A very SAD site - Help please

Hi everyone,
received some cuttings from Shirley last Year and they did sooooooo good until I brought them into the house at the first frost.
The largest one is 4 ft+ tall now ,in a large pot and upstairs in the hallway ,by a window,near baseboard heat.I think I water it enough .
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Well, it keeps on loosing leaves like crazy now and every morning when I come out of my bedroom I see new leaves have fallen.It just makes me sick !! I had that beautiful luscious plant and now THIS !
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as You can see on the picture I also have to battle whiteflies which I sprayed for .
This morning leaves were just hung from the top..limp !

What can I do to save this plant ?
Thanks in advance,
Brigitte

Dropping the leaves could have various reasons Brigitte.
It is normal, that they drop the leaves when brought from daylight into the house with much less light.
Spider mites could be a cause also too much water.
I would check the leaves for spider mites and the roots for rot. Important, dont leave any water in the plate.

Monika,
I am sending You a grosses "DANKE SCHOEN"...when You say ..check the roots for rot..actually digging up the plants ?
Gruss Brigitte

I think it is the white flies. I can see all the whitish stuff on the back of the fallen leaves. I think if you get rid of them, you should be okay. I know what it is like....I had them so bad last year I was about to throw everything out. Once outside in spring, they were okay. I ended up, this summer/fall, using something from Ortho called Systemic Insect Killer. It didn't get them all, but it sure helped. Then with the Bonide Systemic Houseplant Insect Control granules, I've got very few, if any, whiteflies now. This stuff works on mites too. Like Monika mentioned....not too much water. I'm sure you will be fine.

Dropping leaves can be due to various reasons, but when you bring plants indoors to low light conditions from outside where the light is higher it is not uncommon for most plants to shred the leaves and grow new ones. This is because the plant has adjusted to the higher light strength outdoors. When brought indoors, the plant has to grow new leaves which has the colorphlast more densly packed (to absorb more light). This adjustment can not be done once the leaf is formed (growth in plants is an irreversible development). To compensate, the plant drop leaves and grow new ones.

Also, try to water infrequently but deeply but keep an eye on it. Indoors in warm tempeartures, watering may be needed as often as very 1-2 days especially if you have the plant near a vent where air passes the leaves frequently. Feel the top of the soil and water only when it is dry, but then water deeply, allowing the fluid to run out of the bottom drainage holes. Empty saucer each time.

Dropping leaves can sometimes also be caused by hot air vent blowing on the leaves.

Plants brought indoors almost always loose their leaves initially.
Kenneth

Brigitte, you have a mail.

Hi Kenneth. I just welcomed you a few minutes, came over here and here you are. Great to see you checking things out. I hope you are enjoying yourself.

Thank You Monika ,Shirley and Kenneth for all Your valuable information.
I truly appreciate it :-) and will abide by it,
Brigitte

Kenneth..WELCOME to a wonderful and sharing group of gardeners

Monika...I have not received any mail yet

Brigitte, it was a long mail, written in German for better understanding.

Hi Bridgette,

I just skimmed through what the rest wrote, but I did not see where any of them mentioned that electric baseboard heater you have your plants near.. Through no fault of my own, I have had electric heat of one kind or another for the last 40 years of my life, and, other than wood, it is the worst heat for plants, and baseboard is the worst of the worst.

AND, baseboard heaters are always put under the windows where you need the light for the plants. If you discover a cure for it, please let me know.

Jeanette

What if you put a humidifier near the baseboard heating? Could that help?

Hi Monika,
now that I have my chicken in the oven and hopefully under control I wanted to check once more to see if I had mail from You..but still nothing.
did you sent it thru DG ? or my email ?
I will email you right now thru DG with my email here.Looking forward to reading your letter,
Gruss Brigitte

Humidifiers always help Karrie, but it would take more than one. In this cold weather we are having now, it was -20 2 hours ago, we have to heat with wood and we put 3 humidifiers on and don't even notice them.

Jeanette

Mine have dropped leaves more times than this newbie wants to admit.... but they come back slowly but surely .......

Have faith if I haven't killed mine yet - yours will be fine....

All good advice about pests and water, I think I've lost leaves on mine for both reasons and just hope I have better luck outside than I'm having in..... Brugs are still worth the battle