What went wrong?

After transplanting my Columbines outside into the ground (black earth + some dirt), they have been doing so badly. I have cut off many leaf branches that had died hoping to divert nutrients to the healthy ones, but I'm afraid I'll lose them anyway. At first I realized I should have been watering them more, and once I did, they became a little more sturdy, but some branches & leaves have been changing colours and some shriveling up and going limp.

By comparison, the healthy ones I have in pots are bright green in leaf and only the slightest blush near the crown.

I'll upload 4 pics to show the problems. First, all of the plants have been turning red/purple and some are blotches of purple on the leaves. Second, the edges of some leaves are going dark. Third, sections of leaves are turning yellow and limp.

This picture is the plant with only 1 leaf branch left and I fear its demise is imminent (months down the drain). I've tried so hard. :(

If anyone can help save them, please take the time.

Thanks.

The stems bright red, the leaves near the bottom mostly purple. Some leaves have gone soggy.

I should add that I've been fertilizing lightly using less than the dose in the liquid fertilizer instructions.

Here's a good shot of the leaves that are turning yellow without the red.

And this shows the dark edges that didn't used to be there in the top right set of leaves.

When you moved them outside, did you acclimate them gradually to the higher light levels? If not that can cause problems--for full grown plants it'll typically just sunburn their leaves and they'll look ugly for a while, but seedlings and small plants it can be enough to kill them. Seedlings are also going to be easier to kill with over/under watering than adult plants--if they got too try when you initially planted them some of them may not recover from that. Your soil now looks really wet, so I'd be careful that you're not going too much in the other direction now--you definitely don't want to let them dry out, but it is possible to overwater them especially if your soil is a bit heavy. The description of "leaves going soggy" makes me worry you may have them a bit too wet now. I would do the finger test--stick your finger down a little bit into the soil and see how it feels--if it's wet then you don't need to water anymore, but if it's drying out then you can water.

Yeah I have been watering them more than I would because a few days ago they were under-watered and also because I was afraid the roots weren't making good contact with the soil. I'll be more moderate for now on.

The problem is, on sunny days, the soil gets dry and pretty hard, and I'm afraid of that being bad for the plants. These pictures were after I had watered them a few hours earlier.

As for light levels, these were all in the window sil next to where they're planted. For about a week before planting, the pots were moved out with almost the same amount of sun as they have now, and they looked perfect at that time. The first few days weren't sunny either.

Did you adjust them gradually to the sun? They can sunburn if they all of a sudden go from window light to even an hour or two of sun unless you work them up to that gradually, so taking them out of the window and setting them out in their new location even if they're still in pots will still sunburn them. The full extent of sunburn damage can take a little while to show up so I still think that was part of your problem.

As far as your soil, the top can look dry and an inch down where the roots are can still be quite wet, that's why the finger test can be helpful. If your soil moisture level is fluctuating a lot though it may be helpful to mulch the area to keep the moisture in, just be careful not to cover up the seedlings.

I moved the pots out so they got a little less sun than they were used to at first, and gradually moved them out until they were right above where the garden is now, and they looked as healthy as ever.

I don't know if there's something in the soil, but I have absolute slobs for neighbours who view the outdoors as a dumping ground so it's possible there's something bad in it. Although grass was growing there just fine before.

The soil concerns me because it gets so hard when it's dry, and still not that loose when it's wet. I'm not sure if the roots could grow through that even though columbines are supposed to be able to grow in clay soil. I last watered them with a bit of peroxide to aerate the soil and hopefully loosen it.

The plant in the top pic has lost almost all green now and looks doomed.

I grow columbines in clay soil and they do fine. If you're worried about your soil quality it might be worth getting a soil test done, and it never hurts to work some good organic material into the soil to help improve it--even plants that can survive in clay soil will often be happier if you improve it a bit.

I would love to dig them up, break all of the soil away and use new soil, but I worry that would cause them more stress than they can handle at this point.

I did a second google search about purple leaf tips, this time I didn't exclude cannabis from results and there are a lot of similar problems with cannabis that say it's a potassium deficiency in the soil. It kind of makes sense because the extremities would be the last things to get nutrients and the edges are what show first. The thing is, my fertilizer 10-15-10 has 10% potassium and I would have thought that would prevent a deficiency. I'm going to use a bit more fertilizer and monitor to see if they improve or burn.

