Thank you! Does neem work as far as poisoning the adult thrips? Or poisoning the babies feeding off the juice inside the plant tissue?

nope, won't work on inside of the leaves, but only on crawlies that feed on the surface in the open (and they are hiding inside leaf sheaths on aroids). and off course on flyers, if you get them with the spray. some will always escape though - that's why spraying by itself can't stop them. AND after a few generations they get used to it, so you'll have to change the insecticide...

oh, and mine are developing spots again - and i thought i won the battle. there's always a chance that you'll bring a new infected plant, even though i take precautions...

you can saturate soil with neem solution too - to run off. that should work on pupa.

I have my neem mixed half and half with rubbing alcohol (70%) do you think that would work or should I just use straight neem? I like the alcohol because it breaks up the surface tension of the oil.

i wouldn't use alcohol mixed together with neem - you want neem to cling a bit, but alcohol will prevent that. half-alcohol is too strong, 1/3 or 1/4 is better with a drop of soap, so it'll stick better to the surface.

if you spray neem often - it'll build up on the surface of leaves quite thickly and then is hard to remove, repeated washing will be necessary - leaves need to breath. it is recommended to rinse it off with plain water (or with a bit of soap or a bit of perxode or a bit of alcohol) after you spray with neem. i wait 30 min - to let it do it's work, may be catch a crawlie or two...

Do you think holding the plant and the top 3 or 4 inches of root ball submerged for 30 minutes or an hour? Make any difference? I wouldn't do it with neem, but would you? I'd probably use a permethrim dog dip solution. Not sure if I would want to use alcohol. Wouldn't that help break the waxy seal on the sheaths to let the solution seep into the crevices?

Kind of the idea behind mouthwash.

yes, you can do it, not with all plants, but philos should be ok with submerging.

just use a bit of soap in water and may be a bit of peroxide like 1tb per gallon (reg drugstore peroxide). i think peroxide is better then alcohol. peroxide oxygenates.

i haven't used alcohol for this type of thing. but you might, in similarly weak solution. i submerge against mites - that does wonders for my ivies. use warm water.

i don't know if it'll help with gnats or thrips. if you have soggy soil, it might take a long time to dry out - and so can be a magnet for adults that are still flying around. it's feasible for smaller plants. once they get bigger it becomes cumbersome. 15-30 min, not more. though i left some of my ivies for longer then an hour, and it did not hurt them any. but i wouldn't do it on purpose ;).

i do some funny stuff to prevent washing out of soil and perlite: i cover the top of soil around stems with coir fibre matting (like what they use for wire baskets). and then i put the pot in a plastic bag and tie it on top around stems. then you can submerge the pot completely, without perlite and soil getting all over the place. you'll have to do it in a bathtub - laying the pot on the side , so leaves are in water too. or in a bucket - pot first, then flip it upside down and dunk the foliage inside - depends on the size of leaves and bucket. barrel would be good for that. i think you can process sev plants like that in the same solution...but it can spread some bacterial or fungal stuff too - that's where peroxide comes handy . thye use it in fish ponds to prevent algae and bacterial growth. and roots and leaves love it too.

i also found that this type of coir fibre matting discourages gnats - it's dry and airy and does not block air, and it's easy to lift, if you need to check soil moisture or sprinkle ferts. your philos should like it and might put out more aerial roots into it.

i don't know anything about permethrim, so can't advice on that.

How is your Zanadu doing, petrushka?

Here are pictures from last night. I was told it looks good....maybe my expectations are too high for this one.

It had just had a shower so all the leaves were weighted down.

Here it is today.

It's putting out a ton of small leaves. They get a bit bigger, I guess once they emerge. This is what I'm talking about though. Do they use the same thing on these as they do Spathiphyllums to make them offset to be sold?

Oh, don't mind those green balls, it's still in the pot and soil it came in. I really need to tale it outside and rinse the roots off really well and repot it.

What size pot do you recommend for this type of plant? It's in a 6 inch now. Can I put it in a 10 inch (maybe it's an 8 inch judging from the pictures) glazed pot?

