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plant revival after water drought
TheSouthernGardener
Posts: 68
Hello All,
I recently arrived back from a two week break which coincided with a rather harsh heatwave that had me watering my approximately 40 pots every day ranging from the huge to the tiny in size. Entrusting my mother in law to take up the baton I hesitantly headed off , hearing by phone during the break that all was well in the garden and she was watering away. I came back to what I'd describe as a gardening nightmare. Every single pot bone dry and the plants dead, dying or riddled with mildew mould black spot, you name it !. THREE WEEKS LATER MANY OF THE PLANTS HAVE BEEN BINNED, more have been cut back to try to get fresh healthy growth, but my roses are looking terrible, poor diseased leaf growth and dry curled up blooms. I'm loathe to get rid of the roses in particular because of the effort I've put into training them over the years but I don't know what to do besides feed and water them property. Any suggestions folks ? Thanks.
I recently arrived back from a two week break which coincided with a rather harsh heatwave that had me watering my approximately 40 pots every day ranging from the huge to the tiny in size. Entrusting my mother in law to take up the baton I hesitantly headed off , hearing by phone during the break that all was well in the garden and she was watering away. I came back to what I'd describe as a gardening nightmare. Every single pot bone dry and the plants dead, dying or riddled with mildew mould black spot, you name it !. THREE WEEKS LATER MANY OF THE PLANTS HAVE BEEN BINNED, more have been cut back to try to get fresh healthy growth, but my roses are looking terrible, poor diseased leaf growth and dry curled up blooms. I'm loathe to get rid of the roses in particular because of the effort I've put into training them over the years but I don't know what to do besides feed and water them property. Any suggestions folks ? Thanks.
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I would be trying to save everything - try putting pots in a bucket overnight as the soil will be dry and incapable of taking new water.
I've discarded most of the contents of the small pots because plants were long dead but all the plants in the bigger pots have responded to severe cutting back , at the expense of this year's flowers in a lot of cases. I hadn't a hint of disease on my roses before I left but now they're looking terrible. Watering alone isn't helping unfortunately !
I'm living in Tipperary in southern Ireland but it's been more like the Bahamas last four or five weeks. Thankfully a few spits of rain lately but in the middle of a hosepipe ban to add insult to injury !