Root rot: How to Identify and Treat the Issue.
What causes root rot?
Plant roots love water, but they also love air. When your plant’s soil gets too wet there’s no longer any way for air to circulate around the roots, which creates bacteria and mold which is the perfect environment for rot to thrive.
How do you know if a plant has root rot?
The first signs of root rot will be above ground. As the roots stop functioning, your plant will start to yellow and wilt all over. If you have a plant that’s made up of several stems in the same pot, it’s possible only one stem will have root rot.
Plants with root rot will often also have a strong, unpleasant smell coming from the soil. To confirm root rot, you’re going to have to get your hands dirty.
What are the symptoms
This will be messy, so do it outside, over a sink, or put down some newspaper, or grab your repot mat first.
- Gently remove your plant from its nursery pot
- Look at the roots. Healthy roots will be white in most cases. Some plants have tan or red roots, too.
- Rotten roots will be very brown or black and feel mushy. When you touch them the outer layer will slide off indicating root damage.
- If the roots are mushy, or smell foul, root rot is to blame
How you can treat root rot
It won’t always be possible to save a plant from root rot, you may have to restart the plant, but here’s how to try:
- Take the plant out of its pot and remove any excess soil. Get rid of this.
- Once you’ve removed as much soil as possible, rinse the roots under lukewarm water
- Using clean scissors or shears cut the roots back and get rid of any rotten/dead/damaged roots
- Thoroughly disinfect the pot before repotting your plant in fresh soil. A homemade solution of alcohol, Castile soap, peroxide and water should do the trick.
- This is a good time to consider your potting medium. You’ll want something that allow airflow and you can amend your current medium with perlite if that’s all you have on hand.
- Now that the root ball may be much smaller, using clean scissors/shears to prune back your plant’s leaves by one third to a half – so it doesn’t have to work so hard to photosynthesize.
- Water your plant lightly after repotting and remember, going forward only water when the top two inches of soil feel dry
