Thank you everyone, especially dyzzypyxxy, for helping me save my hydrangea!! Sorry for my period of silence, I was waiting to see some visible progress before I report back. :)) I'm so happy and thankful that I managed to save her! She's even growing new leaves!!



Now I have another planet who's doing badly On the same day I received the hydrangea, I also got a sunflower in a pot. I don't know why she's withering. I've recently used the same trick (putting the whole rootball in water) in hopes of saving her, but I don't see any improvement yet.

She looks quite bad Is it too late to save her? It really breaks my heart There's not much backstory other than she had some brown leaves, but seemed to be doing okay. Yet in the past 1-2 weeks she has really deteriorated Can I still save her?

I think that one's had the biscuit, Vanessa. Sunflowers are annuals, and require a lot of water and sun to keep going. I had them in my garden last summer, and once I cut off the first spent flower, to keep them blooming, they got taller and lankier, with smaller and smaller flowers until they were just so ugly I had to yank them out. So even if you kept it growing through the summer, it wouldn't be a good house plant.

Unlike your hydrangea which can live on for years, sunflowers are "designed" by nature to complete their life cycle and die in one season.

You could cut the flower off and put it in a vase with warm water, and you might get another week out of it, but the plant, I think, is toast.

:((( Was it something that I did that made it die? I don't understand! I don't want to repeat the same mistakes in the future!

My theory is that they give the plants lots of fertilizer in the store, so when you bring them home they have like a withdrawal

No, you did nothing wrong. It's just not really a plant that is meant to be a house plant. They sell them to be the same as a bouquet of cut flowers - to last a short time and then be thrown away. At least as a plant it lasted longer than it would have if it was cut and in a vase.

It's a waste of a plant, and if you had a garden outside where you could have planted it as soon as you brought it home, it may have grown for another month or two. But it would never have made a good plant for you to keep long-term. It needs to be outside in the full sun in a garden where it can make a huge root system.

I've seen similar dwarf sunflowers sold as houseplants around here too. There's a guide for growing them indoors at this link:

http://homeguides.sfgate.com/c...

My suggestion would be to do as Elaine suggested and cut the flower for a vase if it is still looking good enough to be a cut flower. Then keep the stump in the pot to see if it can recover enough to sprout branches (don't cut it right to the base, leave several leaf nodes, those joints in the stem). If it got as dry as the hydrangea did it may be too late to save it but it does still look a bit green at the base and you have nothing to lose at this point.

No, it wouldn't be fertilizer withdrawal. Too much fertilizer can directly kill plants though. I suspect it got too dry.

Thanks, sooby! Since I figured there's nothing to lose at this point, I cut the main part of the plant off and left, as you said, the greener part at the base and some leaf nodes. In case there is any recovery/new leaves coming in, how long should it take to see it? Should I give it a few weeks, a month or two?

Regarding my hydrangea: how often should I water it, to ensure that it's a happy plant? Daily, a few times a week? Right now I keep her in the corner of the room, close to the window, so she has light, but not tons of direct sunlight, she's sitting in a bit of shade. Is that best? She wouldn't like it better in the sunny window, right? Any other important care tips I should be aware of?

Hi Vanessa

I was amazed to see a sunflower in a pot, at all! Like putting a greyhound in a small cage: he might FIT, but he won't be happy or healthy for long.

I wanted to applaud the success story with the hydrangea. Question, counter-questions, diagnosis and cure!

>> I don't know anything about how to care about plants,

You've learned so fast, you can't say that anymore! You already know about "root-bound", re-potting, over-watering and under-watering, soil mix that won't rehydrate (look for mixes with more bark and less peat, or more sphagnum and less peat moss, if I have those terms right), and stores selling plants that have ZERO chance for healthy survival as sold.

What major problems are left? Pests, diseases, weeds, and not having enough space for all the plants you've collected!

Vanessa889 said:

Regarding my hydrangea: how often should I water it, to ensure that it's a happy plant? Daily, a few times a week? Right now I keep her in the corner of the room, close to the window, so she has light, but not tons of direct sunlight, she's sitting in a bit of shade. Is that best? She wouldn't like it better in the sunny window, right? Any other important care tips I should be aware of?

Watering should be as needed rather than on a schedule especially if it gets any sun because it will use more water on a sunny day than a cloudy day. So several sunny days in a row will use up more water than several cloudy days. If you're uncertain you could get a moisture meter to tell you when to water. A window with bright light should be best, I don't know how much sun they will tolerate through glass so I would start off with the brightest spot that doesn't get afternoon sun if possible. You can always move it if it seems to be getting spindly from low light.

Hi guys,

I know this is an old post, however I believe i'm experiencing somewhat of the same issue.

I got a hydrangea off my partner around the 20th March up until they got infected with what i assume to be spider mites at the start of June! I was told to mix a bit of fairy liquid and water and spray the plant and remove any dead leaves - which i did but then the plant looked very sorry for itself and i put it outside for it to hopefully fix itself.

I felt a bit defeated but ended up going to a garden centre and getting another Hydrangea to prove to myself that i could look after a plant - this one hasn't even lasted a month before it's leaves have started curling up at the edges and then just falling off.

Which is the reason why I found this post, the base of the plant looks the exact same as my current hydrangea - but it may be a different issue altogether. I'm hoping someone can assist?

Can you please post a few pictures?

Just wondering, do Hydrangeas in containers need Some mulch?

Not typically.

luis_pr said:Can you please post a few pictures?

I hope these are okay!

I did not see anything wrong in picture 1 and 3; did I miss something? Are you watering the leaves? I assume you purchased this plant at a florist or grocery store?

luis_pr said:I did not see anything wrong in picture 1 and 3; did I miss something? Are you watering the leaves? I assume you purchased this plant at a florist or grocery store?

Hi Luis,

No i'm not watering the leaves, they're literally browning at the edges, until the whole leaf is dead and falls off. Now the flowers are wilting too.

This is how the plant looked when i first got it...


This is how it looks now;




Thanks,
Alex

If the leaves brown from the edges inwards, they need more water or are getting inconsistent waterings (periods of too much dry soil in between waterings). Maintain the soil as evenly moist as you can. Water when the soil feels dry at a depth of 2". Make sure the pot has drainage holes that drain well. The roots are typically in the top 4" only and this area tends to dry easily with sunlight and wind.

Hydrangeas usually get to be 5-6' tall and wide so start thinking about moving to a bigger pot at some point. You can extract the plant from the pot and see if the roots are circling around the pot. If you reside where winter are very cold, z6 or colder, maybe z7 sometimes, consider winter protecting the early Spring 2021 invisible flower buds that develop at the ends of the stems around mid to late summer or early Fall.

The lacecap blooms in this one are made of fertile flowers in the center and a variable number of infertile sepals (basically, leaves) around the rim. Once the fertile flowers are pollinated, the sepals -sometimes- reverse upside down, the bloom dries out, gets brownish looking and can be deadheaded.