Brown spots/dieffenbachia leaves & mites on curly leaf ivy

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PlantLady_inOR Portland, OR Aug 22, 2008

You all were extremely helpful and knowledgeable in identifying my "unknown" plant (turned out to be a Desert Rose) that I'm hoping you can help with two more questions/problems...

1) I brought a small dieffenbachia home from Home Depot a couple of weeks ago and had to trim 3-4 leaves off because they had, for lack of a better term, brown canker sores on the leaves. Some started at the edges and some were in the middle of the leaf. The plant itself seems happy and has new growth already. I'm sure someone else has had this problem before me... Does anyone know what these are? (I can post a picture if needed.)

2) I discovered (HORROR!) a nasty mite infestation on my curly leaf ivy last week. I promptly took it outside, sequestered it and sprayed it liberally with my organic pest control substance (essential oils that make the whole place smell like cloves for days). It seemed to work, as a close examination show no signs of the little bugs nor has it spread to any other plants. (Thank goodness.) But, about half the plant was lost. The leaves were spotted yellow and dried up. I've done a major trimming job on those parts, but I'm wondering if it will gain strength and return to it's former beauty? And if so, how long are we talking? Or is it a lost cause?

Thanks in advance to all you plant people out there!

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ecrane3 Dublin, CA(Zone 9a) Aug 22, 2008

Can you post a picture of the dieff? Could be it was from some watering problems at the store/grower, if it's putting out new growth and nothing's getting worse then chances are you're OK now but it's probably good to post a picture just in case.

For the mites--those leaves that were badly damaged by the mites won't get better, but hopefully now that the stress of the mites is removed it should put out new growth and after a while get back into good shape again. If the damage was so severe that it loses all its leaves I suppose it's possible it might not come back, but hopefully you caught it in time. I'd also keep a really close eye on anything that was near the ivy--sounds like it was a fairly bad infestation on your ivy and anytime I've had spider mites get to that point, if there were other plants right nearby some of them always have ended up with the mites too. There just probably weren't as many of them on those plants so you aren't seeing damage yet. Spider mites are very hard to see especially if they're just getting started and there are only a few on the plant, so I'd definitely keep a really close eye on any plants that were right by the ivy.

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