What to do if your petunia looks terrible

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Sometimes, no matter how careful you are, plants will start to look unhappy in your garden. An example is a petunia plant that I bought just a few days ago, planted with care, looked after, and it looks terrible this morning.

Your first question might be "What did I do wrong?" and unfortunately even if you did everything right, sometimes a plant is unhappy in its new location. In this instance even the small amount of morning sun that it got was enough to stress it. But don't panic, and don't make it worse. It's time for some tender loving care.

First of all, you can give it some more water. But be careful that you don't drown the plant, at this point that could happen - the roots could rot and too much water could kill it. But do water it every day, and maybe twice a day. The best thing you can do is to get a spray water bottle and spritz it as much as you want. The reason that this plant is looking so terrible is that it can't quite get enough water up through its system, so spraying water on it a few times a day is the best thing for it.

And resist the temptation to trim it! Trimming a stress plant like this just increases its stress. Yeah, it looks terrible, and you might be tempted to trim it, especially where you see the really ragged areas, but don't do that. This is no time for additional stress on the plant. If it's completely dead, go ahead and pull it up and throw it away, but if you want to nurse it through this time, it's gonna take some patience.

If the plant is still trying to stand it, it can survive. If it's lying flat on the ground, and the stalks and leaves are all shriveled, it's a goner. If it has some signs of life, hang on.

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