Hi Planto,

Another Spath? How many do you have in all?

Did you purchase PL from a big box or grocery store?
Hopefully, not a green house/nursery.

Employees could care less about plants. Plants are watered only when someone thinks about doing so or ordered by a manager..If the manager thinks about it. :)

Spaths are bog plants but when grown indoors, there's no doubt, they must be treated different.
My older Spath is in a pot within a pot. It really does better when roots sit in water. But I don't recommend others' to follow suit.

Your new PL is good-looking, healthy foliage. Did the pot have drainage?

How wet is the towel..too funny.

I read, and re-read a new plant should remain in its pot 2-3 days before re-potting, etc, so I normally let it be..usually longer than 3-days..lol. Depends on the plant.

Good luck..I'm happy your Spath went on sale. Toni

Toni,
Hi! Well... I sort of killed off my favorite Spath awhile back. "He" was a rescue from Lowes last Summer. Once I cut it back, "he" only had about six leaves. When I accidentally killed him off, he had 20+. I was going to give him to my Mother and failed to note how hot it was going to be outside that day (I left him in my car trunk). Needless to say... he didn't make it. He essentially "cooked" inside my hot trunk. My Mom doesn't quite has the green thumb, so I figured she wouldn't have a hard time with my PL. He'd been through so much already (Lowes left him in full sun outdoors) and bounced back, I was pretty sure she wasn't going to be able to kill him. Nope, I did! :\

Since then, I've purchased a couple more. I gave both to my MIL. She has quite the plant collection. I'm usually giving her something. I just gave her a Pothos and a Parlor Palm awhile back. I think she's starting to give me this look, "More plants?!" I'm a sucker for picking up something when I know I don't have the room. An apartment with one good window (a South window) isn't the most room. Not to mention, being a South window, I can only put but so much near it with fear of burning something.

I purchased this one at a local Lowes too. Sadly, one I did purchase from a local Nursey looked worse than this one. Its roots were so rotten, I had to return it! That was surprising for them, their plants are usually in good condition.

Do you have a picture of your older Spath? I may have seen it (I've stumbled across your Flickr album a couple times looking at other plants. Boy, you have a jungle!).

The pot it was in had drainage, but it was in a second pot that didn't. The towel was pretty wet when I got done letting it sit. It's still pretty moist, but I'm not trying to dry it out completely (that would be just as bad lol).

I plan on repotting sometime soon, going to remove all the soil since I'm not sure what's going on in the center of the rootball. Hopefully, no more rotten roots. That said, it has a ton of good looking roots so I'm sure it'll be fine. Just going need some babying for alittle while.

Planto

This post was edited by plantomaniac08 on Thu, Feb 6, 14 at 11:34

Planto. Aw, heat stroke.
My car is old, so plants that follow me home are placed in the passenger or back seat. Well, they used to go in the back seat..the last couple years, 2 25-pounds of Perlite are lying horizontally. lol.
Great way to locate my car in a crowded, shopping mall parking lot.

Sad when we have to blame ourselves, lol. 'It's Mom's fault,' much better.

Planto, I have photos, but no longer know how to download from Flickr to GW. lol.
I'm making dinner, but plan on emailing while food is baking. Flickr had to change something. Before an image was clicked on then sent here. Now, I either get an error message or a un-clickable link.

Can you go to my site then type in Spathiphyllum?

A pot within a pot is an awful idea. Home Depot sold E. Crown of Thorns potted in plastic pot inside ornate pot. Boy, did they stink! I tipped several containers filled with water. Every single Crown was rotted. Oh, another Crown group were wrapped in colorful, aluminum foil. They too smelled, well, powerful. Powerful enough to gasp!

Maybe you should have used paper towels?? Hey, maybe you can do a TV commercial! lol.
'Dry your roots with Plant-Squad, the only paper towel that prevents root rot without chemicals.' lol

Don't worry, your PL looks great. Once roots dry to your satisfaction, pot and watch it grow.

Tropical leaves burn in heat, especially when enclosed.
I witnessed heat stroke, 'Chlorophytum, Fire Flash' when bringing plants out 2/3 summers back. Leaves discolored from green to gray within 5-minutes.

Toni,
It gets so sunny here, I have learned the hard way not to put plants I purchase in the passenger seat or back seat. I had another PL (boy, I think I was "bad" and returned it) that I had up front with me. By the time I got home, it had blackened spots on the leaves from sunburn. Oops.

Do you still have the bagged perlite in your car? LOL.

I found your 'Domino' PL and a green one. Is the green one your "old PL"?

Eww. I've smelled some rotten plants before, not a good smell. I found some ZZ Plants at HD the other day floating. *sigh*

Thanks. It does look really healthy despite having being soaked.

Did your spider plant recover?

Planto

The issue with Spaths when they have a lot of water is stagnation. Stagnant water is devoid of oxygen. I have them growing in a pond (in a pot in the water) and no issues. They get overhead water from sprinklers and the pond water is oxygenated. You'll often see them set up in landscape ponds with reticulating water. Tap water can be devoid of oxygen, depending on its source, and it's quite often full of chemicals. The thing is to choose your water, and don't let it stagnate.

Tropic
I grow spathiphyllum in several locations but my best are in standing water lol They are in a dishpan filled with a mix of clay litter and top soil. situated right at water level in dappled shade also grow cannas split leaf philo,bog lily .
, amazon sword plants mexican petunia.
If you can provide enough light you can grow spaths submerged in aquariums though it takes some training to do this There seem to be several species some far more adapted to aquatic environment. though I've yet to tell the difference .
IME about the only thing they won't adapt to is drying out ,freeze, and some type of bug that chews the leaves off lol gary

Here's a picture of the newly potted PL. I removed all the soil, ended up giving it a little bit of a haircut (broke some roots off in the process) and repotted in "fresh soil." Man, it had quite the root system. I must have removed almost all of the rotten roots yesterday, as I found very little today. Great news. :) Thanks for looking.

