Having a touch of green complimenting the beautifully bright blue sky can always make anyone feel at peace, and for plant lovers, adding that bit of greenery and taking care of it is what makes them the happiest.
Many people around the world prefer having green friends rather than furry friends.
However, loving something doesn’t always lead to being good at taking care of it, and the same goes for caring for outdoor plants.
On that note, if you’ve found yourself with dead plants in your garden, here are 6 things you should do to salvage the situation.
1. Check Them First
First things first, what you need to do is check your “dead” plants and make sure they’re dead.
Just because your garden has many yellow, dry, or spotty leaves doesn’t mean the plant is beyond saving.
What you need to do to correctly diagnose whether the plant is dead or not is check its roots and stems.
If these two things show any signs of life in the forms of firmness, pliability, or in the stems, and green insides, your plant can be revived.
On the other hand, if you’re met with messiness and brittleness, the plant is beyond saving.
2. Trim Them
The second step you need to take if your plant still has a chance of survival is to start trimming!
Firstly, you need to trim off the dead leaves and other dry areas.
The reason why trimming the dead parts first is important is that this allows the plant to give more energy to the parts that can be salvaged; think of it as removing the dead weight off of your green friend.
Next, you’ll need to move on to the stems.
Trim the dead stems gradually until you reach their green parts at approximately a one-third pace.
This will allow new stems to grow.
Moreover, if you feel like your stems are entirely dead, make sure to leave at least 5 centimeters untrimmed, as your plant can sprout again from there if your root is still alive.
3. Diagnose Them
Diagnosing the type of illness or problem your plant has is crucial if you want to see your plant come to life again.
There could be many things wrong with your plant, and identifying the key issue is part of the treatment process.
Plant enthusiasts at treeservicessacramento.org recommend you contact an arborist to help you diagnose the problem, as their specialty in the field can help you get to the crux of your issue.
However, if you’re confident enough in your skills, or if you’d like to follow a testing process, then try to test many different things until you find out what’s wrong.
4. Correct Your Watering Ways
A prevalent mistake many make relates to watering habits, which usually leads to plants dying.
If you’re facing a dying plant, consider correcting this aspect first and researching more about it.
Every plant has a specific water amount it can intake, which is why it’s essential to understand how much water you should give your plant, as lacking that knowledge can either lead to watering too much or watering too little.
Just like humans can get dehydrated or get water poisoning, plants can experience the same things too.
5. Location, Humidity, and Sunlight
Location, humidity, and sunlight are the three ingredients that make the perfect environment for your plants.
They’re also the three ingredients that can hurt your plant if their chemistry is incorrect.
Think of it as a concoction you’re making that needs perfectly measured ingredients to succeed.
Find out more about which location is best for your plants and if humidity and sunlight- too much or too little- are the best for your greens.
If you want to be extra thorough, then check if they also need fertilizer or not.
Minerals and fertilizers are good nutrients for your plants, boosting their growth and nourishing their soil.
However, similar to water, too much use of minerals and fertilizers can, more often than not, be more harmful.
The amount needed when caring for your plant depends on the type of plant you’re dealing with.
As such, as we previously mentioned, make sure to research as much as you can. Over nourishing in any way will always be harmful.
6. Debug Them
Sometimes, it’s not what you’re doing that’s wrong. It’s what you’re not doing; in this case, it’s debugging your plants.
Just like dogs can get ticks, plants can also get infested by tiny little bugs that suck the life out of them little by little, literally.
These plant bugs usually look like tiny cotton balls, so if you see them, make sure to immediately act as their presence is what leads beautiful green leaves to turn into ones filled with yellow patches.
If your first thought is to use insecticide to eradicate them, then take a step back, as this is a big mistake you’ll be making.
Insecticides have chemicals that are incredibly harmful to your plants, which would make the situation you have at hand far worse than it already is.
To easily avoid this situation, you should simply thoroughly and gently wipe each leaf with warm water, making sure to clean the undersides as well, then use an organic spray that can kill off these bugs.
There you have it! These are the 6 important things you must do once you find your outdoor plants wilting and dying.
Even though their appearance can be deceiving, making you think that they’re dead, you should know that this is not the case most of the time.
With plants, you need to be as thorough as possible as every little detail counts towards their health, especially the first step we mentioned, which is to check whether they’re dead or not.
It is crucial for you to focus on this step as this can be the difference between keeping your beloved plant or accidentally throwing it away when it’s completely fine.
So enjoy the process and consider it a bonding experience with your plants.