Before you go adding stuff like that, I'd send your soil out for testing and find out if it really is deficient. There are other things that can cause the purple (I've had my plants go purple due to temperature, and I'm sure there are other things too) and the fact that you've been giving it potassium in the fertilizer makes me think it's probably something else. Given what you said about that area being a dumping ground it wouldn't surprise me if there's some nutrient missing but only the soil test can tell you which one. Your local extension office (assuming you have those or something similar in Canada) should be able to tell you where to send your soil for testing.

Too much of something is just as bad as too little so you don't want to add a lot of potassium unless you don't have enough. And your fertilizer also comes along with nitrogen & phosphorus that you don't need more of, and too much nitrogen can burn your plants. If your soil is indeed deficient in potassium, I'd see if you can find a potassium source that doesn't come with a bunch of other things you don't need.

Oops too late. I just gave it a 1.5x dose.

Going to get soil tested is the kind of thing I have a lot of trouble getting done with no car or energy, as well as finding no place to get it done in a google search.

The plants haven't really changed. The one that was totally purple looks dead, but I figured it was about to die anyway. The rest of them at least look more stable with the water they're getting. I haven't had to cut any leaves off for a couple of days. Hopefully they will keep stable until more roots & fresh leaves pop out to keep them alive.

I have more to plant once they get a little bigger, and am going to use all bagged soil with none of the original dirt. I'll see then if they experience the same thing.

Blake, have the columbines bloomed yet?

I grew 13 columbines from seed (minus 1 that looks dead). 3 are indoors and the rest I moved outdoors 2 weeks ago. I have no blooms.

I think I messed everything up. I don't think they got cold enough from when I had them in the open window sill, and the cold treatment they needed was missed. Now it's around 15-20C outside each day, and I think the window of opportunity has closed. I think I won't get any blooms at all for the year, assuming they even survive. Makes me want to throw them all out and give up on gardening. Hours and hours and hours of wasted effort.

I don't think that lack of cold is your problem. You just started the seeds this year so they haven't been through a winter yet...next winter they'll be outdoors and should get all the chill they need. Some seeds need cold stratification in order to germinate, but since your seeds germinated just fine that's not a problem here either. They still might not bloom this year--some perennials won't bloom their first year from seed regardless of what you do. I'd keep taking care of them--sounds like some of them were still hanging in there so I see no reason to give up on them.

Oh, don't give up Blake. Your columbines will probably come back year after year once they are established. As ecrane said, they may take more than one year to bloom. There are plants to think of as long term investments in your garden.

Annuals are great for instant gratification while you wait for your perennials to establish.

These hybrids are supposed to flower first year, and I started them early. They're supposed to be blooming now, especially the Spring Magic ones that are supposed to be the first to bloom.

I did give them cold stratification, although some hybrids said they don't need that but it helps.

I don't know any way of giving them a cool treatment now aside from sticking icepacks on the soil,
which would also be a lot of work maintaining.

The thought of all the work I've meticulously put in since the Fall having to be repeated for another whole year + overwintering efforts, just to get blooms in 2012.. It's so not worth it! I'm a total chump.


This message was edited Jun 10, 2011 6:13 AM

Lack of cold treatment is not your problem--the cold stratification helps with germination but it doesn't seem like you had an issue with that. Your plants don't look big enough to bloom yet, so you just need to be patient with them (even if they are a variety that blooms first year from seed, ones that you grow from seed that year will probably be a bit later to bloom than established plants that were already in the ground. When the seedling blooms is going to depend on when you started it, did it suffer any stress along the way that it had to recover from (such as transplanting), etc. As long as you have some plants that are still alive and healthy I wouldn't give up on them--if you can keep them healthy they should bloom later in the season. Next time around you might consider purchasing plants instead of trying to start things from seed--you'll get faster results that way.

Here are the places I read about the cool treatment. This is from the hybridizers:
Cool Treatment
„ Start cool treatment after 12-15 leaf stage.
„ Cool treatment temperature can go as high as 55°F
(13°C) during the night and 60°F (15°C) during the
day.

