Overwatering vs underwatering? How do you tell the difference between a plant that's dying from...
How do you tell the difference between a plant that's dying from lack of dampen compared to one that's dying from something like root rot? I have some potted herb and there's a number of factors compounding the issue, such as availability of sun (balcony grown, get a couple hours less sunlight than normal) and non-ideal soil (very rich). In particular thyme and oregano aren't doing ably, but sage, rosemary, basil seem to be doing fine, and I don't know why the first two are dying. Lavender is doing so-so. I can't tell if its from drought of water or too much of it! I water them all right twice a week... is that too much? It was really hot last week and that's making it harder for me to numeral it out. I don't want to have to replace them again!
Answers: dryness usually results in crunchy leaves. overwatering usually results surrounded by yellowing and blackening of leaves, but not the dry brown crunchiness from underwatering.
To save them, you may have to repot the sick ones beside good potting soil. Maybe because the soil is too rich, well, that could be a problem too.
Before watering, stick your finger down within the soil, if it's wet don't water, if it's bone dry next they need watering. You can also buy a water meter (it's inexpensive) and it tell the moisture at the root level. That's what I had to do, some plants bring up more water while some don't, it's sometimes hard to peacemaker.
I hope they make it, and good luck.