Asked April 06, 2014, 11:41 AM EDT
- I have many plants in my home, and use half-gallon and gallon jugs to dissipate chlorine for a few days. I mark the jugs "water" & "Miracle Gro". One of the jugs is a vinegar gallon. I also have a gallon of vinegar, unmarked. You see where I'm going with this. I used up my four water jugs, and still needed more water to top off the plants, and I grabbed the wrong jug to fill my watering can, and vinegared almost all my plants.
Three days later, a light grey cotton candy like mold was on several of the plants. On inspection of my large parent Peperomia Obtusifolia, the many stems that were upright in the center of the pot had collapsed to one side, and four healthy leaves had fallen off: which I have momentarily put in saucers with other leaf drops. I immediately flushed and drained almost all the plants, twice (and I always thoroughly drain the excess). The water drained from the topsoil unusually slow (when they always drain fairly fast - the potting media has sunk through the years to half full) , thinking the vinegar had also collapsed and further compacted the soil/root structure. My thought is to repot by finger crumbling the rooball, but in doing so with an A. Violet, to separate a double neck plant caused the rootball to disintegrate! - leaving virtually no roots attached to the neck bottoms. I repotted into two pots, and looking at the leaves, soft and completely collapsed and almost rootless, thought they were goners. Incredibly, by God, they are now healthy. This is why I don't think I should break down the root ball. One alternative might be to add soil mix to the bottom. What do you recommend? Also, I'm not sure I put vinegar in my Euphorbia Cactus and Amaryllis, (which is four feet tall, and just recently had three large blossoms, (but that's another story), they were last watered on April 1st. I could play safe, and water (flush) again. Thank you for any help.
Sincerely, Ed Meissner
Onondaga County New York
