Patchouli not a happy camper!

I apparently am just awful as a patchouli grower. All of my other plants are happy. Not so the patchouli.

I had one several years ago back in college that I managed to kill with root rot. I finally found another, this one quite small, and when it started looking peaked--leaves going brown at the tips--I took it to the "plant doctor" at English Gardens, and he said it looked like it was probably being overwatered again, not to water it for a while, but that it wasn't a goner yet. That was about two weeks ago and I've given it very little water (just a small taste several days ago or so) and put it under a grow light a few days ago (which my last one liked a lot) and it's looking worse, esp. in the last day or two. Also in the past couple of days--since putting it under the light? I dunno--there are also little bugs buzzing around it and crawling on it and the pot--they look like fruit flies or gnats or something. They don't seem to be eating it, but they're there. They also don't seem to be on the other plants (currently the aloe and shamrock are sharing the light) or in the kitchen.

I'm just about at my wits' end. At this point I don't know if its problem is that it's still overwatered or if it's now getting too dry. I am afraid to water it in case it's the former. I am just not a patchouli grower, I guess?

The gnats are probably fungus gnats, they tend to only come around when there's too much moisture around. To tell if you need to water, try sticking your finger down a couple inches into the pot, if it still feels wet then you need to hold off on watering, but if it's feeling really dry then you should go ahead and water it. I'd wait until it's feeling dry and then give it a thorough watering, then let it dry out a little bit again, then thorough watering, etc. Giving it little sips of water here and there is not as good for it. I also don't think this is an especially drought tolerant plant, so while you probably were watering it too much before, it won't like being really bone dry either. If it's got the proper amount of moisture now and it's still declining, it's possible it was too far gone by the time you stopped overwatering it--sometimes plants will bounce back well but sometimes the roots are already too far rotted for it to recover. If you can post a picture of it someone might be able to take a guess on how likely it is that it could recover.

Well, I finally got the time to take a pic today...but...never mind. I think it's pretty much a goner. It looks exponentially worse than it looked even this morning.

The day I posted my first post, I gave it water as it was looking a bit dry and the dirt felt dry. The next day it seemed to have perked up a bit. No change over the past few days since then but it didn't look on the verge of death, but I just went in there and realized I forgot to turn on the grow light this morning and now it is so wilted and the three remaining leaves are so mostly brown that I don't think it'll pull through.

I will never know what I did wrong, nor how I could've fixed it. Too much water was bad. No water was bad. I don't know if the soil was too heavy for it, or what--I asked the plant doctor and he said it was fine (it's bagged potting soil). My partner thinks it's because I didn't remove it from the biodegradable pot it came in and just put the whole thing in the terra cotta pot to plant--but I thought the point of those was that you could plant the plant in them?? It seems to have fallen apart, at least the part I can see above the surface of the soil.

I suspect it was probably the overwatering that was the primary cause of death--once enough of the roots start to rot, it becomes difficult for any but the toughest plants to recover even if you change and stop watering it so much. It's always worth trying to save it since sometimes they will pull through, but sometimes they don't. Letting it dry out too much afterwards wasn't good either, but even if that hadn't happened it may have been too far gone to save anyway. Bagged potting mix (as long as it was labeled for containers, not for the garden) would have been OK, although some people have had trouble with store brand ones, so a name brand is probably a better bet. Leaving it in the biodegradable pot probably didn't hurt, although it didn't help either. If you really want to grow the plant, I'd try it again one more time and make sure that you watch the watering right from the start this time, that way the plant will never get into bad shape.