And here are the little leaves that have already emerged.

it's looking good. it's a fast grower - it'll need fertilizer. mine is in jungle soil mix which is roughly third small-med bark (mine is cut with half of coir chips), third peat( (mine is cut half with coir dust) and third perlite. the reason i use coir dust and chips - they rewet very fast, while peat if allowed to dry completely will need a soak. same goes for bark.

mainly it has to be somewhat moisture retentive AND fast draining mix.

it produces a lot of crowns naturally and off-shoots too. and lots of aerial roots (if your humidity is high enough).

the multiple crowns are so tight that you'll need to cut thru them with the knife, if you want to separate them. it helps, if you already have aerial roots on off-shoots. you can tent the whole plant with a large plastic bag and it will produce many aerial roots.

mine went from 6" to 8" shallow pot, i mean like a begonia pot, 8" wide and 6" high, with wide bottom. i keep all my aroids in pots like that. wide hanging baskets are good too.

leaves: mine did not increase in size the 1st year - were 2" wide by 4" and then slowly started getting bigger. now they are 6" long and 5" wide. will snap a pic tomorrow for you. so i've had mine for 2 years now.

or, i use osmocote 14-14-14 time release balls. basically i use recommendations from aroid society and exoticrainforest (steve lucas), who was a member and grew many aroids.

Thank you very much petrushka for the very informative post. Can't wait for those pictures.

So do they take mature cuttings from plants and then pot them up for sale so when you get them home, they revert back to the more immature leaves similar to when you buy a potted pothos or heart leaf philo?

i took it outside for a pic. 2 leaves on the left are new, but large

it would normally have even more leaves, but i removed at least half of the leaves last year due to infestation. and i already removed may be 10 leaves during the past month, when i noticed heavy spotting.

as far as commercial propagation goes, i read that they are mostly cloned - so that would explain heavy clustering of crowns.

My older leaves are just turning a drab olive-brown-blue? color and when they get likenthat, I've been cutting them off. Maybe I should have left them on and I'm the one who set my plant back.

What I mean is, even the leaves that are growing, none of then have reached close to the size that the plant was full of when I bought it. (Still no "fingers" even on the older leaves but I think you bought yours like that too - no "fingers" lol.)

I'm glad I reread some of your posts, I've been meaning to get some of that coir (pronounced: kw-ar) fiber matting.

you shouldn't be cutting older green leaves - leave them on until they yellow almost completely. the plant holds leaves for sev years! well, at least indoors ;). it'll withdraw nutes from older leaves.

and how much light is your plant getting? it needs sev hours of late or early sun, preferably dappled sunlight , so leaves won't burn/heat up. if it's outside it'll be happy in bright high shade. but inside it needs very good bright light - west or east window. in west window - IF it's true hot sun for 5-6 hours it's best to have venetian slated shades - so it's dappled light.

or sheer curtain to diffuse light.

and your soil looks very compacted. how long have you had it? it looks large for the pot size.

how do you water it? it needs to stay slightly moist most of the time (with excellent drainage and porous medium) - if it's drying out too ofetn - it'll slow down the growth.

and all aroids love monthly epsom salts (1tb per gallon, water in well) - for extra magnesium.

and it's a hungry plant - for this amt of new leaves it needs to be fed regularly. time release osmo works very well. if you just got it it prolly still has some ferts left in those green balls - those are slow release. you can spray/water it with kelp/seaweed solution - it loves that too.

and then it loves warmth - 75-85F would be optimal indoors (80-90F is best). soil temps would be about 5F lower then air indoors. at 65F all growth stops and it stops taking water - which means air temps below 70F will slow down the growth (and size of leaves naturally).

sorry, for so much detail...but it's quite a finicky plant to keep in dark cool room with dry air...and bad soil - it'll die on you in no time. BUT in right conditions - it grows like crazy.

which brings us to humidity - you need at least 50%. mine has min 65% in winter and 75-85% in summer. and of course it prefers closer to 85% ;).

if the plant dried up severely - submerge it in a bucket of water for 15 min to rehydrate well.

oh, and the first time i got this plant ...(20 years back) i killed it in 3mo flat! poor giant was in a tiny pot, constantly lacking water (bone dry peat) and no fertilizer at all.

I've been giving it both fish emulsion and African violet fertilizer alternating (because that's what's in the can).

I'm planning on repotting it.

