Health Diagnoses
Find out what is wrong with your plant, and whether it can be saved
Yellowing leaves, brown tips, dropped foliage, or a plant that just stopped: in one visit I identify what is actually going on, tell you honestly whether it can recover, and leave you a step-by-step plan.
Flat $185 house call from Sarasota to Port Charlotte. Two hours, written plan included. Virtual consults from $65.
What a diagnosis visit looks like
- Full inspection of the plant, its soil, its roots, and its spot: light, drafts, humidity, and watering history.
- Identification of the cause: overwatering, underwatering, light stress, nutrient deficiency, pests, disease, or a combination.
- An honest verdict. If the plant can be saved, you get the plan. If it cannot, I tell you that too, and what to do differently next time.
- A written recovery plan within 48 hours, plus a follow-up call a week later to check progress.
Do I treat it, or only diagnose it?
Both, and the difference is worth spelling out because it is the question I get asked most.
Small things get done during the visit. If your plant needs to come out of its pot so I can see the roots, it comes out. Rotten roots get trimmed while it is in my hands. A cachepot with no drainage gets dealt with, a saucer gets emptied, the first wipe-down of a mealybug colony happens there and then. None of that is an extra charge; it is part of looking properly.
Bigger work is a separate booking, and it is your call whose hands do it. A full repot into fresh mix, or a pest treatment cycle run across every plant in the house over three or four weeks, is real work with real materials, and it does not fit inside a diagnosis visit. So the plan tells you exactly what to do, in what amounts, on what schedule. Most people do it themselves that week. That is the cheaper route and, honestly, usually the right one: it is not difficult once you know what you are treating.
When you would rather it was handled, that is the next booking: repotting or pest management, priced separately, scheduled when it suits you. Ongoing recovery care can also fold into maintenance visits so somebody is checking the plant every week or two while it comes back.
Nothing rolls over automatically. You will never be booked into a treatment because you booked a diagnosis.
Diagnosis or consultation?
Same two hours, same flat price, aimed at different things. A diagnosis is one plant in trouble, looking backward at what went wrong. A consultation is the whole collection, looking forward at how it should be run. If one plant is failing while the rest are fine, this page is the one you want. If nothing is dying but nothing is really thriving, the consultation is.
The usual suspects
Most sick houseplants in Southwest Florida are not diseased. Overwatering kills more of them than anything else, and a wilting plant in wet soil is drowning, not thirsty. After that come light mismatches, AC drafts drying out tropical foliage, rootbound pots, and pests that went unnoticed until leaves started to speckle. Palms and sagos add their own wrinkle: they pull nutrients from old fronds to feed new growth, so the yellow you see may be a feeding problem, not a dying plant.
Guessing is expensive. Plant owners often spend months on fertilizer or new pots for a plant with a watering problem. One diagnosis replaces the guesswork.
Plants I diagnose most often
Monsteras and other aroids, fiddle-leaf figs, orchids, ferns, indoor palms, succulents that mysteriously collapsed, and the potted palms and sagos on lanais and patios that never quite look right.
How this works, start to finish
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Start you are here
Find out what is actually going on
Two ways in, same visit and same price. A consultation is the whole collection: every plant identified, assessed, and put on a routine. A health diagnosis is one plant in trouble: what went wrong, and whether it can come back.
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Treat
The fix gets done
Every visit ends with a written plan, and most of it you can do yourself. When you would rather not, the treatment is the next booking and I do the work: repotting into the right mix and pot size, or a full pest treatment cycle across the collection.
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Keep
It stays fixed
Routine care is what makes the first two steps hold. Recurring visits handle the watering, feeding, grooming, and a health check every time, whether you are home or away. Canopy adds support between visits; Grove wraps the whole year.
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Grow
You add to it on purpose
Once the collection is healthy, the fun part: new plants chosen for the light a room really gets, and arranged so they look like they were meant to be there.
You can stop after step one. Plenty of people take the written plan and run with it, and that is a good outcome. Nothing here rolls over into anything else on its own.
Common questions
Do you treat the plant, or only diagnose it?
Both, but they are two separate bookings and I want that clear before you call. The diagnosis visit finds the cause, and quick things get done on the spot: a plant unpotted and inspected, rotten roots trimmed, a pot with no drainage swapped, the first wipe-down of a pest. Anything bigger is the next booking, and you choose whether it is yours or mine. Most people take the written plan and do it themselves that week, which is the cheaper answer and usually the right one. When you would rather not, book the repotting or the pest treatment and I do the work.
How is this different from a consultation?
Same visit length, same flat price, different two hours. A diagnosis is about the plant that is in trouble and looks backward: what went wrong, whether it can recover, what to do about it. A consultation covers the whole collection and looks forward: every plant identified, placed, and put on a routine. One plant failing while the rest are fine means book the diagnosis. Nothing dying but nothing thriving means book the consultation.
Can you tell me from a photo if my plant can be saved?
Often I can narrow it down from a photo, which is why the booking form has a photo upload. But root rot, nutrient deficiencies, and several pest problems look alike from a distance, so a firm answer usually needs an in-person look at the soil, the roots, and where the plant lives.
What if the plant is already too far gone?
Then I tell you that honestly, along with why it declined, so the same thing does not happen to its replacement or its neighbors. Knowing the cause is worth as much as the save.
Every review of this business lives on our Google profile, where it is written by the customer, dated, and out of our hands. That is the only kind worth reading.
Worried about a plant? Get an answer this week.
A full 2-hour house call is a flat $185, with diagnosis, treatment plan, and written care guide included. Or start with a $65 virtual consult.
Prefer to talk? (941) 451-7413