I am having something here that I've never had before. One of my passiflora pots has what I can only call a crusty yellowish junk on the soil surface. It is becoming hard for the water to soak through. Question is: What is this stuff and what should I do with it? My passiflora doesn't look all that healthy and it is a large vine. Will it make it until I can plant it out in two months or should I do something with it now? Hope someone can help me with this problem as it is Coral Glow and I don't want to lose it and can't seem to get any cuttings to root.
Shirley
Soil Problem with Passiflora
Shirley, I've never seen Yellow crust. Is it like a mold or fungus? I would go ahead and repot into a clean pot with new soil.
At Lowes, they had some bulbs in bags and in the soil was growing some kind of fuzzy stringy bright yellow fungus. I didn't buy them.
Did you use DE on your soil? mine got kindof like that with some seeds I had planted. The water just wouldn't soak in, and when the DE gets wet, it turns yellowish.
Okay, this should be fun trying to re-pot this big thing in the house. No, the DE didn't get here in time to use it, so I would guess this is some kind of fungus. Time to get out the sheet of plastic and do some work. Thanks you two.
Brugie, pay close attention to the roots, if any are mushy and rotted, pull as much of the rotted part away and also the soil. You might even want to wash the roots off, and of course if you cut off any of the roots, take a proportionate amount of the top off. If there seems to be a root rot problem, it could be pythium. A fungicide listed for control of pythium should be used as a drench.
Thanks Cala, I'll be sure to check that very well. Also will check out my fungicides before I start to see that I have something appropriate in case.