The way I water it? I sit it in the sink of water for a few minutes. If I'm fertilizing, I wait for all of the water to drain out then put a little bit of fertilizer water until I see a drip, just one drop because I want it to hold the fertilizer water in its awesome peat *rolls eyes*

I plan on taking the hose to it (read: husband takes hose to it in the yard) to get all the peaty stuff out of there and see what we're working with root-wise.

I'm planning on burying it shallow into that container pictured above. It's not outside, yet. It needs more substrate to handle this heat. It may not even wanna be out there. 100 today or tomorrow?

FE and AV is good - ev week then when it's pushing new leaves. and you can double the dosage on both too.

you can sit it in the sink for more then a few min - say 15, to make sure it gets enough.

totally dried peat can take 30min to soak thru.

100F is a bit pushing it, if it's sudden...unless it's been there already for some time , slowly adjusting. 85F-90F would be best to start. if you're putting it outside - make sure it stays totally in shade, or it'll burn crisp.

in fl of course it's fine in the shade and daily <hot water> downpour in any horrendous heat...

but what about your light?

It sits below a south facing window and a 40 watt CFL. It gets turned on when I wake up and turned off about 2 or 3 hours after sundown. It's getting the same light that my Hoya incrassada veriegata gets and the incrassada has bright red new leaves and high variegation.

Photo

In fact, the canopy of the Xanadu slightly covers the incrassada sometimes.

NOTE: this is not an EA plant, I'm just using one of their generic "I am indoor houseplant" tags to protect the Hoya from coming in contact with the clay, I didn't properly leach all the salts out (of the pots) before I potted them up.

I don't think I'll be putting it outside anytime soon, it's probably about 75 or 80 upstairs where I have the plants. Warmer in the bathroom but it's a north facing window and Mrs. Anthurium warocqueanum has that full up.

Confession time. Sometimes I leave my Philodendrons in the sink for a couple hours. But I didn't want to say something like that on the forum so went with an ambiguous quantity descriptor word. Lol.

As far as the leaves: they were getting really dark and looked like something was wrong with them so I cut them off. I think it's that the plant is growing but doesn't have the proper nutrients to do so (pot bound) and is sacrificing old leaves for new growth.

I just gave it a dose of ferts, it's been a week or two since I fertilized it.

let's see the photo of your old very dark leaves, if and when you get it again.

i've got hoya carnosa baking directly in the west hot window also pinking like that - but i wouldn't keep xanadu next to it. it's normally at least 2 feet from the west window and so protected from the sun until it gets halfway down - so only weak late sun, not direct overhead in summer. right now i stuffed it into n-e window to get 3 hours of earliest morning sun direct, unshaded.

i sort of rotate my plants, as my light/sun areas change thru-out the year.

this is how it grows outside under the palms in Miami, FL - very dense and it has red stems and veining on the underside. and very fingerly, but much narrower then mine. i think may be because outside shade in FL is very bright, so the leaves are folded for shade.

Yes, it does appear as though those Xanadu are trying to mimic cacti by making their leaves as small as possible. Maybe more like palms or cycads?

Once humidity reaches like 80% transpiration becomes very difficult similar to how people get more dehydrated when it's that or more humid.

The light is a lamp, not the sun. If you pardon my plant mess...I'll show you what I mean.

How embarassing! But you see where the light is? That brown part next to it is the windowsill, so the Xanadu doesn't get any direct sun it just gets a bright room plus that lamp if it so pleases.

There's a white 3-candle holder that I keep my 2 inch Hoya pots in. My carnosa tricolor is closer to the lamp but not showing any pink/red so I don't think the light is intense.

Hopefully I don't get anymore of the drab darkening leaves! I think before it wasn't getting enough light until I lifted it up to that light.

I think these are yellow because I over watered today lol. The one on the left snapped off and so did the whole petiole from the crown. These are both old leaves.

O.O

I have window envy.

i have garden envy ;). am in a hi-rise , but at least with a balcony. it's all full to the brim.

You said it's west facing?

