I bought a lovely hanging plant, which I believe is a Fuchsia, just a week ago, and it is dying. Although I thought the soil was quite moist, 80 % of the leaves and all of the flowers have dried up. It looks horrible. Is there anything I can do to save it?
Also, I read that I should not remove the dried flower "bells". Does anyone know if this is true?
amey,
I see you're from Los Vegas-and my friend from there tells us it is horribly hot right now, with temps around 110ºF.
The Fuscia plant loves to be quite moist, and in nearly Full shade. Ordinarily, some morning sun is ok, but in your current weather, even that may be too much.
Taking old blooms off almost all plants, is never a bad thing to do.
when you remove the "spent" blooms, it encourages the plant to make more.
Keep in mind that each plants sole "purpose" in life is to set seed. So, as long as you keep deadheading it,, during it's growing season, it will keep on trying to flower and set seed.
It appears your plant has had a serious shock to it...whether from too much water, too little water, too much sun, wind or excessive fertilizer(or a combo of some of these), I can't tell-without more information.
1.Where have you had your plant from the minute you bought it?
2.Exactly how many hours of full sun, morning sun, afternoon sun, no sun, has it had
3. What size is your plant and pot
4. Is the pot free draining, or has your pot sat in water-if so, for how long?
5.Has your plant been exposed to much wind(over 10-15 mph)?
6.Have you fertilized it, since you brought it home? how much? what fertilizer? How did you apply it?
7. What condition was your plant in when you purchased it?
8. How does your plants living conditions differ now, from where you purchased it?
The answers to these questions will help diagnose your currant problems, so that we might help you with it's recovery, if it isn't too far gone, already.
Sasha
Lets see, I bought it from Trader Joe's, brought it straight home and hung it in my sun room. It is getting all of the daylight hours of bright, indirect light. The temp. in the house is about 78. I have an african violet fertilizer that I added to the water I gave it, at about a quarter of the recommended dose. The soil is moist right now, and I've sprayed it like crazy since it started to fail. The pot is 8", and the circumfrance of the plant is a good 8" above and outside of that. I've only had it for about 4 days, and I didn't water it until yesterday. It is in a free draining pot.
It looked lovely and full of color and life when I bought it, but even the blooms which were just budding last night are now "dead." About half of the leaves are absolutely brittle, and the other half are limp. If I shake a branch, leaves and blooms fall.
Perhaps I should move it to a darker, cooler room? Trader Joes had it under florescent lights of course, but I purchased it from them the same day it came in, so it has probably been through alot of change.
Thank you so much for your help!
We don't have Trader Joe's around here, but I've heard nothing but good things about them!
I don't know....but, if it was me, I would take it back. I can't imagine that kind of damage to your plant, unless it was put in an EXTREME bad situation--which it has not, from your account.
Bright indirect light should be great for it-temp is not the problem-sounds like it's nice and moist, with no standing in water--the small amt. of AV fert shouldn't have been a problem.
I guess I was thinking for it to look that bad, maybe it had spent quite some time in your closed car, out in the broiling heat-and that it just got "cooked".
If that's not the case, I'd march right back there, receipt in hand, and politely ask for your money back.
I'm thinking it is too far gone, unless you're willing to cut it back to a couple inches and wait for it to put out new growth. Chances are, it will adapt to it's new surroundings over time, but you may not get much show out of it this summer.
I hope someone else chimes in, as I may have missed something.
Good Luck, whatever you decide to do.
Sasha
Can you post a picture of how it looks now? The pic in your initial post looks perfectly healthy, and it can help figure out what's wrong if we could see a picture of how it looks now. My initial guess would have been too much heat and/or light or too little humidity, but since you're misting it and you have it indoors I'm not sure that's the case. Do you know what the temperature is in your sunroom? Even if the house is at 78 I wonder if the sunroom might not be a bit warmer? Especially if you have it close to a window, it could be getting exposed to higher temperatures and fuchsias HATE heat. I'd also take a look at actually how bright your "bright indirect light" is, when I hear that it's in a sunroom I don't think of bright indirect light, I think of actual sunlight getting in and if it's getting more direct light than you think it is that could definitely cause a problem. Especially if that's combined with the temp being a little higher than you think near where the plant actually is.
Hi Amey, sorry about your new bought fuchsia, it sounds to me it is the growing conditions you have it in, soon as you said sun room and the word hanging, these are all culminations for disaster where fuchsias are concerned, firstly, as your sun room gets hotter as the day goes on, the hot air is riseing and that dry air is circulating around the plant, it cant breath, the foliage is wilting as it is dehydrating in the hot dry air, then you add water to it, this only drowns the root as the wilting leaves mean that the plant has shut off its system for drawing up the water, I think your african violet food is wrong also as this has a bit of acidic matter added to it as these plants like that, but fuchsias dont. remove the plant from the sunroom and maybe place it in a cooler room like bathroom or laundry where it can regain some energy, even outside in a real shade area will be better for a day or two, just to let air and cooler temp allow it to recover. dont give it any other food while it is in shock as I said before, it has closed it's system down and will sit in too rich a soil which for now, could burn the roots, once you see the leaves firm up a bit, then check to see if it needs water again, stick your finger in the compost and if it feels dry, then water, if still wet, leave it as the water will evaporate by your temp alone, when you need to feed it, give it half strength tomato or house plant food till it is properly recovered, meentime, get rid of all the dead and dying flowers, even the ones that have shriveled up before they opened, last thing it needs right now is to try produce seed heads, I would also trim all the little branches off to half the length so that it has less foliage to try recover, once it perks up in a few days time, it will start to show new little growing tips and within 2/3 weeks it will start to produce new branches for new flower buds, they dont really like shaken about, not the hanging ones as they have a load of very soft wood as stems and break really easy, they are prolific flowerers, so feed every week as you water, then you will see the plant come back to the origional size as when you bought it, this could take a good few weeks so be patient, it should recover anyway with the right care
just cool it down for now, once you get it going and you want to hang it again, choose a cool place out of direct sun and by then it will prob need water every day. Good luck, be patient but mostly, be brave. WeeNel.
