I finally found out the reason why my plant was not growing anymore and the culprit was Mielie bugs. I saw these white bumps on the stem of my plant but I did not really take note of it, I just thought it was meant to be there. I only realized that the white bumps was not meant to be there when I observed all the other plants in the lab and those plants did not have any white bumps. Luckily Allison told me her plant had mealie bugs and the description she gave of it sounded exactly like the white bumps I observed.

Now that I finally knew what the cause of my plants slow death was I could finally do something about it. Root Mealie bugs are small white powdery substances that are found around the root of the plant and they suck the plants sap and kill the leaves of plants. To kill these bugs you can physically scratch it off with an old toothbrush dipped in a little methylated spirit. I did not have any methylated spirits but Dr Richard Knight had told me I can even spray a little dishwasher water onto the plants or just physically scratch it off and that is what I have done. I was able to remove most of the bugs off from my plant. I removed the bugs on the 21 April and already my plants has started showing growth improvements, the two buds that were present are growing again and there another flower bud has appeared, the plant has started growing sprouts again. So I’m very pleased that my plant is growing once again.