With precision, pro growers understand how to provide individual selections with optimal conditions, and do so to bring a product to market with the most eye appeal. It's not at all unusual for a plant to respond to the limiting effects of a home environment and manifest some of that response in a change of appearance. Usually lower light/humidity, a different watering schedule, and a change from perfect nutrition to whatever the hobby grower provides sets the stage for a change in the level of vitality and how the plant looks. Large factors that play a part in coloration are light levels, cellular pH (different from soil pH), and the ratio of nutrients in the soil solution.
Several cultural influences can cause the plant to abort blooms, natural senescence (aging) among them. Over-watering, decreased light levels, nutritional issues, and others, can all cause blooms to abort. For the hobby grower, blooming is primarily determined by photo-period - technically the length of the dark period, but growers are able to manipulate blooming to a considerable degree by controlling photo-period and with growth hormones usually out of the reach of hobby growers. You can do some research & find out when this plant blooms & watch for it to bloom about that time. Please don't be tempted to use 'bloom-booster' fertilizers with high levels of P(hosphorous). They do NOT work for container plants. No plants EVER use more P than N at any point in the growth cycle, so these fertilizers will always be counter-productive (compared to more appropriate formulations) in containers and rarely of any benefit for plants in the gardens/beds/landscape.
What a soil is labeled (as in AV Soil) really tells us nothing about the soil. What is important about container soils is not so much what they are made from, but rather their physical properties. That is, how much water they hold and the height of the perched water table they support. Perched water is the water that remains in the saturated layer of soil at the bottom of containers and refuses to drain. THAT water kills roots very quickly, so the more perched water a soil holds, the less healthy it will be for your plants. Since the amount of perched water a soil holds is DIRECTLY related to the size of the particles in the soil, we can say with absolute certainty that soils comprised of particles large enough to reduce or eliminate the perched water are far easier to grow in and MUCH healthier for your plants. I'm going to start a new thread soon aimed specifically at helping new growers over the hump & getting thm stared along the right path. It will be slanted heavily toward an overview 7 understanding of how important soil choice is to the probability of success. y invitation, I lecture widely on this issue, on aspects of houseplant care, container gardening, and get paid for it. You can believe me when I tell you that if you get your soil right, you're at least 60% of the way to being able to consistently produce healthy plants.
I don't have time to talk about repotting vs potting up. but there is a distinct difference, with repotting being much preferred over simply potting up. Timing is a factor, so for now, if roots are congested, potting up is a better choice with a full repotting into an appropriate soil next summer being something you should add to your list of things to do.
Skip the misting. It's totally ineffectual, raising humidity levels only for the length of time it takes mist to dry. If you want to do something tat will actually help, raise humidity with a humidifier or use a humidity tray under the plant, but even humidity trays are marginally effective. I put a bonsai plant on a large humidity tray & put a digital hygrometer in the foliage. The tray raised humidity by .4% or almost nothing.
If you want to start a conversation that includes answering any other questions you have & some discussion about fertilizing, I'll keep an eye on the thread.
Al
