Erring When Watering Is Human

Part of growing as a gardener is forgiving yourself for making gardening mistakes so you can focus on fixing them. Yesterday's post dealt with how to avoid overwatering your plants. This post will tell you what to do to revive a plant that’s been overwatered.

First you need to be able to identify if a plant has been overwatered. Wilting, oedema (brown raised bumps or yellow patches on leaves), mildewy, pungent soil, and the squidgy, molasses hued roots characteristic of root rot, are clear signs of overwatering. Once you've seen the signs it’s time to jump into action. Most plants recover from overwatering within a fortnight, but severe cases can take longer.

Before you do anything else, remove the plant from its old soil. Then, remove any root rot affected roots, and damaged leaves and leave the plant to dry. Do not immediately repot it.  When the plant is sufficiently dry, repot it in a clean pot and stick to a healthy watering plan. And that’s our last divinely short post of the week. Come back for our Saturday round up tomorrow.