Quote:
Originally Posted by NanaNut2
Chong,
I live in the Puget Sound Area as well, no outside gardening available in my condo. I've found that light, heat and humidity are the things needed for all my tropicals. Have you been to Indoor Sun Shoppe in Wallingford area? They have some great flourescent light fixtures, perhaps higher wattage than you have. I've gotten most of my lighting there. Also, Home Depot has some outside spot lights by Lights of America pretty cheap, you just have to defeat the day/night feature, and instead of hardwiring, attach it to a bared extension cord. I'm no electrician and had no trouble with it.
A couple of thoughts. First, if your humidifier is pointed right at your banana, you could be having the same trouble I had last year when my cold mist humidifier was close to and pointing at my bananas and palms. Namely, the closest leaves would wilt, shrivel, turn brown and die. I had to move the humidifier across the room. That could also explain the fungus/mold you got on your plant.
Secondly, even though your light is flourescent, it does carry some heat. If its only 6 inches above your nana, the heat could be causing your top leaves to wilt (if that is a problem). And that close, you don't get much light spread to the rest of the plant. Could you get a larger fixture? All my light is 'imported'. I don't get much sun either with a large overhang such as yours and my place is set at a funny angle in respect to NSEW. I'm at my top allowance for lighting fixtures on this old aluminum wiring. I'm afraid to put in more lights fearing I will set the place on fire ... lol. That limits the number of plants I can have.
I keep my place 76 deg F and above at all times. Hard on the power bill, but comfy for all my plants. Perhaps 72 deg. F is too cold for much growth.
I've just ordered a Siam Ruby from Wellspring100 on ebay. I'll let you know how well the plant does in here. I always lose some color growing indoors.
NanaNut2
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Hello,
Thank you for responding. I located your pin on the map as being in Kent, WA. That's about 7 miles from Lakeridge, due west of Coulon Park and the south end of Lake Washington. Would love to invite you over, after my remodeling on my house is reasonably completed. Besides, right now, my plants are nothing to look at yet. Maybe in mid-summer.
I don't think that the plant is bothered by the proximity to the light because the affected leaf stays green even when the mid-pstem has turned dark brown.
On suggestion by others, I even added another lamp with a 60-watt halogen lamp. And the outermost pstem has over an inch of very dark brown spot in the middle, bur the leaf is still green.
Last night, I stopped at Lowe's and McLendon's and bought two types of fungicide, neither of which is the one that Jason suggested to use. He recommended "Halt Systemic", but neither store carried them. I called Home Depot and they didn't have the either. The one from McLendon's is made by the same company that makes Halt's. The problem is that their active ingredients are different.
Nevertheless, I wanted to try them last night, but because I was wearing contacts, I couldn't read the labels even with reading glasses. Before I could remove my contacts, my wife called me for dinner, so that was it for last night. I'll try again tonight.
Thank again.