I have a small umbrella
plant ( Schefflera Arboricola or Heptapleurum Arboricola, depending on which book you read... ) that I lovingly raised from a cutting, rooted in water then planted in soil about a month ago. After a week of adjustment it began
growing and putting out little umbrellas at a good pace.
This morning I accidently brushed against one of the new stems, and all the leaves fell off it!
The
plant itself seems fine - the older leaves ( the ones that were on the cutting when I got it ) are still healthy, and new umbrellas are still
growing. I'm caring for this
plant as so:
Grown under fluorescent light ( as are all my other
plants ) it sits about 8" from the bulb and has 12 hours of light daily. However I read in one of my books that those
plants need a few hours of sun every day, so on sunny days I put it somewhere where it gets afternoon sun ( 4-5 hours ).
Humidity: as much as I can manage, given the season, by having dishes of water among my
plants. I used to spray it every day, then I stopped when I read that water on the leaves could damage them.
One thing I noticed about the fallen leaves was that they had a strange mottling about them - as if they had been bruised somehow and had developed rust stains. Those stains are inside the leaf and not something that can be removed - I tried, thinking that they might have been bugs.
Looking at my
plant, I see that another "umbrella" has that same spotting pattern on the leaves, but none of the others have it. Did I damage the
plant by spraying it or am I giving it too much sun, or did my poor
plant contact some kind of weird disease ? Help !