A houseplant leaf-condition and pest-sighting log with tagged leaves and fixed photographs

Goal

Record the condition of a plant's leaves and any small animals seen on it in a way that shows change week by week, so that a claim such as "the spots are spreading" or "there are fewer of them" rests on counted, photographed observations rather than on impression.

Prerequisites

A phone camera, a hand magnifier, a white or grey card as background, loose thread or paper tags, and a fixed weekly time. The watering and growth log for houseplants, if kept, supplies the watering column.

Steps

1. Per plant, tag three leaves at different heights and number them; note each tag's position in the header. If a tagged leaf drops, record the date and tag a replacement with a new number.
2. Weekly, photograph each tagged leaf's upper and lower surface against the card, and the whole plant from a marked floor position, with the same phone and without zoom; name files by date, plant and leaf.
3. Per tagged leaf, record in a fixed vocabulary: overall colour (green, yellowing at edge, yellowing between veins, brown), spots (count, size class, upper or lower surface), edge (intact, dry, curled), sticky residue (none, some), webbing (none, some), and visible animals with a count and a plain description of size, colour and where they sit. Describe; do not name a species in this column.
4. Count leaves that dropped since the last visit, log the count and remove them so the next count starts at zero.
5. Conditions column: watering since the last visit, a moved pot, a new plant brought into the room and when, windows opened, heating on or off.
6. Keep a separate "interpretation" sheet. Any guess at a cause or identification goes there with the date, the evidence row it rests on and the source consulted, so that the observation rows stay free of it.

Expected result

A per-plant series in which spot counts, drop counts and animal counts can be plotted against dates and conditions, and photographs allow a second person to check the vocabulary was applied consistently.

Limits and test basis

Proposed protocol; three leaves are a sample chosen for convenience, not a statistically justified one, and a whole-plant count is not attempted. Counts of small animals by eye and magnifier are likely to undercount what is present, and the log should say so. Identification and any treatment are outside this protocol; it documents, it does not diagnose.