Planto

Afternoon, Everyone,

Planto...Your plants burned in the car? Wow!
I used to work at a plant store. We'd 'employees' would first sleeve plants, by size, then haul to customers cars.
Placing a large '10-inch-plus containers) plant on the passenger side was as simple as breathing. We warned people about leaving plants inside cars, for long periods, when it was hot or cold.

I'm surprised your plant burned though. We once drove to and from TN, back to IL. I bought Gardenia and Banana trees..they made the journey without injury. 10-hour drive.

Yep, the green is the older of the two. The second isn't Domino, but I can't recall its species. I'm so upset...the variegated PL started going downhill when it was repotted. It's a disaster, doubt it makes it.

Yes, Perlite is still in my car..Planto, I've been known to get lost going to a local Walgreen's. lol. Trying to find a car in a car to car mall lot is difficult. The perlite bags made great targets. lol.

Yep, Chlorophtum is fine, but I had to cut off about 40% leaves..all were crispy.

Planto, your PL looks great. Nice container, too. It will make it, no need to worry.

I believe you about HD's ZZ plants..Yuck. I'd have marched up to the manager..even though it'd probably wouldn't matter..they don't care. Toss in the trash, write it off.

Hi Tropic...How ya doing? How's the weather in your parts?

Hello Gary. Was it you who posted a year or two ago about growing Spaths as bog plants? Toni

Toni,
Yup. It was about a ten minute drive from the nursery to home and the PL was blackened by the time I got home. It's possible it was just because it was a PL as I know they don't take direct sun very well (depending on the time of day).

Lol, that's a way to do it I spose. Perhaps you could get a paint job for your car, hot pink perhaps? :P (just kidding)

That's good to know that your Chlorophytum is doing better. Please post a photo of it once it "makes a come back." I'd love to see it.

Thanks again. I didn't want to purchase a new pot for it, but I couldn't get it back in its old pot when I cleaned it up lol.

Yeah, I tried asking for a discount on a cactus bowl I found at HD one day. They wanted $12 for it and the two cacti were dead and the 'Golden Hahnii' potted with them was beautiful. Nope, wouldn't budge. Oh well, I tried.

Planto

Planto, was it summer or winter? Maybe a/c or heater fan air was hitting your PL.
The plants I brought home from TN were outdoors, so it's possible that's the reason they didn't burn.

Don't get me started on local plant nurseries. lol. In Feb, we usually drive to a green house about 45-mins away. Because I really don't have room for more plants I vowed not to go this year...lol. Maybe just browse?? lol

Planto, if I knew how to post a photo, I'd snap a pic now...lol. To top it off, I can't find a contact addy on Flickr. You mentioned downloading your office photo from another thread..Was the other thread a photo site?

A pot can have a crack or hole, Home Depot will not budge. I used to work at a local HD. Back then, they'd toss plants before reducing prices.
The last time I went to HD, they had sale plants, and nope, didn't buy any..Difficult task...lol.

Speaking of pots..My Chlorophtum is Fire Flash. Ever see one?
FF grows different than Spiders..FF roots are sticking out of the pot. I have containers, but they're too wide or too shallow. It grows slower than Spiders. I don't know what to do.

Now that you know the secret of dl'ing, you can post all your plants..lol.

Toni,
Actually... I don't remember what time of year it was lol.

Sadly, our local nursery (there's only two here and the one rarely has houseplants so I don't bother driving over a half an hour to look there) that does sell houseplants, seems to sell the same things: Pothos, PLs, Spider plants... the usual stuff. I probably seem a bit weird to them considering I still come in to just look despite the plants almost always being the same kind.

Ha, just about every person at the BBSs here and nursery knows me. One lady calls me the "cactus lady." I used to have a good number of cacti until a couple years ago when the apartment people hired someone to pressure wash our apartments. We didn't get a notification and I had my plants outside. Everything I had outside died because the guy used a "bleach derivative." It was kind of my word against the apartment people (hard to prove I didn't get their e-mail, they could of just said well you just deleted it and didn't heed our "warning"). Oh well.

That's interesting, I've never seen any HD plants around here marked down (I just went to HD the other day too lol). I love to buy stuff on clearance, but it seems like lately by the time plants are marked down at Lowes, they're already 80% dead. I was really surprised to see this PL on clearance not half dead.

I haven't seen a Flash Fire before in person in a super long time. I think the last time I saw one was when I started getting into houseplants and thought it was one of those "exotic" plants and I avoided it lol. That's been some years ago now that I think of it. Maybe almost five years now. I've read that they're super easy to care for too. I don't know much about taking care of them though (in response to not knowing what to do). Is it a "man-made" hybrid? Maybe that would explain its slowness.

Sadly, I've cut down on my plant collection substantially in the last year. I got to one of those points I started feeling overwhelmed and plants were more of a job than an interest. I have no more outdoor plants (unless you want to count three cacti and a Gasteraloe that I'm going to be leaving in our South window this year)... well, I did just buy some lily "bulbs" the other day. I need something that blooms frequently.

Inside, I have a Maranta, Pothos, PL, Chlorophytum "Zebra Grass" (the one that doesn't make babies), and an African Violet. :\ I purchased a couple other plants this year already but had to take them back due to issues (I wasn't convinced another African Violet I bought didn't have mites!). I've discovered the hard way only having one window/room for plants is limiting. It's great to have such a bright window, but it limits what I can put near it without burning something. I told Hubby once we get a house, it might just look like you or Purple's house... a jungle. ;)

I could post some pictures for you of my plants if you'd like. I don't have anything special though lol.

Planto