How to rehab a dying plant – A Step-by-Step Guide

Sherri Harrah:

So I speak plant and I want to help you become a better gardener and speak plant too. So what are these plants trying to tell us right now? So I let this one dry out just for this video, and you can tell he’s dry and sad and I can look at him and tell that, and I want you to get to the point where you can too. This one here is nice and hydrated and healthy and happy.

So what do we do when we see a plant looking like this? One, we need to water and we need to figure out how to water our plants. In a little pot, you’re going to water more frequently. In a big pot, not so much. So some things we can do is watch for cues of stress and keep them fed appropriately. So watering and feeding is very important, and I talk about species specific feeding all the time on the show. Hibiscus food for your hibiscus. They have special dietary needs and hibiscus food has everything in it. And then water it in to take the stress off the plant, stimulate some root growth, you can use something like the Super Seaweed.

And I also want to show you here, this is kind of after we’ve re-hydrated and fed it, yes, we still have some yellow leaves. That’s a big question I get right now through emails on the show is why does my hibiscus have yellow leaves? Well, this plant looked like this a few days ago. Now that we’ve worked out the stress, it’s going to have a little reaction, we’re going to have yellow leaves that we have to remove. But from here on out, we just watch for those slight cues of needing water and food, and then the yellow leaves will naturally go away. Happy gardening.