i just bought this bird of paradise plant locally. I was told that it was 15 years old. in the pictures you can see the leaves are borwining and drying up. what is wrong and what can I do to fix it. the store guy said just to cut the dead and fertilize and it will come back quick and flower this year.
any help is appreciated.
How are the roots? Are they rotting? If they are rotting then you may be keeping it too wet. Was it repotted it after you brought it home? The pot looks too large for this size plant. If you did repot it did you plant it at the same depth as it was in the original pot? You do not want to plant any plant (or most plants) deeper than they were since this can set up rot and death.
Even though it's a short version of what McDole said, it's over-potted and over-watered.
Unfortunately, the remedy probably isn't to be found in a lighter hand on the watering can, that would be too easy. Plants need a favorable mix of air and water in the soil. Yours has far too much water and too little air. That is an inherent property of the soil that isn't going to change. Even if you were to mixe your soil with an equal fraction of perlite, it wouldn't change anything but o/a water retention. The soil would still be as soggy, and the ht of the soggy layer of soil would remain the same.
The key is to adopt a soil that is made almost entirely of chunky particles, with only about 10-15% of the total volume of soil being fine material, like peat, compost, composted forest products, coir, sand, topsoil, .... This type of soil holds almost all its water inside of the soil particles, not between. It's the saturation that comes from soils that hold a large fraction of their water between soil particles that rods roots of O2, and either killing them outright or impairing their function. Witness your plant as a perfect example.
I would read the sticky thread at the top of this forum, and adopt the idea that container media are defined (good or bad) by their structure, not how "rich" they are and not by how they look to something that can/will provide a lot of nutrients. Fertilizing containerized plants is monkey easy, once it's properly explained to you, but altering a soil's structure once you've planted in it is a no go.
Your soil is the foundation of every conventional container planting. You can put your planting on a solid foundation that will work for you, or on a poor foundation that will work against you. It's that simple.
Al
Hi Chris-
I have had one for maybe 6 years. I agree with hcmc, the pot you put it into looks a bit big. Pots that are too big then hold too much water for too long, so root rot can occur. However if the roots mostly filled it up it may be correct. It looks like you used a clay pot? If so that definitely helps dry out the soil faster.
I also agree with tapla about drainage and feeding, but... Mine has always just been potted in regular, (premium) potting soil I bought at Lowes. I have never put it into the kind of extra drainage material I use for succulents, like added perlite.
I keep mine in an east facing "garden window" that includes a skylight extending about 3 feet into the ceiling, so it gets LOTS of light. This is enough (barely) to make it flower. However it took 3 years to bloom, and it was a bit bigger than yours (gallon size pot). You can see how big it is now. It is now growing up out of the pot, and needs repotting. I will need a crane I think! I generally water it about once a week, less in winter, maybe a bit more in summer. You can see in the picture I took today some of the leaves are curled and brown-edged, this is because I let it get too dry last month when it was hot.
How is yours doing now? Did it make it?
