Hi! I'm new here and very inexperienced at caring for plants (as you'll confirm as you read...)
I was given some kind of mint plant about a month ago, and it had some issues right from the start. It had a lot of aphids, and the stem was almost broken pretty close to the soil. It's also a very tall plant with not that many leaves...
So, about three weeks ago (i'm on the southern hemisphere, so this was aprox. mid-fall), i wanted to give the pot back to the person that gave me the plant, so i ended up repotting it
I didn't really know what i was doing, so i used some standard mix... only to realize, a week ago (when temperatures started to drop very noticeably and water evaporated less), that the soil is WAY too water retentive for the plant.
So i have a lot of questions, but the most pressing one for me is: do i consider the soil problem an emergency? Even though i repotted just 3 weeks ago? Or can i make do with watering less and waiting till the start of spring to give it a better soil?
Some old leaves are getting dry, "crunchy" feeling, but since we're at the end of fall, i don't really know if it's normal season changes, the aphids it had or another sign of overwatering... but also a lot of nodes that were "empty" now are making small, soft and really pretty dark green leaves; and i've spied a few new stems and leaves start to poke the surface of the soil, so it doesn't feel like the plant is actively dying? Should i cut the dry leaves? Prune?
The broken stem has now been repaired too... when i first got it, i took most of the plant's weight off the stem by hanging the top part, and when it could deal with a little bit of weight, tied the stem to a wooden "crutch". Now it's untied, and it can stand on its own, but i'm keeping the crutch there for a bit longer in case there's strong wind, or something. It also has almost no aphids (last time i inspected, i could just find a single one, better than the hundreds it had two weeks ago)
If any of you could help me with any of my questions... i would be very grateful! Also, sorry if my writing isn't the best, english is not my first language!
(Photos of:
- the whole plant as it is right now
- the broken (now mostly healed) stem and dry leaves
- small green dots that are new growth very close to the ground
- new leaves on the right side of the stem)
