Need help saving my mini Tree's leaves!

[Laura]

okay so I have a Miracle Fruit tree, and I heard they are from Africa and I saw someone here in the states in Florida is having awesome success growing them, I got one from Thailand (I live in San Diego, CA btw) and it transplanted it into a small pot with proper acidic type potting mix, well anyway it's been rather cold lately in SD and temps hadn't been going over 70 so I was worried that my plant would not be getting the necessary heat it gets in it's native soil, AND the peeps in Florida have hotter and more humid temps... I compared the humidity from Florida (zipcode where the Miracle fruit nursery is) to MY personal zipcode and noticed our humidity was up to par but the temps were different. Well.... today is day 2 of a couple of 90 degree days, I saw my plant yesterday and it looked fine, so I decided to spray the leaves with some water that had Miracle Grow acidicfiers in it (it said on the instructions on the box to do this and that acid loving plants would like it) well today I look outside and all my leaves are curled!!!

Not sure if anyone can help me perhaps treat my sick plant! Sooo... I believe it is suffering from burned leaves for SURE but I am NOT sure if it was due to the hot weather OR if me spraying them last evening with that liquid acidifier burned them, it really wasn't THAT hot compared to native climate but still... looks like all the leaves are curling due to moisture loss and are starting to crisp up, they are STILL pliable which to me tells me they might still be salvageable but I have no idea what to do in order to try and either stop the damage OR reverse it. I sprayed the leaves down with plain non-chlorinated water just now and covered them in a plastic bag and placed the plant in the shade and drenched the root system. But please let me know if anyone here can recommend any other actions OR what you think the prognosis will be on the survivability of my plant? I have no idea what to expect and I know it might be doomed but I wanted to receive some feedback from more knowledgeable people, attached are two images of what my leaves looked like just a few minutes ago :\ please help!

Oh and sorry I just joined the forum all freaked out and wanted to ask here since I have no idea what to do!

 

[Chuck]

Please, do not spray any more chemicals on your tree. First, If it were me I would spray it with plant wash to remove whatever chemicals caused the curl and then I would spray it with liquid seaweed and see if the curling starts to go away. Do not put it in a plastic bag or it will start to mold. It must have good ventilation. If all else fails and you think the tree is on the way out use SuperThrive.

 

[Laura]

thanks Chuck, actually weird thing was that since I had the plant outside I had been misting it with worm tea and water, but then I had to feed my blueberries and someone told me to user the Miracle Grow feed it was actually this stuff here http://www.midlandhardware.com/142005.html?gclid=CJe4uOzrqb4CFVGVfgodrToAMg#.U3KObPldWvI

and the directions said to spray the leaves, the blueberries are fine but the Miracle fruit tree is NOT so :x as we can see in the pictures, I only placed it in the bag temporarily to see if maybe increased humidity helps the leaves plump back up.... I heard of Super Thrive but never actually tried it, how does it work? is it a Foliar spray or does it go to the roots?

 

[Laura]

just an update I removed the plastic bag since you recommended and I examined the leaves and see the trail of "death" seems when I soaked the root system and practically drenched the plant's leaves that the crispiness got cut off.... perhaps about 75% of the leaves are all crispy and what leaves are NOT completely crispy are about halfway crispy, sooo... I hope it survives.

 

[Chuck]

thanks Chuck, actually weird thing was that since I had the plant outside I had been misting it with worm tea and water, but then I had to feed my blueberries and someone told me to user the Miracle Grow feed it was actually this stuff here http://www.midlandhardware.com/142005.html?gclid=CJe4uOzrqb4CFVGVfgodrToAMg#.U3KObPldWvI

and the directions said to spray the leaves, the blueberries are fine but the Miracle fruit tree is NOT so :x as we can see in the pictures, I only placed it in the bag temporarily to see if maybe increased humidity helps the leaves plump back up.... I heard of Super Thrive but never actually tried it, how does it work? is it a Foliar spray or does it go to the roots?

Super Thrive is a very strange product. It isn't a fertilizer as it has no nitrogen, potasium or potash. It has been around forever and nobody knows exactly what it is except that it is made from vitamins. It smells like vitamin E. The packaging looks like some snake oil product, all kinds of words like revitalizer, rejuvinator all kinds of stuff. The strange thing is that it really does work. It is mainly used as a soil drench. I have used it on my peach trees when deer rubbed most of the bark off and on a friends oak tree that was accidently poisoned with herbicide from a neighbors lawn runnoff. It is very potent and a little goes a long way. Please use organic fertilizers and not chemicals. It is almost impossible to hurt your plants with organics.

