Hi everyone,
Some Facebook clickbait got to me a few years and before you knew it, I'd bought myself a baby Blue Java banana tree to grow in Northern California, about 2 hours from San Francisco. Like a fool, I was growing it in a fabric container indoors for about 2 years and got a bit rootbound (as far as I can tell), it started putting out leaves much more slowly last year (1 every month or so). About 6 weeks ago, it stopped putting out new leaves entirely.
I finally planted it outside exactly 2 weeks/14 days ago. What appears to be sunburn started to affect its leaves -- not heat I believe (temperatures have topped out at about 85 F lately), just way more direct light than it was used to? I'd say the plant is looking droopy overall, moreso than ever before. So I put up a big umbrella to give it partial shade, though at different times of day, direct light does touch the leaves for a few hours and those areas haven't started to yellow. I put in some fertilizer according to the instructions on the bag and am watering daily (about 1 gallon of tapwater). I use a soil meter 1x/day, and 1-5 inches below the surface, the reading before watering is 'moist,' dead-center between 'dry' and 'wet.'
Back in the day, as it was still growing rapidly, if I watered it enough the leaves would be 'weeping' visibly. These days, even if I put in 2 gallons of water (which I've only done 1-2x, does not visibly result in standing water), it doesn't drop water from the leaf edges.
I know that transplant shock can affect plants, but it's sad to see! I'm worried that this is a serious, deteriorating course. If anyone has advice, please hit me up. I'll migrate this to a different subforum if I don't hear back. Thank you so much! Excited to be here after lurking off-and-on for so long.
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