Controlled Temperature Forcing Option (For July to November flowering when cool greenhouse temperatures cannot be maintained)
„ Sow February to May into a 392-tray.
„ 8 weeks after transplanting into 50-trays or about
12 leaf stage, place the 50-tray plugs in a lighted
cooler (14-hr. days) for 4 weeks at 41°F to induce
flower initiation. Water as needed.
„ After 4 weeks, remove the 50-tray plugs from the
cooler and transplant into final container (6-in. pots).
„ Plants will begin to flower 4 to 6 weeks after
transplanting into final containers

And then there's this page about columbine requirements for flowering from michigan state university:
Vernalization And Juvenility
Some perennial plants will not flow-
er until they’ve been through a winter
or they receive a cold treatment. The
effective temperatures for this cold
treatment, or vernalization, are 37˚F
to 46˚F for many species of herbaceous
perennials. Commonly, these vernal-
izing temperatures need to be main-
tained for at least five to six weeks.

Here's the pic of my healthy, green, indoor Swan columbine that was transplanted at the same time as the outdoor ones but into potting soil inside the window. So you can see how ugly the outdoor ones are in comparison. But it's past the 12-leaf stage and there's not even a flower stalk coming out of it.

If I knew they were just late in blooming, I would be fine, but from what I read and see, I think it's not going to happen.

I didn't see any nice columbines in nurseries, and online seed stores have so much more choice. I would have been fine with the extra work if I could get the reward but most likely I won't. Oh, at the nursery yesterday, I asked an expert about red tipped leaves, and they said it is because the plants weren't weathered enough before transplanting. I don't know how I could have weathered them more carefully, and they were fine sitting out there in their old pots. But the smallest one is the one that died, so maybe size was the main factor in the hit they took.

If your indoor one is that nice and healthy looking and was started & transplanted at the same time, then your problem lies somewhere in either how you acclimated the outdoor ones to outdoor conditions, or the conditions they're in now in terms of soil, amount of light, etc. If they were fine sitting in their outdoor pots in a location getting similar amount of sun to what they're getting now that they're in the garden, then it's either an issue with the transplanting itself (which they should have recovered from by now) or there's potentially an issue with your soil, or potentially some issues with watering (too much/too little) could have contributed. You mentioned some concerns about your soil earlier, so that brings me back to the idea of getting it tested. Since you're in Canada I'm not familiar with the best way to get that done unfortunately.

If lack of cold were causing a fundamental issue with the health of your plants, you would see the indoor one suffering too. If you can keep the outdoor ones alive, they'll get plenty of cold this winter and should bloom fine next year. Many perennials won't bloom their first year from seed regardless of temperatures, so if you're going to start a lot of perennials from seed I would look at any that do bloom in year 1 as a nice surprise but would typically plan on not seeing much until year 2.

Like ecrane, I'm going to guess that the biggest culprit was the soil combined with the watering issue. The controlled potting medium you used inside provided everything the little plants needed, whereas the soil outside was an unknown AND allowed to dry out. The plants outside just struggled too much.

I actually have lots of columbines self-seed themselves outside my gardening beds, where the soil is mostly clay, completely covered with stones, and does not get watered. Sometimes I find a few that have the discoloration you pictured, but normally they survive just fine because of all the rain we get in the spring along with filtered sun from some large oak trees.

I wasn't saying the cold treatment is the reason for the crappy looking plants, it's just the trigger needed for blooming, which they get naturally from growing outside.

Next year's blooming is no good because I'm in an apartment building that I'm unhappy in and plan to leave in the fall. I think that had I known to put them out earlier, they would have been plenty big enough to get the cold treatment and get triggered. The ones in the picture are half the size they were before moving.

I have another row of them to put in, but I bought 3 bags of triple mix and threw away all of the hard clay soil that was there, so they should do better. These ones are still too small to transplant and wouldn't have flowered anyway.

I considered putting my indoor ones in the fridge as long as they could go without light, but I think it wouldn't work. I'm going to acknowledge my failure and try to care less about it all.

Thanks ecrane, AngieMarie, and Eleven for your ideas, soundboarding and interest.

This message was edited Jun 13, 2011 8:26 PM

This message was edited Jun 13, 2011 8:26 PM

Blake, while nurseries sometimes sell columbines, you can usually get them at the big box stores for a reasonable price.

Don't obsess too much about them; just put them on the back burner, and when you least expect it, you'll have a nice surprise many times over.

The delayed warm weather slows down everything but weeds. In zone 6 my hardy columbines are just finishing blooming.

BTW, if #10 is amsonia, it may have a woody/tough base.