Help: Brown spots on Salvia leaves

[Chiller]

Hello Spiritplants,

I have been blessed with a nice Salvia-cutting from a friend. It rooted fine and is now growing nicely.

But on many leaves there are a lot of brown spots, which seem to take over the leaves until they fall off.

Some good friends of mine told me this was a knowing and friendly forum: So I wanted to ask you, the more experienced growers, if this is normal or if there is something I can do about it?

She is growing indoor with no direct sunlight. And in Northern Europe, which means that there hasn't been a lot of daylight the last couple of months, but that is changing now and the days are getting longer. I haven't used any form of fertilizer yet, and the soil is a mix of normal soil for indoor plants and some wood chips and stones for drainage.

Please take a look at the photos, she is about two months old.


Thanks in advance. Happiness to everybody out there. Love and light.

[Jupe]

Welcome Chiller.....Great Pictures.  This problem is a tricky one to diagnose.  With regular plants I would say its a blight or virus, but I have never heard of anything like that with salvia d.  It might be though.  soil looks abit wet and dense, make sure there is NO saucer underneith pot, and no mucky soil at bottom, as these spots can also be the first signs of poor drainage, with not enough oxygen going through soil.  The stems look good, but plants drop leaves at the first sign of trouble,

I would pull plant out  at look at roots, they should be white and 'dryish", if they are black with dense soil around them, you need to lossen up soil with more chips or lava. good luck

[Chiller]

Thanks for the advice, Jupe. I will remove the saucer and check if there is proper drainage. And if she doesn't get any better here in spring time I will check the roots and probably change the soil. She is growing very fast at the moment! This is one power plant..

[dergheist]

I would say too wet of soil also.

[Ashoka]

Nice to see you here Chiller..

I have the exact same problem. I'll try to water less and throw in some leca nuts. Thanks for the tips guys.

[Bongo]

Looks more like a bad soil mix.
What is that soil mix? It doesn't look very healthy for SD and has the look of a building site. I would get a decent potting mix and repot it.

[Chiller]

You could be right, Bongo. To be honest I can't really remember exactly where I got that soil - some disturbance in the short term memory is pretty human, I guess...  :wink:

New soil and repotting coming up.

Thanks for sharing!

And hi Ashoka, nice you're here, too. Let's get together and solve our plant problems. And stuff.

[fuzz]

hey chiller!!!  
good to see you here. and good energy for that beautiful salvia plant of yours:)

[Chiller]

hey fuzz, good energy straight back at ya  

[Ashoka]

Post your updates Chiller!