Archive for the ‘soil’ tag
African violets and soil mealy bugs
In the winter soil mealy bugs can be a problem for African violets.
The African violets get less light, the soil stays wet for longer times and it’s chilly by those windows creating conditions for soil bacteria and bugs to grow and attack.
The plants begin by wilting and the leaves appear to be thinner. This can mean root rot or soil mealy bugs are attacking your plant. Either way the best course of action is to repot your plant. It is the bacteria in the soil not the water that rots the roots. So either the bacteria or mealy bugs need to go.
Unpot the plant and check for mealy bugs, you’ll see little white spots in the soil at the bottom of the pot if you have them. If not it is bacteria that is the problem. When you unpot your plant gently remove all the soil from the roots, cut off damaged roots and rinse the roots thoroughly but gently in running water.
If when you unpot your plant you find the roots are short and all near to the surface that means you’ve been over watering your violet.
Buy some fresh soil at your local nursery and run your pot through the dishwasher if you wish to reuse it.
And remember as long as you have one healthy leaf you can root you have not lost your African violet.
Did you know you can use coffee as soil
While adding used coffee grounds to your plants works as a mild fertilizer ( 4, 1, 3 ) I recently read some articles where gardeners had used coffee grounds in place of soil for houseplants.
No one had success germinating seeds in pure coffee grounds but several plants did very well planted in coffee grounds instead of soil. If you are lucky you can just take out the coffee in the filter and drop the whole thing into a pot. Usually the pots and coffee filters won’t be so conveniently sized.
Occasionally plants in coffee grounds will develop a phosphorus deficiency or manganese toxicity as seen in leaves turning purple. Adding a bit of phosphate and lime to the soil will correct this.
The coffee also acts as a neurotoxin against slugs and other unwelcome critters.
The grounds are acidic so are a great way to add some acid to your acid loving houseplants like gardenias and azaleas.
The best successes came with tree and shrub houseplants. They seemed to do much better indoors planted in coffee grounds than dirt. Also plants that tend toward preferring drier soil to wetter soil seem to do better in coffee grounds.
I’ve read that expresso grounds do not work as well as regular coffee grounds.
See forum thread Coffee Grounds as Planting Medium
