I purchased this Gallardia last week, and it just doesn't seem to be establishing. The leaves were kinda wilted looking when I bought it, but I just assumed maybe it was pot bound and it would get better once I planted it. It hasn't gotten better. I have been watering it each night. It gets good sun, and I water it at night once the sun is starting to set. The leaves are just staying wilted looking, and the main stem has flopped over too.
It takes longer than a week for plants to get established so you will need to be patient. If you're having hot weather and it's in a sunny area, you might try rigging up a little shade for it for a few weeks to prevent the sun from beating down on it quite as much since it sounds like the plant was already stressed when you bought it, and transplanting added more stress. Also doublecheck your watering--while you do need to keep newly planted things watered, it may not need to be watered every night and too much water is just as bad as too little (and wilting doesn't necessarily mean it needs water--too much water can also cause wilting). Test by sticking your finger down in the soil around the rootball--if it still feels wet then hold off on watering it again.
some people on the GardenWeb forum are telling me that the plant is "toast" and I should start over....any opinions on here whether or not this plant can be saved?
Hard to say at this point--I usually like to hang in there and give things a chance, sometimes plants can be tougher than you think. It's still green so that's a hopeful sign, although there are no guarantees.
I agree with everything ecrane3 mentioned. Let it go drier. Far too much water for it and it may be rotting the roots. Once a week should be sufficient.
Even though I just planted it? I thought new plants would need more water to get the roots going? Also, it's going to be sunny and up to 94 degrees here in Ohio by the end of the week! What kind of considerations do I need for this if I want to try and save it?
The Gaillardia in my pic are in a field and were transplants a few weeks before. If the plant is too wet, oxygen is not getting to the roots and the roots are rotting. Yes, it is a plant that likes water once in a while but too much of a good thing isn't good. It looks like your plant went too dry and now it is too wet. Let it dry out. In nature it certainly doesn't receive nightly waterings.
New plants need more water than something that's established...but that doesn't mean it needs it every day. An established Gaillardia in your zone shouldn't need much (if any) water beyond what Mother Nature provides, so the un-established one will need some water but not every day. I'd try the finger test that I suggested to figure out when it really needs to be watered and I expect you'll find that growin's estimate of needing water once a week will probably be pretty close to right.
If you're getting hot weather, that can definitely be a challenge for something that's newly planted, so the other thing you can try is rigging up some shade over the plant to protect it from the sun during the hottest part of the day. Then once it's better established or the weather cools off, you can take the shade away.
So.....I went to look at the Gallardia when I got home....to my amazement one of the two plants actually looked.....better!
Unfortunately some type of animal dug up the other plant for some reason....racoons maybe?
So now I'm curious why the perk up in the one plant? The difference today....no sun, and cooler temps. Very cloudy today and only in the low-mid 70s. Could this be why the plant perked up? I put my finger in the soil up to about my first knuckle, and it felt moist, but not saturated. I think I am going to skip watering tonight.
If the cloudy weather and cooler temps came into play today with perking up the plant....what should I do to keep it going? Should I shade the plants somehow? With what?
Also, the Ajuga soil felt sufficiently moist to me too when I put my finger in the soil. I think I will skip watering tonight on that too. It too seemed more perky....could the cloudiness be helping them too?
I am worried going into later this week though as temps are supposed to hit 94! And it's not even June yet!
I have some leftover weed fabric on hand that I used in the tomato garden...would that suffice if I just loosely draped it over the plant? or would that block TOO much light?
Yes, cooler cloudy weather will be better for the plants than hot sun beating down on them. There's nothing you can do about the temperature, but that's why I suggested in my previous posts that rigging up some shade for the plants could be helpful. The weed fabric could work but instead of draping it directly on the plant, I'd get some stakes and staple it to them so that the fabric is suspended over the plant angled so that it'll block the sun during the hottest part of the day, but still allow air circulation, etc.
