"Darren" wrote in message
...
Greetings all,
Over this past weekend, I bought a small "purple cone flower" plant at
my local nursery to add to my little butterfly garden.
I planted it as per the instructions of the guy at the nursery. I dug
out a small hole, then put the plant in, then filled in with a little
more soil. Then I watered it a little.
The next day, the plant had shriveled up a little, and just didn't
look well.
I had read that you weren't supposed to water them too much.
But, we have had blistering heat here in NY this week, so I though
maybe that was the problem. I felt the leaves and flowers and they
felt very dried out. So, I watered it twice today, and that seemed to
perk up the plant a little.
Any advice on this?
Thanks in advance, as always!

Darren

I myself have never bought potted coneflowers, so this is just transplanting
rules-of-thumb. I don't know how small the hole you dug was, but one should
leave *more* than enough room for what comes out the container. Roots can be
damaged if crammed in any way into their new home. But they also need good
soil contact, which is something they have a much better chance at with a
good watering-in. That advice you read about overwatering tends to apply
more to people who have soils with poor drainage (and to a more than a few
unknowledgable houseplant owners). The fact it perked up after adding more
water is a pretty good indication that it's just what it needed.
After you give it a nice soak, you might even try putting some mulch around
it to help keep the the soil from drying out too fast between
rains/waterings, maybe help keep the roots cooler in all that heat too.