Beginner Gardening: How do you prune a schefflera (umbrella plant)?, 1 by tapla

tapla wrote:
Trina - Unpot your plants and rinse all the old soil from their roots. I use water under pressure from a Dramm nozzle, but a fine high-pressure, fine spray from the hose will be fine. Try not to break any more roots than necessary, but you needn't take any great pains. Remove any dark/rotted/limp/slimy roots so there is nothing left but viable tissue. Add a wick to the drain hole and repot into the soil I sent you, using a semi-sharp dowel (a 1/4 or 5/16 dowel sharpened in a pencil sharpener works well) or other fine tool that won't damage the roots to settle/poke soil around and into the rootage. Soak the soil thoroughly (the water will seem to run straight through the soil very quickly) & keep the plant in a very bright spot, but out of full sun.

After 10 days (you'll probably need to water a couple of times during that period), use the fertilizer I sent (Foliage-Pro 9-3-6) to make a solution consisting of 1 tbsp of the fertilizer + 1/4 tsp Epsom salts in a gallon of water, and fertigate (water, aka irrigate + fertilize = fertigate) with that solution & move the plant to a sunny window.

The Epsom salts are because there is CaSO4 (gypsum) in the soil as a Ca source instead of dolomitic lime to keep the pH down, and a ratio between Ca:Mg that highly favors Ca needs a little Mg to keep the ratio favorable and prevent an antagonistic deficiency of Mg.

I'm sure your plant will reward you with more robust growth, but don't expect too much immediately. Your plant is preparing itself for a winter rest now & will be reluctant to grow much until the vernal equinox, but at least we can expect it to remain healthy over the long winter.

Use the extra soil for other plants. Try it on a succulent or two, too. I'm certain that once you get used to it, you'll like it enough to want to make it on your own. It's actually less expensive than bagged soils like MG et al.

Good luck.

Al