I planted an Alyogyne huegelii 'Santa Cruz' a few months ago.
I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area, not far from the end of the
bay, where all the soil is adobe. But my front area has been
amended, and I dug a big hole for the bush so it would have
plenty of planting soil to grow into before it hit the amended
adobe.

It was doing great until a couple of weeks ago. New leaves and
pretty lavender blooms were frequent occurrences. Now it's drooping,
not flowering, and many leaves have turned yellow and dropped off.
I thought maybe it hadn't gotten enough water, so I gave it a good
deep watering yesterday, but it's still drooping today.

Alyogynes are supposed to be drought tolerant, but I figured since
the plant wasn't really established yet, it probably needs more water
for a while. But as I say, that didn't work. It's been moderately
warm/hot here recently; 70s and 80s, with a few 90-degree days.
When that has happened, I've watered every other day.

Is it possible that the plant's roots are sensitive about being
disturbed? I hadn't heard that about Alyogynes, but I did pull
it up on one side recently because it was leaning at an angle
and I wanted to straighten it up. (I now have it staked.) Given
that it hadn't been in the ground all that long, I didn't think
it had put roots out very far, but maybe I broke enough roots
while adjusting it to disturb it?

There are photos (medium and closeup shots) at:

http://www.wintertime.com/OH/alyogne.jpg
http://www.wintertime.com/OH/alyogne-cu.jpg

You can see in the medium shot how droopy it looks, and the
closeup shows the individual leaves sort of curling in on
themselves. I've seen no signs of pests on it, btw.

I lost one of these to whiteflies a couple of years ago,
so I was very happy that this one was doing so well. I'd
appreciate any suggestions on how I can get it healthy again.


Thanks!
Patty