Image – Wikimedia/Digigalos
The money plant is not that it is a difficult herb to maintain, but since it has fleshy leaves, you must be very careful with the watering. Because? Because the fact that they are like that already tells us that they have a lot of water inside. But in the same way that a healthy specimen has its foliage like this, fleshy, a sick one could have it too soft or even rotten.
For this reason, it is important to know why a money plant withers and what can be done so that your situation does not become more complicated than necessary.
What if the leaves are soft?
Image – Wikimedia/W.carter
First, let’s see what we should do in the event that the money plant has soft or rotten leaves. In this case, we can be sure that the problem is that it received a lot of watereither because it was too watered, or because it rained several days in a row.
It is therefore necessary to know that his state of health will deteriorate a lot, if it is not already, and that the fungus will soon infect it, as they like humid environments, and even more so if the temperatures are pleasant (15ºC or more). So, in order to save our beloved plant money, we need to do the following:
Take the plant out of the pot
This simple gesture is very important, because we are interested in the earth drying up as soon as possible. If left in the container, even if not watered, it would take too long to dry out.
Wrap the soil/root ball with absorbent paper
Now that he’s outside, to speed up the drying of the earth, we’re going to wrap him in absorbent paper. This, yes, If we see that the first layer we put on it gets wet quickly, we will remove it and put another one. And then, we will leave it in a dry place and away from direct light for 24 hours.
Plant it in a new pot with a substrate that has not been used before.
Once the soil is more or less completely dry, we will have to plant it in a new pot -with drainage holes at its base- with a new universal substrateThat is to say, it has never been used. We don’t water for a week, to give the roots time to recover a bit.
Apply a systemic fungicide
You don’t need to water for seven days, but what you do do is treat it for fungus. For this reason, a systemic fungicide spray will be applied like this, spraying both the plant itself and the ground.
And wait
When those days pass, we will take the risks again. But yes: we will water less often than before. We need to let the soil dry out a little, so that it is not always soaked, otherwise we will worsen the health of our money plant.
What if the leaves are dry?
When the money plant has dry leaves, as if they are wrinkled, if the earth is also very dry, we can assume that what is happening is that it is very, very thirsty. This happens when the earth goes too long without rehydrating, because the roots of this grass, although they can withstand drought, need to hydrate regularly in order to perform their functions.
Fortunately, although the symptoms of dehydration are quite dramatic, the solution is simple: just immerse the pot in a basin with water for a long time (not less than half an hour). And of course, from there, it will be necessary to increase the frequency of watering so that this does not happen again.
When to water the money plant?
Image – Wikimedia/SergioTorresC
If we want to prevent the money plant from withering, what I will explain to you now is when to water it. Although the frequency changes depending on the season of the year in which we are, as well as whether you are inside or outside the house, It is important to do something as simple as checking the humidity of the substrate -soil- before watering it.
How come? No need to be too complicated: with just a stick -like the one they give you in Chinese or Japanese restaurants for example- you can do it. The steps to follow are:
- First, introduce it to the pot, as much as you can.
- Then extract it.
- Finally, look how it is: if it’s clean, then it’s time to water.
Another way to find out is to pick up the pot once it has been watered, and again a few days later.. And it is that the earth, when watered, increases in weight, so if we know more or less how much it weighed before watering and how much after, we can know when the plant needs water.
I hope your withered silver factory recovers soon.