Over watering or under watering - Portulacaria Afra

goofyboi

Seedling
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Hi I've recently purchased a portulacaria afra and its leaves started to get shriveled up is this a sign of over watering under watering or something else completely?photo_2.jpg
 

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KennedyMarx

Omono
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Indiana (Zone 6a)
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6a
Looks like overwatering just by judging the soil, but it's odd that it's not affecting all of the leaves. I would clip those bad leaves off, repot, and let it recover. If you pot it into a freely draining mix you will have much less worry about over/underwatering. Plus you can see if any critters are in the soil working on killing your plant.
 

goofyboi

Seedling
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are you sure I'm not underwatering? Because the leaves dont turn yellow and they shriveled.
 

elliott

Yamadori
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These guys actualy like water, they just don't like having "wet feet". in other words, they like being watered daily when healthy, but you MUST have a very free draining inorganic mix. Go with equal parts akadama, some sort of washed pumice, and lava.
From the pic, it's hard to tell, but it looks like you have a very organic, wet soil mixture. they also will go thruogh a leaf drop after being stressed from to much or to little water, temps under 40f, etc.
If you lose this one, they are easy to replace from a cutting. let the cutting sit out in the air (not in the sun) for a day or two so the cut part dries out, or you risk some rot developing at the cut. Give them lot's of light. They will live indoors at a sunny window, but may get very lanky and develope large leaves. they are easy once you learn their habits.
good luck
 

chappy56

Mame
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Illinois
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In my experience with these they aren't crazy about being moved around much either. Find a good place and leave them there for awhile. Till healthy anyway.
 
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