Originally Posted by curious physicist

I got my dwarf cavendish back in September. It had been damaged from the shipping and didn't look like it was going to make it. All its leaves had been bent and soon all of them withered away except for one new leaf.

Plant right after I got in and repotted it.

I nursed it back to health, and planted it in a pot with flower potting soil so it wouldn't be root bound. Over the next couple months it grew 5 new leaves without losing any. I had to take it home over winter break, and I couldn't give it sunlight, but gave it 24 hr artificial light and some fertilizer. It grew very little those six weeks of sitting in the relatively cold basement.

I took it back to college with me, and it seemed to be doing fine for two weeks. It gets roughly 3 hours of direct sunlight every day, and much more indirect sunlight. I keep it at 85 during the day and 65 at night. I water it before it dries out too much, but never enough to cause root rotting. There have been a couple of gnats in my room.

However, it has started to lose leaves. First, it was a leaf that had broken and been sickly for a while. That didn't seem too concerning. However, in the space of 6 hours another leaf went from being parallel to drooping. It withered away shortly thereafter. I was resigned to this being a one off thing, but now it had happened again. This morning the plant looked fine, but when I came back from classes, a third leaf, one of the bottom leaves had dropped again.


I really want to save this plant. Can any of you experts diagnose what is wrong with it?

Thanks a lot,

curious physicist