 

[Chuck]

just an update I removed the plastic bag since you recommended and I examined the leaves and see the trail of "death" seems when I soaked the root system and practically drenched the plant's leaves that the crispiness got cut off.... perhaps about 75% of the leaves are all crispy and what leaves are NOT completely crispy are about halfway crispy, sooo... I hope it survives.

How big is the pot and what is the potting medium? Maybe it can be flushed? I would go Super Thrive while you still can because ST cannot raise the dead. It sounds like you burned up the root system

 

[Laura]

oh, it's a Miracle Fruit tree, so I read that they like to be in small pots, the pot it is in is about twice the size as the rootball. But anyway here are the leaves what they currently look like, I'll make a run to Home Depot and see if they have some Super Thrive there, if they don't have it then I will run to Armstrong Nursery and then to Another Nursery who's name is kinda on the tip of my tongue

I'll try taking a pic of the pot too if you want to see it when I come back from the store, thank you very much!

 

[Laura]

ok little update here, haha they closed a lot of local streets because of the fires over here :x soo it took me a while. I ended up doing something hella crazy. I took the plant. Wrapped the pot up in a plastic bag as tightly as I could, filled my bathtub with some water and added some vitamin C tablets in there to neutralize the chloramine, put the plant in there completely submerging it while I left on my treck to obtain the Super Thrive, I ended up buying a bag of Mykos root builder.... returned home removed the plant, found the leaves were even MORE pliable than before, hoping I didn't go overkill here, put the Super Thrive in a Spray Bottle, sprayed the leaves all over, applied some to the soil, and waited a little before placing it outside, the sun is already over and away but I am thinking maybe I can bring it in so it wont further dry out. Hmm... I probably did waaaay too much to this poor thing haha maybe I will be the end of it but the plant currently looks even better than before, but only time will really tell if it will do fine. I will post pics tomorrow once I see how it's taking this drastic action.

Yeah I'm a little crazy I guess... I wish I never sprayed that stupid MirAcid on it :\

 

[Chuck]

ok little update here, haha they closed a lot of local streets because of the fires over here :x soo it took me a while. I ended up doing something hella crazy. I took the plant. Wrapped the pot up in a plastic bag as tightly as I could, filled my bathtub with some water and added some vitamin C tablets in there to neutralize the chloramine, put the plant in there completely submerging it while I left on my treck to obtain the Super Thrive, I ended up buying a bag of Mykos root builder.... returned home removed the plant, found the leaves were even MORE pliable than before, hoping I didn't go overkill here, put the Super Thrive in a Spray Bottle, sprayed the leaves all over, applied some to the soil, and waited a little before placing it outside, the sun is already over and away but I am thinking maybe I can bring it in so it wont further dry out. Hmm... I probably did waaaay too much to this poor thing haha maybe I will be the end of it but the plant currently looks even better than before, but only time will really tell if it will do fine. I will post pics tomorrow once I see how it's taking this drastic action.

Yeah I'm a little crazy I guess... I wish I never sprayed that stupid MirAcid on it :\

Sounds like common sence to me. Here is a little rule of thumb. If the leaves on your plant turn brown, die and fall off not to worry too much. If they turn brown, die and stay on the tree start looking for a funeral home.

Espoma makes an excellent organic soil acidifier

 

[Laura]

Finally posting an update since I kept putting it off. Thanks for the tip on the organic acidifier, I will look for it now Here are a few pictures of the tree as it has been the last couple days as well as now today.

I have been misting the plant every day since Tuesday and finally Thursday I brought the plant inside to take a closer look at the leaves. I saw that there was a more pronounced "burn" or "dry" area on the leaves which looked like a Grey/Dark Green the leaves themselves were still pliable (not crunchy) and it looked like this:

So I decided... to cut off with SCISSORS the parts of the leaves that I found to be "dead" looking and ended up taking over 80% of the foliage away and it ended up looking like this:

I then proceeded to mist the heck out of the tree with some Super Thrive and set it outside in a pop up portable greenhouse (I take it off to take pictures) This was on Thursday.

Just a few minutes ago after I received a message from Chuck asking about my plant's health (Thanks for caring Chuck!)

