My Nerium oleander tree is sick

In may 2009 my girlfriend's boss gave us a oleander tree. She said she didn't have time to take care of it. It was in fair shape with leaves drying and falling but not too bad. I proceeded to transplant it in a nicer pot and started fertilizing it with 20-20-20. During the summer I would leave it outside in the sun and water it nearly everyday and would add a bit fertilizer twice a month. At the end of summer it was a beautiful, tick and blooming with white flowers tree.

Here it is a few days after we got it. You can see a few dry leaves but it's it fair shape
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k18/idkf1/Nerium%20Oleander/DSCN0008.jpg

Here is how it looks as of today :(
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k18/idkf1/Nerium%20Oleander/IMG_3358.jpg

It went from a nice tree to this in less than two weeks. It's been like this for three to four weeks now. The leaves are curling, drying and falling and some branches are drying and rotting. Look at these pictures:
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k18/idkf1/Nerium%20Oleander/IMG_3361.jpg

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k18/idkf1/Nerium%20Oleander/IMG_3363.jpg

On this one the skin/bark is very soft
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k18/idkf1/Nerium%20Oleander/IMG_3366.jpg

Here some branches are darkening
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k18/idkf1/Nerium%20Oleander/IMG_3367.jpg

There's also these weird white growths that weren't there when it was healthy
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k18/idkf1/Nerium%20Oleander/IMG_3368.jpg

The bigger branches split into two or three smaller ones. The small ones on the left are dying but the one on the right is fine
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k18/idkf1/Nerium%20Oleander/IMG_3365.jpg

We had small pebbles on the soil to keep the cats from digging. When picking up dead leaves I noticed there were a LOT of little white bugs crawling around. The are less than 1mm long and they don't jump. I promptly removed and cleaned them (the pebbles not the bugs :P ). I read they liked moist environment so I decided to let the soil dry a bit. It seems to have worked as there are a lot less even if I dig.

They look like this
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k18/idkf1/Nerium%20Oleander/IMG_3355.jpg[/IMG]

I also found a few of their buddies
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k18/idkf1/Nerium%20Oleander/IMG_3355.jpg

Sooooo what do I do? I think I watered it too much when it stopped being exposed to the sun all day long. I stopped leaving it outside when the weather got cold. It's in front of a window with a few hours of sun every day. It took a while for the soil to dry up an inch with the pebbles removed.

Are these bugs dangerous to the plant?

Is the pot too small? It's around 6' tall and is in a 15" wide and 10" high pot.

The leaves falling off, branches feeling soft and rotten, etc can all be signs of overwatering. Oleanders are pretty drought tolerant (they plant them in the freeway medians out here where we have hot summers with no rain) so if you were watering it thinking they liked a moist environment then you were probably keeping it too wet. If the excessive watering has been going on for a while, I would take it out of the pot, shake off as much soil as you can, trim off any mushy rotten looking roots, and repot it in some fresh soil. If the overwatering was just a one time thing then you can probably skip the repotting and just let it dry out (although if you've got bugs in the soil it might not be a bad idea to repot anyway).

Also--do you know how cold it got before you brought it in? If it was exposed to too much cold, that can cause some of the symptoms you're seeing as well although I would still definitely check on your watering.

During the summer the soil would get dry very fast so I watered often. I brought it in when temps got close to 10c during the day. I didn't leave it outside at night. As dumb as it sounds I was afraid someone would steal it because we live in a basement.

I think I'll repot it to be safe. I still have a bunch of leftover potting soil for that.

Sounds like cold wasn't an issue if it never saw temps colder than 10C...I'll stick with the original theory of overwatering. I could see in the summer if it's in the sun it would dry out quickly, but plants go through water a lot slower when the weather's cooler so you won't need to water anywhere near as frequently as you did during the summer. Best thing to do is check by sticking your finger down a few inches into the soil and see how things feel, if the soil still feels wet then it doesn't need to be watered. Don't just go by how it looks on the surface, with the dry air indoors in the winter the very top layer of soil can dry out fairly quickly but an inch or two down it can still be quite wet.

And don't feel silly for bringing it in to keep someone from stealing it--I've seen several threads here over the last year or two from people who had potted plants stolen out of their yards so it makes sense to take precautions if it's a plant you really care about.

With the bugs, have you noticed any little black gnats flying around? Or do they jump around when disturbed? I only saw one bug picture and wasn't sure who it was. With the white stuff on the stem, what happens when you touch it? Does it come off, or what is that? I completely agree that much of the damage is from over watering, but would hate to let a pest persist while the plant is trying to recover.

Hello, i have a problem with my nerium too, its a cutting from the summer of 09, the problem is that the new leafs crunble together and are getting some weird shapesvfor some reason.
Im thinking that it might because ive been giving it to much water during its dormant period? any thoughts on this?

I'm not sure I see the problem you're talking about--is it just how the new little leaves at the top of the plant look? I don't see anything to worry about, as they get larger they should start to look more normal. Your plant looks healthy, but it never hurts to doublecheck your watering since that's a very common way of killing plants and it's better if you catch the problem early because then you can stop the problem before it does a lot of damage.

might be a bad picture, its about 2 months old, and the small leafs u see on this pic. are still looking weird, they are big now but not as big as the others, and they have funny shapes.
the plant just went trough a "dry season" of 3 weeks, because i left it in my room at college during the holidays, so it has definitely not been over watered recently :)
but as far as i have read this plant should be able to take a bit of over watering since its natural growing places are in river valleys that gets flooded now and then.

3jsmom31:

No there aren't any flying gnats and they don't jump when disturbed. The white stuff is soft and can be removed easily.

Thanks a lot guys. I'll repot it today to check on the roots.

I would give it a good shower, too to knock any mites or whatever the soil bug is off. Does nerium have white sap? I was wondering if the white was a wound of some sort that is scabbing over.

About the over watering, in general, there are so many things going on in the house during the winter. You have dry indoor heat that lowers humidity, shortened days, cooler temps and weaker sunlight compared to summer, so the plant sort of rests during that and needs less love than during the summer. I think these problems can also account for underdeveloped leaves. I like to give my plants a shower and deep watering every so often to flush the soil, freshen the leaves, knock off bugs and well, heck, everyone feels better after a shower, lol..

I repotted the tree. I propably got 80-90% of the old soil off the roots. Everything looked normal. Not rotting roots or anything suspiscious. I didn't see any bugs in the soil near the roots. They were mostly hanging out near the wall of the pot and at the bottom near the strainer. Needless to say I washed the pot to get rid of them. I also cut off the rotting branches. It's pretty bare now but I'm confident it'll grow back to its formal glory.

They're pretty tough plants, I bet it'll come back for you.