@beccabartlett If the pot doesn't have a drain hole, that's a problem. Reason: w/o a drain hole, it's exceedingly difficult to maintain a favorable balance of air:water in the grow medium; and, the inability to flush the soil of accumulating dissolved solids (salts) and the fact that it can quickly/seriously skew the ratio of nutrients in the soil (each nutrient to all others) such that uptake of one or more nutrients becomes difficult to impossible for the plant to assimilate. If the pot does have a drain hole, disregard, but be sure you water correctly when you water.
Loss of proximal foliage (foliage close to the trunk) is very often caused by low fertility or root congestion. Low fertility, especially of nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, magnesium, force the plant to rob older leaves of their nutrients, after which the leaves are shed. Root congestion, even when fertility is appropriate, limits the plant's ability to assimilate resources like nutrients, water, and air. In large part this is because the volume of grow medium decreases as the volume of roots increases, leaving a smaller reservoir for resources and a reduction in the availability of oxygen, which is essential to normal/efficient root function.
If you're unsure about which fertilizer product is appropriate, Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 is a complete fertilizer (has ALL nutrients essential to normal growth). Among its many attributes is the fact it's nutrient ratios closely mimics the ratio at which the average plant actually uses the nutrients, and is a complete nutritional supplementation program from a single source/package.
Resolution: 1) Repot (as opposed to potting up) at regular intervals 2) Fertilize at appropriate intervals. Usually, fertilizing at production rates every 3rd or 4th watering in summer and every 4th or 5th watering in winter makes far more sense than tying fertilizing intervals to the calendar; this, because intervals are highly variable due to seasonal weather changes during the growth cycle, especially if the plant is kept outdoors when appropriate.
The pot is very large, given the volume of foliage. Watering daily seems like a lot. If the pot has no drain hole and you're watering daily, you're almost certainly over-watering. Even with a drain hole, daily watering seems like a lot when taking the soil:foliage volumes into consideration. How dry the top several inches of soil are in pots deeper than about 5" is pretty inconsequential. What's important is what moisture levels are deep in the pot, at the bottom. Since watering intervals can be a critical part of your plant's care, it's important to get the intervals right. You can do that by using a simple tool you can make yourself in 5 minutes from a wooden dowel rod.
This should be helpful:
Using a 'tell'
Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need plenty of air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support the kind of root health most growers would like to see; and, a healthy root system is a prerequisite to a healthy plant.
Watering in small sips in order to avoid over-watering leads to a residual build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil from tapwater and fertilizer solutions - which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma and creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor.
In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water.
Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'.
One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell' (more reliable than a 'moisture meter'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16" (75-85mm) works better. They usually come 48" (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half or in several pieces, depending on how deep your pots are. Sharpen both ends of each tell in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell's tip comes out nearly dry. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue.
Al
