Disclaimer: I am no expert on this subject. I just wish to share my experience.
A few years ago, I moved into a new space – one I could proudly call my own. Along with the home, I also bought home a Areca Palm. It was my first ever plant baby. First ever anything I chose to take responsibility of. He was gorgeous. Yes! I decided it to be a HE.
A year or two passed by and I saw some black grains on my plant. I though mother nature is giving it some design (I am that naive).
This lockdown has gotten me so much more close to these oxygen generating organisms. While reading about plant diseases and infections, I stumbled upon many more images that look like this
While I cannot find what exactly this disease is called, I know it’s some fungus. My plant was suffering from not one, but two types on fungi, one of them being the orange coloured rust. The other one was black.
There were other distress signals the plant was giving me, but it’s too far down that path of hopelessness. However, I decided to give this a try.
- Pruned all the infected leaves.
- Made a mixture of 1 part oil, 2 part dish soap and 20 parts water. Dipped a sponge into this mixture, squeezed it out. With this, I wiped clean all the leaves one by one.
- With the same mixture, I wiped the stalk and stems.
- Next morning, I gave it a nice shower.
A week later, the rust seemed to have gone down, a fair bit (not fully). I will need to repeat. However, this did much less for the black fungus. Here’s what I did –
- Mixed 1 part Hydrogen Peroxide and 20 parts water.
- I put this in a spray bottle and sprayed the infected area.
- Next morning, gave the plan a nice wash.
Some of my plants around this one showed some signs of mealy bugs. This is when the big-guns had to be brought out. Again, a week later
- 2 parts neem oil. This has a odd smell, I had to wear a mask
- 1 parts mild shower soap.
- 50 parts water
- Put all this and shake well before I sprayed the plant.
- Again, next morning, washed it down.
Now, my plant seems to be making some recovery. I plan to repot the healthy ones and let go of those stalks that are showing no signs of improvement.
I hope this story helps you help your plant.
Note: Do all the treatment after sunset. Wash the plant in the morning as soon as you can. This will help your plant photosynthesise effectively.