Scleranthus dying back - what went wrong?

NewKid78 · Apr 03, 2015 10:04 am

Hi everyone,

I've had a Scleranthus Biflorus for about 18 months now. It started out a few inches diameter and grew nicely into a mound more than a foot across. It was bright green and looked great. The only 'observation' I made was that during its first summer the normally firm mound became softer but I put that down to being thirsty in the heat as after some more water it firmed up again nicely.

About a month or two ago, I noticed parts of our Scleranthus starting to go brown. It was also soft again, but as it has been a dry summer I thought it must just be thirsty again. I thought the brown might just be local burning as the Scleranthus had expanded to touch a nearby rock that gets warm in the sun. However the brown continued to spread. One day I pulled at some of the brown bits and to my horror about half the plant came away in my hands. It started looking more like a bagel. The brown is continuing and more plant comes away if I pull at anything. I think this plant is a gonner but I'll get another one and I'd like to know what went wrong so it doesn't happen again. The only thing I noticed was a load of wood lice on the ground under the bits that I pulled out. It also seems to have grown differently to how I expected. I had assumed as it spread it would be putting down new roots along the way but it looks like the stems just got longer and all still radiate from the centre.

Any ideas? Is this common? The plant faces west and gets a lot of sun.
Thanks!

groundup · Nov 22, 2019 6:39 am

I see you got a lot of replies! Having the same issue so googled it and this was the only link lol if you are still in this forum, let me know if you figured anything out in the past 4 years lol

NewKid78 · Nov 22, 2019 12:03 pm

Hi there - I did get some info from the national botanical gardens (pasted below).

It worked for a couple of years and then it turned brown again and died and I've given up now. The neighbour has done that's doing fine. I have a feeling too much moisture in the soil was the problem as suggested below.

Good luck!

I’ve heard back from our Horticulture Manager to the following effect-- he reckons the most likely culprit is the fungal pathogen Rhizoctonia mentioned in our profile, with the woodlice merely scavenging dead or dying material. He reports having seen a similar issue with one of the plants here at the Gardens, always at the same time of year (late summer), and was told that it was a fungal issue. The plant would usually recover when the weather cooled down in the sense that it would regrow to cover the dead patches. As to a solution, the fungicide mentioned is one possibility but his own approach would be to back off from watering, perhaps soaking it and letting it dry out between waterings. The combination of warmth and constant dampness seems to produce ideal conditions for fungal pathogens to develop.