I went outside to view my plant since I only had misted it twice yesterday, once in the morning and once at night and was taking a closer look at the leaves... well as soon as I touched a majority of the leaves they fell off. Soooo not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, back on Wednesday when I had removed the dead looking leaves with scissors they were all pretty firmly on there, so after I touched the entire leave to induce the leaf drop it now looks like THIS:

the leaves are not in the best shape ever, but I examined the part where the leaf was attached onto the "trunk" or "branch" or "Stem" (just looked it up, I believe that part of the leaf is called a "Petiole" and noticed that in a lot of the areas where the leaf dropped (due to my touching) the exposed area of the "trunk/branch/stem" which looks like the "cambium" layer looks to be fresh looking and alive, I am not sure if this is just because I practically forced the leaf drop maybe prematurely and that part hadn't had time to properly "die" or whatever BUUUT I went ahead and sprayed the entire plant again with some Super Thrive to see if maybe it can get into those little leaf spots and maybe give the plant necessary nutriends...

not sure what I am doing but wanted to post this to see if anyone has any feedback, is it dead? or still too early to tell? Thanks guys!

 

[Chuck]

Finally posting an update since I kept putting it off. Thanks for the tip on the organic acidifier, I will look for it now Here are a few pictures of the tree as it has been the last couple days as well as now today.

I have been misting the plant every day since Tuesday and finally Thursday I brought the plant inside to take a closer look at the leaves. I saw that there was a more pronounced "burn" or "dry" area on the leaves which looked like a Grey/Dark Green the leaves themselves were still pliable (not crunchy) and it looked like this:

View attachment 2786

So I decided... to cut off with SCISSORS the parts of the leaves that I found to be "dead" looking and ended up taking over 80% of the foliage away and it ended up looking like this:
View attachment 2787


I then proceeded to mist the heck out of the tree with some Super Thrive and set it outside in a pop up portable greenhouse (I take it off to take pictures) This was on Thursday.

Just a few minutes ago after I received a message from Chuck asking about my plant's health (Thanks for caring Chuck!)

I went outside to view my plant since I only had misted it twice yesterday, once in the morning and once at night and was taking a closer look at the leaves... well as soon as I touched a majority of the leaves they fell off. Soooo not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, back on Wednesday when I had removed the dead looking leaves with scissors they were all pretty firmly on there, so after I touched the entire leave to induce the leaf drop it now looks like THIS:

View attachment 2785

the leaves are not in the best shape ever, but I examined the part where the leaf was attached onto the "trunk" or "branch" or "Stem" (just looked it up, I believe that part of the leaf is called a "Petiole" and noticed that in a lot of the areas where the leaf dropped (due to my touching) the exposed area of the "trunk/branch/stem" which looks like the "cambium" layer looks to be fresh looking and alive, I am not sure if this is just because I practically forced the leaf drop maybe prematurely and that part hadn't had time to properly "die" or whatever BUUUT I went ahead and sprayed the entire plant again with some Super Thrive to see if maybe it can get into those little leaf spots and maybe give the plant necessary nutriends...

not sure what I am doing but wanted to post this to see if anyone has any feedback, is it dead? or still too early to tell? Thanks guys!

Don't spray anymore with ST. Just plain water every time you think of it. Were you able to flush out the root system and give the roots ST? On one of the smaller branches with no leaves scratch away a little of the outer bark. If it is green I think it will be OK. Even if it is not don't give up until the main trunk is dead and brown under the bark.

 

[Chuck]

After looking at the before and after pics again I think you have a severe case of acid burn. I don't think the tree will die but it will take a little time to releaf. DO NOT FERTILIZE until you have regrowth. Just keep the bark damp with water misting as often as you can

 

[Laura]

thank you very much for your tips and pointers! I did scratch the little twig areas and those did show green underneath so I am a little relieved. I will definitely keep misting and will try and post an update every couple of days, hopefully the leaves recover and IF and WHEN it does I will be happy to see obvious signs of growth since this plant did travel to me bareroot all the way from Thailand (which I am sure it already underwent some crazy chemical dip to make it come past the USDA or Customs)

 

[Chuck]

thank you very much for your tips and pointers! I did scratch the little twig areas and those did show green underneath so I am a little relieved. I will definitely keep misting and will try and post an update every couple of days, hopefully the leaves recover and IF and WHEN it does I will be happy to see obvious signs of growth since this plant did travel to me bareroot all the way from Thailand (which I am sure it already underwent some crazy chemical dip to make it come past the USDA or Customs)

And give your friend his MirAcid back. Let him kill his own plants

 

[Laura]

yeah can't believe how horrible that was to my plant