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smoo

By Smoo

South Lincolnshire, United Kingdom Gb

Why are all my plants not doing very well? I've got some potted scabiosa and campanula from my old house where they did very well. This summer the campanula haven't flowered for as long as they usually do, the scabiosa i think have an aphid infestation despite me hand picking them off regularly and some of the leaves are blotchy. I sowed some corn cockle in various pots in may, i have tall plants but no flowers yet, one pot looks like the colour has been sapped out (dull, not vibrant green) one pot has yellow wilted leaves at the bottom, and i have some plants which i think are asters that have grown really tall (thought id killed it off last winter) but haven't done anything and are now going yellowy brown and shrivelling up and dying (the corn cockles i sowed inbetween these plants are also doing very badly and half the size of the other ones) What's going on??? My garden was lovely last year?!

Is it some sort of virus or am i just a really bad gardener? Since moving to this house i have watered all my plants using rain water and not tap water as i previously did, could that be it? Help! Please!




Answers

 

Sounds as if they're not getting enough water, and therefore not enough nutrients. How long's the compost been in the same pots? Have you potted your plants up into fresh compost and larger containers every couple of years? Nothing wrong with tap water either - tap water's certainly better than not enough rain water, either from the sky or from a barrel.

11 Jul, 2011

 

The compost in a couple of the pots was new, although from a bag i used last summer, the scabiosa and campanula were previously in a raised bed, i had to take them out last august and were temporarily potted up over winter, i potted them up properly in spring but i haven't fed them or anything? I guess they need some nutrients then? Im planning on putting them back in the ground once ive finished preparing the beds but that probably wont be until next spring now :(

12 Jul, 2011

 

If you intend to replant them, they should recover once you do. You could give them a shot of feed now, maybe some Miracle Gro general purpose, although the corn cockles would prefer not - they're used to growing on poor ground or with lots of competition.

12 Jul, 2011

 

Ok, thank you Bamboo :) You can tell i'm new to this. Should the corn cockles have flowered by now though? They seem to be growing well, just a little colour variation in all of them. I would prefer to plant the others out sooner but i dont know if planting them in summer/autumn is a good idea? They seem to be fairly hardy, i neglected them last winter (bad gardener!) but they bounced back once id re-potted them in the spring.

12 Jul, 2011

 

Planting will be fine in September or October, except for the corn cockles - they're only annuals anyway.

12 Jul, 2011

 

Yes the corn cockles will stay in the pots, I didn't want the pots all stacked up in a corner so i thought i'd put them to good use for this summer :)

Thank you Bamboo, I best get gardening so i can finish preparing the soil for planting out! :)

12 Jul, 2011

How do I say thanks?

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