Hi everyone! I'm a new plant mama and I need a bit of help with a new plant that I added to my collection. I bought two Persian shields from a great plant nursery, one of which is thriving and surviving, the other of which looks like the picture I've attached. The only difference in care is that I believe I overwatered the one in the picture when I repotted. I keep my thermostat on 72 if that makes any difference and the droopy plant is near an air vent. Can anyone offer suggestions as to what is going on with this plant? Please and thanks! 🙂

Hi & welcome! The soil looks very dry in the pic. PSs are very thirsty plants. Is the vent blowing heat or cold? Either will be insulting to this plant. Are you able to move it? The plant, not the vent. LOL!

If your theory is true and you over watered in the previous pot, then remove the damaged leaves and let the healthy stems resume growing.

Are you keeping the pot dry because the root ball is soggy?

For me, this plant prefers to be outdoors. I no longer try to winter them indoors. They survive but the leaves easily get crunchy if I take too long to water. Best leaf color is outdoors out of direct sunlight.

I've had a lot of winter troubles over many winters of keeping PS barely alive inside - until the past 2 winters when I put PS in a very high light spot while inside. It continued looking fantastic.

Here it is inside, toward the end of last winter.


I took this pic about 2 months ago. IDK how much one this size would cost @ a store, but I'm sure I couldn't afford it and would have to go to FL to find something like that.


Most of the other stuff is gone from the pot because it got trimmed @ soil level in the spring to put elsewhere in the landscape.

I am lucky that the greenhouses sell them here.

That makes a huge difference.

Yes, they usually have them marked down to $2 or $3 by end of June or beginning of July.