Most of this plant has firm green leaves but some are very limp although not dropping off. Dibleys who are supposed to be experts say it has either been too wet or too dry so to cut the limp ones off, but I think perhaps something else is going on. Can anyone help please.
I agree. It looks like it was allowed to get too wet and was probably still too wet when the picture was taken. You probably have a pretty good idea of whether of not you allowed it to get too fry or not, but usually a plant allowed to get too dry shows significant spoilage of the foliage or it perks right up within minutes of being watered.
Plants prefer damp, not wet or soggy. If you are worried about over-watering, you can always add a wick through the drain hole that dangles below the pot. This 'fools' water into behaving as though the pot is deeper than it is. The water moves down the wick 'looking' for what it 'thinks' is the pot bottom and gets pushed off by more water moving down the wick behind it.
It looks like you have a pot within a pot. I assume the inner pot has drain holes but the outer one does not? If so, this will cause the plant to be left in standing water after you water it and this can cause the plant to be over-watered even if you think you aren't watering it too much. Your plant would do much better if you put it in a pot with drain holes and set the pot in a dish or tray of some sort to catch excess water. Each time you water the plant, allow excess water to remain in the tray for no more than 30 minutes to an hour and then empty any water remaining in the tray.
Proper watering includes flushing the soil at every watering. If you can't water in the manner w/o risking root rot, you should consider adopting a soil that DOES allow you to water properly. Since proper watering does include flushing the soil, the pot/spoil should never come in contact with the effluent that escapes through the drain hole. The pot should be lifted above the effluent so there is no chance for the salts that you are flushing out of the soil can make their way back into the pot. If the pot IS allowed to sit in the effluent, a state of isotonicity (where the level of salts in the effluent equalizes with the level of salts in the soil solution) is quickly reached, greatly reducing the effectiveness of your attempt to flush the soil of accumulating salts.
Al
