🏥 Plant Clinic

Two lower leaves on a mature Monstera deliciosa yellow over about a week, each developing dark brown patches with a thin yellow halo. The patches feel dry and papery at the edge but soft towards the centre. The plant is watered on a fixed weekly schedule and sits in a decorative pot with no drainage hole.

PlantSavvyWorld Editorial•Reviewed 2026-09-06

A previously compact Echeveria rosette has elongated over a few months. The stem is visibly longer, the leaves sit further apart and angle upward rather than outward, and the newest growth is paler than the old.

PlantSavvyWorld Editorial•Reviewed 2026-09-06

Cotton-like white clusters appear in leaf axils and along the veins on the undersides of a Calathea ornata. The upper surfaces of leaves below the clusters have turned sticky, and a black sooty film is starting to form on the stickiest areas.

PlantSavvyWorld Editorial•Reviewed 2026-09-06

Diagnosis

This pattern — oldest leaves first, uniform yellowing, soft-centred brown patches and a soggy root zone — is overwatering progressing to root rot, not underwatering. The giveaway is the combination of a fixed schedule and a pot that cannot drain: water accumulates at the base, the lowest roots suffocate, and the plant sheds its oldest foliage first because it can no longer support it. Genuine underwatering produces crisp, uniformly brown edges without soft centres, and the whole pot feels light when lifted.

Treatment

1. Take the plant out of the decorative pot and inspect the roots: firm and pale is healthy, brown and slimy is rotted.
2. Cut away every soft root with clean scissors, back into firm tissue.
3. Repot into fresh, chunky aroid mix in a container with drainage holes, only slightly larger than the remaining root ball.
4. Remove the worst-affected leaves — they will not recover and are a drain on a reduced root system.
5. Stop watering on a schedule. Water when the top third of the mix is dry, judged by pot weight or a wooden dowel.
6. Do not fertilise for a month; damaged roots cannot take up salts and feeding makes it worse.