Some of the leaves are turning yellow from the inside, and curling ever so slightly.
They are indoor plants, and the soil was sterilized a couple months ago. It may have something to do with having snipped the upper part of the stems that had spent blooms, since the yellow leaves are only on those parts of the plant.
Is this a disease or did I do something wrong when deadheading?
It may be a matter of lighting Blake. Platycodon like full sun to part shade. Do you have a brighter window you could place them in? Also, a/c drafts can cause yellowing of leaves/leaf drop...and as always...too wet or too dry can do the same.
My place has been around 27-30C constantly, so it's not coldness. The leaves on the uncut stems are nice and green, and sun, water would be equal for all of them. It really is just the ones that are snipped at the top.
That is a puzzlement. Platycodon are not very disease prone, and usually any problems are due to environment...I have been reading about them...seems like yellowing leaves are a result of two things...lack of nutrients and watering. Just a thought, but possibly you removed more plant than was necessary...causing the water uptake to be disturbed..(grasping at straws) grin
The yellowing looks like it may be in a stippled pattern which can signal that you've got spider mites--check the underside of your leaves and see if you see little tiny brown/red dots. If you do then you've got spider mites. (post back if that's the case and we can all chime in with suggestions for getting rid of them)
I agree with ecrane. Water or nutrient issues should affect the entire plant, not just the stems you snipped leaves from. I have a balloon flower and deadhead it often and it never has any visible affect on it other than to cause it to put out more blooms.
No specks or bugs under the leaves. They look good enough to eat off of. I love indoor soil!
I wonder if the place where the stems were cut left an opening that dries out water that travels up the stem? You can see the tips at the top in the picture, are they typical deadhead .. scabs?
It's getting worse. The leaves are getting dark around the edges and dying. My poor little plant!
Thinking more that the plant may have picked up a virus/fungus from the open area....Perhaps it may be best to remove those sections completely...Blake, always make sure you wipe your pruners, scissors etc with alcohol to prevent the spread of infection.from one plant to another.,
Sadly, it's over half the plant. Thanks for the advice.
I can't believe that the trouble I've had with plants is normal. No one would grow anything if it was normal. It's like a minefield and no matter where I go, I kill something. I wish I hadn't got the stupid idea to grow flowers in the first place.
It can be rather demoralizing when it seems like everything you try to grow doesn't do well....I have killed my share of plants over the years. We just need to find plants that suit the environment you have to offer. From what I see, you are growing plants that do best outside, rather than as houseplants. Not all gardeners have actual outside gardens. Below are some suggestions for plants that acclimate themselves to indoor conditions.
Please consider some of these before you decide to give up.
http://ohmyapt.apartmentratings.com/plants-for-indoor-garden.html
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/home-garden/8-best-plants-to-grow-indoors.html
http://gardening.about.com/od/houseplants/tp/FloweringHouseplants.htm
http://www.firstclassart.com/index.html
http://www.bachmans.com/Care-Handling/Plants/divHomePage.html?cnb=Plants&categoryCode=01&pageIndex=_pageIndexToken_favoriteSucculentsforIndoors
Blake, I'm a bit confused. My platycodon leaves look entirely different. Is this what your blooms looked like?
I did a ton of research before I got started with all of this looking for blue flowers that I could grow indoors from seed. I must have spent about 20 hours choosing the 4 I wanted.
Unfortunately, 3 of them had no mention of a certain instruction needed to trigger blooming indoors, which I learned after 7 months of trying. The 4th, the balloon flower, was mislabelled as Hakone Blue double, but was really Komachi (the only cultivar that DOESN'T bloom). Just great. So if I want the buds to open, I have to manually do each one, and it mangles the flowers, and they're pale purple instead of the blue-purple I wanted. And now it is diseased somehow. The leaves used to look dark green and shiny.
Our garden starts out earliest with the blues. Muscari and wood hyacinth, columbine centaurea (bachelor's button), among others. Also brunnera, with flowers like forget-me-nots.. The one thing about our outdoor plants is that they bloom during their season, and then they are finished for the year. If you plant outdoors, there are a lot of plants with bluish blooms. I find it somehwt amusing that our garden blooms with blues first then going to purple, pink and yellow, then full bloom.
There are a number of blooming indoor plants, which often bloom several times a year. I'm sure you could find african violets that would fulfill your color request. You might also find some great bulbs which can be forced indoors, like hyacinth. Many forced bulbs stay in bloom for a few weeks.