Also: I had to build my garden on my roof because we can't grow vegetables in our front yard. So now when you drive by, it looks like I've got 50 foot tall weeds (bolted lettuce, radishes, carrots....oh my God, the carrots are like seriously the bosses inflorescences I've ever encountered).

you're lucky you got a flat roof then! have you tried zuccinis? some have totally gigantic leaves. and if you drop them down the walls...well, then you'll get a total jungle look... :). and they can't say it's a front yard, 'cause it's hanging from the roof!....kidding ;).

i got cool and hot sides, one facing west, one facing N-NE, so i am lucky to get some morning sun in summer. and the balcony is NE - so nice and cool and all tropicals are fine there without adjustment period. and west comes handy in winter - nice and warm and very sunny due to low angle - straight thru the room.

Yep, I'm making tauba for window envy alright.

Oh, I have a slanted roof, that's why I had to build the garden lol. For a flat surface. I'm using smart pots on it and it's irrigated. I guess that's how things got so crazy out there lol.

i had to look up tauba..i won't be saying any 'cause i cultivate my garden envy ;) in hopes of actualizing a wish :).

may be you should post in 'balcony gardening' forum, people put up pics of all kinds of small spaces, including roofs.

here's some pics a few years back, mine are there too: porch-balcony pics

Thanks! I'll go take a look.

Hi all, I just found this thread while searching for my Xanadu that’s looking a little off lately. I bought it from a garden store about a month ago and began noticing a few worrisome things.

First, I saw very small, very skinny black insects crawling on the top and sometimes bottom of several leaves. They are easy to wipe off with a moist paper towel and almost look like flecks of dust. There aren’t many of them, but I notice a few here and there.

Next, I began to see small yellow spots on some leaves. They’re not blotches, but small spots.

Upon investigating further, there seemed to be tiny round black dots on the undersides of some leaves. They don’t seem to be insects, but I’m not sure. With a little rub with a paper towel they come off.

Now some of my leaves seem to be torn and damaged.

The issues described earlier in this thread sound very similar. I’ll post some photos—would love some help!!

If you zoom, you can see the skinny little bug I mentioned. It doesn’t not fly.

The second photo is of the weird scale thing that I scraped off into a napkin. I zoomed as much as possible so you could see it.

tiny black insects that you describe are thrips most likely(it's immature form crawlies)

they feed on leaves and those spots yellow. they are very hard to get rid off even with systemic. the nymphs drop onto soil and then emerge as flyers (similar to gnats).

they can and will migrate to other plants.

Thank you for your help. What is the best course of action, if I don’t want to get rid of the plant? I live in a small apartment so moving the plant outside isn’t quite an option. Are there any products that have proven effective if the plant and soil are thoroughly treated? How about repotting? What do I do with my other plants?

i cannot see anything clearly in the pics.

mature scale (if that's what that is - shape fits, but not color) does not crawl. but dew (sticky residue on leaves) is a giveaway of their presence.

nymphs of thrips do not fly.

it's possible that you have both scale And thrips. the yellow spots are from thrips though.

you can google yourself for images to compare.

Thanks Petruska. I do think you are right in the thrips diagnosis. What are the systemic treatments you mentioned?

i use milder indoor systemic by Bonide (imidacloprid)

indoor systemic

a lot of people that move plants outdoors for summer and then back use bayer-3-in-1.

it's a stronger formulation, applied outdoors (obviously).

once thrips take hold it's very hard to get rid of them, there is a variety called greenhouse thrips that are active in greenhouses, they attack many tropicals.

unfortunately it's been my experience that plants shipped from Florida often come with greenhouse thrips or bacterial infection (that causes similar yellow spots).

so once they spread to many plants you have to treat ALL of them, and sev times. as they lay eggs embedding them into leaves, so they are impossible to dislodge, then they hatch and feed inside the leaves: useless to spray. only when nymphs emerge and start crawling on leaves you become aware of them - then you can spray and kill only the crawlers. but you need to spray ev week at least. then nymphs drop and bury into the soil ...then hatch and start flying around in search of better fields .. so that's why only systemic works, but then they adapt to it. so after 3 treatments you'll need to use a different product. scale is easier to get rid of with systemic, but also usually requires a couple of application. scale has a flying stage too - so can spread like that too.

yes, you can change soil, but if you have crawlers on leaves they will bury back into the soil ...unless you manage to kill them all off (unlikely).

Thank you! I bought Bonide spray and systemic and have used both treatments. I’ll watch and see what happens.

