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jes_moonlyte
09-26-2014, 10:31 AM
Hello Everyone.
So a little about myself. I am now a stay home mom of 2 boys and my wonderful husband takes care of us. A few years back my health took a turn for the worse, I was diagnosed with degenerative disc disease, spinal stenosis and facet disease all on top of the blood disorder I already knew about. I had a back surgery a couple years ago, Since being at home I've had to change my hobbies quite drastically. So my plants became my new hobby. I'd always had a few around the house that my mom (avid plant person definate green thumb as long as I can remember) had given me over the years. I've ALWAYS loved having plants around but to be honest my thumb has always been black. I have a bad habit of overwatering. So I really started focusing on researching how to take better care of my plants. After reading and reading for months from all different sources I got a lot of conflicting info .
So here I am. Just so you know my banana is my baby. Out of all my plants it holds a special place in my heart. I ordered it on a whim from Gardner's collection online because I'd never seen an "indoor dwarf banana" I think I only paid like 3 dollars for it. So it was about 5 inches when I got it. That was about a year and a half ago. In that time I took care of it the same way I did my other plants but now I'm thinking that was the wrong decision.
I have my banana up on a stool in my living room. I had to get it off the floor because everyone was bumping the leaves cause it's so huge. It gets a lot of natural light where it is but it's dying I think:( recently it sprouted 2 small "pups" I think they're called? But soon after all the leaves started turning brown on the edges and now all the leaves have big Brown patches. It's in a pretty big pot with rocks and coconut fibers on the bottom for drainage and miracle grow moisture control. After reading I think it's my soil.. time for some more research. All the pics are in my gallery if anyone has any ideas or suggestions. I'm still learning how to navigate this site:)

kubali
09-26-2014, 11:52 AM
Welcome aboard ,
pull up a chair and have some fun learning.

Abnshrek
09-26-2014, 01:19 PM
Hello, Welcome & Happy Growing.. Moisture control is not what a banana will like.. I know I've killed plenty till I stopped using that stuff.. :v)

jes_moonlyte
09-26-2014, 04:03 PM
Thank you so much !! I had a feeling it may be my soil, Im gona switch it as soon as possible! No more miracle gro moisture control;) Any suggestions on a good mix?

laserlight
09-26-2014, 05:06 PM
You kept a banana plant alive for 1 1/2 years? Thats really cool. Oh and welcome to the forum btw. You can learn a lot about bananas here.

siege2050
09-26-2014, 10:01 PM
Welcome!, I think the moisture control is a hint to what might be wrong, they like a lot of water, but not soggy conditions, and indoors away from heat, the moisture control might be retaining too much.

Duckfood
09-29-2014, 05:47 PM
Thank you so much !! I had a feeling it may be my soil, Im gona switch it as soon as possible! No more miracle gro moisture control;) Any suggestions on a good mix?

If you are looking for something straight off of a shelf, I (and others here) use the Miracle-Gro Cactus, Palm and Citrus... Mix that with a fair bit of Perlite and you should be good to go...