I'm having a problem with plants wilting and shriveling in my garden and I
can't figure out why. Here's the situation: The soil on my property is
heavy clay, so two weeks ago, I had a contractor dig up two large planting
beds and till in equal parts of compost and gypsum to make the soil more
workable. They also put down a nice layer of hardwood mulch which is dark
brown in color. One of the beds gets full sun most of the day and the other
gets a mix of full sun in the morning with filtered sun in the afternoon due
to overhanging branches from a willow oak. I planted accordingly, putting
sun-loving plants, including a butterfly bush, several varieties of day
lilies, tall phlox, gaura, black-eyed susans, echinacea and zinnias in the
full-sun bed, and a combination of liriope, nandinas, azalea and day lilies
in the bed that gets filtered sun. Both beds get watered in the morning
because they get hit by the lawn sprinklers; I think I've got the sprinklers
set up to run for 15 minutes a day (it could be every other day, I need to
check on that). The problem is that after several days in the ground, a
number of the plants are wilting and dropping leaves, with the phlox,
black-eyed susans and zinnias having the worst time.

So - what might be a factor in the wilting and leaf-dropping? Could it be:

- Too much water? We had a lot of rain last week, over three inches, I
think, and the sprinklers are still running every day or every other day. I
put in these plants over two weekends, and when I went to plant the first
round the soil was almost goopy, but when I planted the rest over this past
weekend the soil had dried out somewhat but was still damp.

- The beds are too warm? The mulch gets noticeably warm to the touch during
the heat of the day -- could the roots be getting cooked?

- Transplant shock? I'm not a morning person and the earliest I ever get
out into the garden is noon. It's been in the 90s here, so could it have
been too warm when I planted them? If so, will they recover?

- The compost or gypsum? I can't imagine the compost would be affecting the
plants; it's just organic matter which is supposed to be good for them. I
don't know much about gypsum, only that it's kind of alkaline and helps to
break down the soil. Could the soil be too alkaline now? To my knowledge,
the azalea is the only acid-loving plant I put in those beds and I fed that
with Holly Tone when I planted it. Should I maybe sprinkle some Holly Tone
around the other plants to balance the pH?

Any input from the group would be most appreciated.

Cheers,
Rhonda
Richmond, VA
USDA Zone 7





*****
Basic human psychology is one of my subroutines.