to know that his state of health is going to weaken a lot, if it is not already so, and that the fungus will soon infect itsince they love humid environments, and even more so if the temperatures are pleasant (15ºC or more). So, in order to save our beloved plant from money, we must do the following:
Take the plant out of the pot
This simple gesture is very important, because we are interested in the earth drying out as soon as possible. If we left it in the container, even if we didn’t water it, it would take too long to dry.
Wrap the earthen bread/root ball with absorbent paper
Now that it is outside, to make the soil dry faster, we will wrap it with absorbent paper. Yes indeed, If we see that the first layer that we put on it gets wet quickly, we will remove it and put another one. And then, we will leave it in a dry place and protected from direct light for 24 hours.
Plant it in a new pot with a substrate that has not been used before.
Once the earth is more or less completely dry, we will have to plant it in a new pot -with drainage holes at its base- with a new universal substrateThat is, it has never been used. We will not water until a week has passed, to give the roots time to recover a bit.
Applies systemic fungicide
You do not have to water until after seven days, but what you do have to do is treat it against fungi. For this reason, a systemic spray fungicide will be applied and this, pulverizing both the plant itself and the soil.
And wait
When those days pass, we will resume the risks. But yes: we will water less frequently than before. We have to let the soil dry out a bit, so that it is not always soaked, otherwise we will worsen the health of our money plant.
What to do if the leaves are dry?
When the money plant has dry leaves, as if wrinkled, if the earth is also very dry, we can assume that what is happening is that it is very, very thirsty. This happens when the earth remains without rehydrating for too long, since the roots of this herb, although they can withstand drought, need to hydrate regularly in order to fulfill its functions.
Luckily, although the symptoms of dehydration are quite dramatic, the solution is simple: you just have to submerge the pot in a basin with water for a long time (not less than half an hour). And of course, from then on, we will have to increase the frequency of watering so that it does not happen again.
When to water the money plant?
Image – Wikimedia / SergioTorresC
If we want to prevent the money plant from getting wilted, what I am going to explain now is when to water it. Although the frequency will change depending on the season of the year in which we are, as well as if you are inside or outside the home, It is important to do something as simple as checking the humidity of the substrate -soil- before watering it.
How is it done? No need to get too complicated: with a simple stick -like the one they give you in Chinese or Japanese restaurants for example- you can do it. The steps to follow are:
- First, introduce it into the pot, as much as you can.
- Then extract it.
- Finally, look to see how it is: if it is clean, then it is time to water.
Another way to know is by taking the pot once it has been watered, and again a few days later.. And it is that the earth, when it is watered, increases in weight, so if we know more or less how much it weighed before watering and how much after, we can find out when the plant needs water.
I hope your withered money plant recovers soon.