"Mike Lyle" wrote in message
...
Sacha wrote:
On 8/12/05 17:14, in article ,
"cas" wrote:

I have a Shefflera Trinette house plant which is shedding its
leaves
at a rate of about 6 a day. It stands about 2ft high in a 7"
plastic
pot which is then placed in a 9" glazed container which has gravel
in the bottom which I keep moist.I have had it for about seven
months and brought it from B/Q and it has done very well up to
now.the room temp is about 70 F and it is placed near a window but
not in direct light.It has lost about 1/2 it,s leaves and is
looking
very threadbare.can anyone help please ,thank you ...cas


Possibly too much water or temperature changes. How warm is that
room at night, for example? And why is your nom de net that of a
lethal group of rocks? ;-))

I'd lose the wet gravel tray at once, and move the tree to a 9" pot.
Sacha's right, as usual: they don't want sogginess. Don't worry if it
dries out for a short period occasionally: and you can be stingy with
water in winter. They also sometimes dislike being too hot: 70
degrees is quite enough. You say it's "near" a window: if you'd said
it was actually on the sill, I'd suspect too great a drop in
temperature when you draw the curtains in the evening -- this applies
to many house plants. I think it's sharp _changes_ in temperature
they find most difficult. Two old ones of mine are flourishing in 12"
tubs in an unheated room with rather weak light:

If you find it grows too leggy, don't be afraid to cut it down around
April. An eight-inch tip will root very easily as a cutting during
the warm months, which is good fun; and I've had success with bits of
youngish stem from lower down.

--
Mike.


The fastest taking cuttings in my experience are from the
nodes - where the leaf stalk with the umbrella of leaves is left
in place, on say a two or three inch cutting off of the main stem.

This seems to work o.k. wherever there are remaining nodes and
leaf stalks. I've never tried it where the leaf stalk has already
fallen off.

Planting the individual umbrellas on around an inch of leaf stem
will produce one or two shoots from between the individual leaves
eventually with one usually becoming dominant.

They can also be arial rooted fairly easily, but it's more bother
than its worth IMO.


michael adams

....