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I wrote my question first at the end of someone elses question. Sorry, this is my first day at dave's! I have had a couple of swiss cheese plants and both of them have had issues. I bought them very full, lush and healthy. They thinned out, grew smaller leaves and some leaves don't have holes. Any suggestions? Thank you
Can you post a picture? That would really help. It could be that they aren't getting enough light or something, or maybe they need some fertilizer, or maybe there's something wrong with them but it's very hard to say without seeing a picture.
My camera isn't working. It gets plenty of light, I have it in my sun room. It gets hot in the summer and pretty cold in the winter but I don't really have another place with good lighting.
Unfortunately it's going to be a lot harder to figure out what's wrong without a picture. Are the leaves still nice and pretty and green, or are there yellowing leaves, browning edges, anything like that? If the leaves look fine, my thought is it's probably just a little on the chilly side in the sunroom over the winter and it'll hopefully perk up come spring. And be really careful on the watering--if it's in a cool room it won't need to be watered nearly as frequently as in the summer when it's hot.
It sounds like your plant is getting plenty enoiugh light, hopefully not direct sun which will burn/scorch the leaves. If your sun room gets pretty cold in the winter that's not good for the plant. The leaves that don't have holes are just immature leaves. Sometimes they don't begin to split until they are much older. I have a swiss cheese plant that isn't looking too great right now. It got left out when we had a couple of nights with temp's in the 30's. I'm hoping it will recover.
Well, first the holeless leaves are either of two reasons:
1- Feeding, swiss cheese plants like to be well fertilised, there leaves are holed to stop the leaves from tearing in the huricane winds,
2- The reason your leaves are not forming properly is probably because of a lack of sunlight but i have a plant in the shade and it seems to be doing fine-
You say the leaves are "thinning out" if you have pictures it will help to no end :)
And by the way that forum you commented on was mine :D Im also new to daves garden-
I have a very healthy swiss cheese plant, i simply water it when it gets dry and keep it in filted light conditions- another thing it may be is if the leaves have dust on them for a prolonged time it prevents the plant fom "breathing" this is unlikly but may happern,
I dont feel i have helped much so, if you have any other questions feel free to ask!
:) Good Luck!
Thank you! I have moved it a little further away from the window because it does get pretty cold. Even in the last few days she looks a lot better.
I will give it some food and hopefully that will hel some too. How have you done with cuttings? Again thank you for helping me out. I'll try and get a picture posted in a few days.
Immature leaves on the cheese plants dont have holes in them, but they wont start to get the cuts/holes now, this is a sign that your plant is under stress, you have done the right thing by moving it away from the window as these plants dont like direct sunlight but they dont want dark shade either, also no drafts from doorways in winter especially cold drafts like from an outside door, I always had a small misting water bottle laying tucked behind the pot of my cheese plant, this keeps the misting water at the same temp as the plant compost, then each morning when I got up, I gave the foliage and stem a mist to help keep the humid atmosphere on the plant that they require, especially in a winter central heating home. they like plenty of water, but never allow the plant to sit in a bowl of water, always throw away any extra in the saucer after about an hour, I may have missed it, but if you have never re-potted the plants, a good time to do this is either winter or early spring, choose a good indoor plant compost, into the pot, add a moss pole bought from the garden center and gently tie the stem to this inserted pole, you can mist the moss pole and it lets some moisture feed and water the aerial roots that appear from the stem and they grow down into the pot as they would in the plants natural habitat, If you re-pot, the plants have long white fleshy roots, gently tease them away so that they dont grow around in circles in the pot, dont feed for about 2 weeks after potting on and when you do start, only give half strength till you see lots of new growth and healthy larger leaves appear, then you increase the feed to full strength, remember plants recovery is not instant, so if you move a plant one day, it may take a couple of weeks before you see any improvement and sometimes, depending what caused the plant to stop growing will get worse before it gets better, but a few weeks should show some good signs. hope this helps you out a bit. good luck. WeeNel.
