First Calathea I actually purchased from a shop was in a bad state and discounted, obviously. The flower shop kept it outside to attract customers, and the summer sun scorched the leaves.

I knew exactly what needed to be done. Got it home, got rid of all burned leaves and separated it in a few pots, to give the roots some place to grow. Being summer, the time was perfect for a lot of growth to fill almost 10 pots. A few of them got new leaves, so this beauty was going according to my plan.

I had brought back a Calathea Zebrina from a much worse state, so I was very confident.

However, there was this tiny bit annoying me; amongst the 200 types of Calatheas, I couldn’t find this one. I’m not saying I got distracted by this, but my plant barely has three leaves now.

In autumn, when I got the plants indoors, I had to give up my grandiose plan to make 10 plants and united them in a big pot, with a bit of room to grow. I was very careful with watering, since I lost a lot of plants last winter to overwatering. Meanwhile, I’ve learned my Calathea is a new variety, called Greenstar and it is a hybrid.

Now, that I had to repot what was left of it, I  figured what I did wrong:

•The pot was too big and, although I avoided root rot, I severely under watered it. Usually a pot that is too big either retains more water than necessary and leads to root rot or, like in my case, the water was not distributed evenly and the plant got dehydrated.
•I got distracted and used tap water, which Calatheas absolutely hate and faint from it. Calatheas are sensitive to the chemicals in tap water, they prefer distilled or rain water.

•I lost Calathea Zebrina to spider mites and got all disappointed and just didn’t care enough about the Greenstar. Zebrina was the first Calathea, I did everything right and was thriving, until got infested and I sprayed it with diluted dish soap and killed it.
•There is too much information online about how difficult Calatheas can be and lost my confidence, after the disaster with Zebrina.

Recently I received four Calatheas and this spectacular leaves they have made me think it’s worth trying to save the one I already had. I regret a lot losing Zebrina, it had the most vibrant leaves and was so soft to touch. It was gorgeous!

Today I moved my Greenstar in a small pot and discovered the roots were fine and had some new shoots waiting to come out. Here, due to limited space, I uploaded only a before/after photo. To see a time-lapse of the whole repotting process, check my Instagram page @greenmonstera.clinic.