I’ve also noticed some of my leaves developing deformities, like parts are disappearing. I know you said thrips bury themselves inside the leaves. Could they be causing this kind of damage? Have you seen anything similar happen to your Xanadu?

i see large parts of leaves missing - that's what you mean by 'deformity'?

if that's so - no, thrips can't do that.

it seems to be some sort of mechanical damage at a stage when leaf is very young and just unfurling. most of leaves in yr pics with these holes are large older leaves.

you said you bought it recently? it must've been like that already.

younger leaves are lighter green and they are ok in the pics.

besides mechanical damage i am not sure what can cause it. the outlines are very smooth, not 'eaten' by some bug, so it can be genetic malformity.

make sure you spray both sides of leaves - it's a very dense plant, so not so easy to do. but you need to get them fast before they spread to other plants.

systemic takes about 5-7 days to get thru-out the plant tissues, so that's why it's necessary to spray too while you're waiting for it to take effect.

Thank you so much! They must have been there when I bought the plant a couple months ago — I haven’t seen the damage spreading and like you said, the outlines are clean.

I know You mentioned in an earlier post that the yellow spot problem could be both thrips and scale.

I think i found the scale today. super tiny white little circles, mostly on the underside of leaves but some on top as well.

Some of the reading I’ve done has suggested wiping the leaves (top, bottom and stems) with rubbing alcohol to take care of the adults. have you done this on Xanadu? would you suggest this in addition to the systemic ive done and the bonide spraying?

systemic should kill the scale, but it will remain dead on the leaves: so it will be hard to say if it's gone or not. so cleaning them off helps to monitor for appearance of new ones.

if it's just a few you can rub them off with a soft toothbrush or tissue. you can make a solution of 1:1 water rubbing alcohol and soak the paper towel with that and wipe them off. but you have a large plant :) - it'll take while...

it's prudent to check after 1 week of spraying if you still see any thrips crawling and if so then spray again.

if your scale infestation is bad you might need to reapply systemic say after 1 month.

also make sure to apply full dosage based on the size of your pot and try to dig it in with a spoon to mix with soil: moisture activates it. if it is dry on the surface it won't be working, only when you water the plant. since it's a large plant once a week watering might be expected, but it's better in this case to water lightly twice a week to make sure plant is absorbing systemic continually.

alcohol will work on soft tissue scale only (mostly when it's young). some scale (brown black) will get hard with age and then alcohol won't harm it.

Hi folks! Xanadu and I are working are best to making through am east coast winter. I think we mostly nailed the pest problem, but anyone have tips on blotchy yellow leaves? I’ve been noticing some leaves turning a lime greenish color. I’ve been monitoring the soil and am not sure whether this looks like over/underwatering or perhaps too much light. I have a south facing window so in the winter the light can be intense...

these plants can take FL sun - so south window indoors in winter can't be an issue, unless the plant was kept in a closet for 6 mo..:)

you need to say where you are to evaluate your light levels.

these are fast growers and hence heavy feeders - are you fertilizing?

older leaves turning yellow is normal though - so nothing to worry about.

Thanks, Petrushka. I’m in New Jersey. The plant had a bunch of the slow release fertilizer in it when I bought it over the summer. But I did just buy some liquid feed miracle grow for indoor houseplants and gave it some of that last week. The yellowing leaves don’t end to be the older ones. I was just worried because it was quite a few of them that started yellowing over the last few weeks. Maybe 5 leaves.

it needs to be moist - if it's in good light (part sun is very good) it should be moist half way down. if you let it dry out completely that will cause yellowing of the leaves. or on the opposite end if it's super moist for long periods and cool.

when and if temps fall below 65F it will stop taking in water it goes semi-dormant. then water much less. keeping it warm is very important.

and did you check the underleaf for mites? they'll appear as fine dust - very advanced infestation might look like that.

systemic does not work on mites unfortunately. so after you got rid of others baddies you might still get mites. some reports say that imidacloprid in systemics can increase mite infestation. don't know why.

how many leaves do you have left compared to what it used to be?

I have decided to get rid of mine after several years of struggling with problems. I think it's not that suitable for indoors.

I very rarely give up on plants - but I chucked both of my 'Xanadu' since they were spreading stuff to my other plants and were never ever completely healthy.

but it's very robust in FL outdoors - it's everywhere in So FL in landscaping and doing well.