Fuzzy Trees

I am generally reluctant to talk about when my plants go wrong, since I tend to blame it on my mistakes. I have a dislike of discussing my mistakes (as many human beings do). But they happen.

I was looking at my new haworthia truncata earlier, and noticed one of the leaves looked a little funny. I poked at it, and it came off in my hand. Oops.

When I first received the plant, there was a granule of perlite wedged between this leaf and the one next to it, and I took it upon myself to remove the granule. It left a smooth pit in each of the leaves, but it didn’t look rotten at the time. That was two weeks ago, though, and since then its immune system has probably suffered from my room’s lighting situation and my somewhat erratic watering.

Anyway, after the first leaf came off I took the plant outside for a little surgery. After taking the first picture of the damage, I took a couple of q-tips to it to see if there was any excess goopiness to wipe off. (Have I mentioned also that it stank? It stank.) There was goopiness, and in the process of wiping, I discovered that a second leaf was weak, and I ended up taking it off, too.

I ended by sprinkling some rooting powder over the damaged area. The Internet tells me that rooting powder also has anti-fungal stuff in it, so putting it on damaged areas of plants should help with that, even if you’re not particularly interested in roots there. This is my first time trying that, though, so we’ll see.

Hopefully now that the grossness is exposed to the air, it will help it heal. I’m also going to move this to a better spot in terms of light (which I can do because I gave away a cutting last night), though I’m a little worried about moving a diseased plant right to the middle of the rest of them. Hmm.

I think I’ve done the best I can so far, but I’m still worried. Is there anybody out there who’s ever had a similar situation and can make further suggestions?