Houseplant advice please

Patches41048

My daughter has has a rubber plant she raised from a tiny plant in a 50p pot when she was still at school.

This plant grown while she was studying for her A levels and travelled with her through university halls and two different student houses before coming back home a couple of years ago. Through all this the plant has thrived. Against my expectations it survived extremes of temperature, a grub type infestation and teenager neglect ... that is until she met her partner and they moved into their own place.

Within a couple of months the plant flagged (as though it had been left to dry out) and leaves started to go yellow and die off one by one. We thought it was because it had been put near a vent in winter, or paint fumes, not enough light etc ... Out of desperation i have brought it back to my house and put it in its old place but there is no change. In fact in the couple of months since i brought it back its lost another 3 leaves. The individual leaves go yellow, brown and drop off fairly quickly but the rest just sit there green and floppy! It never stands in water, doesnt dry out and has been treated with and insecticide just in case. I dont know what else to try??

My daughter is very fond of the plant. I would really like to return it to her in good healt again. Any ideas????

maypole

Well, I have one that my children bought for me 25 years ago and it occasionally does this, I don't know why, it is doing it now, I have tried letting it dry out a bit, then tried watering copiously, you have to use tepid water I believe so maybe my water has been a bit cold for it . Mine is by a window, not too close to a radiator. Do you think the leaves might just fall off with age in some plants?
Sorry I could not be of any help to you patches:o

Horace

My own rubber plant has done the same recently, it has never been overwatered or left to dry out and yet one or two leaves have turned yellow and dropped off. Looking at the pot now though I think that it might need re-potting so will endeavour to do this when it isn't cold.

I used to keep a huge rubber plant at work - it was at the top of a draughty set of stairs and was fed weekly with a huge bucket of water. It grew quite well and in fact got a bit straggly so much so that I sent it on a holiday to the Landscape department of my work place - they kept it for a while and even pruned it and repotted the prunings. It was then returned to my office and wash lovely, lush and green and not a straggle in sight (I miss that old plant which is why I have one of my own at home now).

I would try and give the plant a bit of a feed too - I use miraclegrow for houseplants and it seems to have given all my plants a bit of a boost. My advice it to try re-potting it and giving it a feed, it should then recover.

Patches41048

Thanks Horace/Maypole. Its nice to know other people are seeing the same thing. I will try repotting it with decent compost this weekend with a bit of feed in there and see if it perks up a bit. It does seem to be doing its best to hang in there!

Jolanta_Nowak

This sounds to me like a plant which is 'pot bound' and which has used up all the nutrients available in the growing medium.

Repot to a bigger container, teasing out the roots and shaking off some of the old compost, putting plenty of fresh compost around the roots.

Ensure good drainage by putting some stones or pot sherds over the drainage hole.