How to save an indoor flower from death. How to revive a dying houseplant

It is highly likely that the flower will begin to die if you do not provide it required quantity moisture or, on the contrary, too much with water. What is the sequence of your actions and what to do if the flower dies?

Why do flowers die at home?

Before saving flooded or overdried flowers, first determine what exactly happened to them, since rescue methods vary depending on the symptoms.

Dried flowers can be identified by the following signs:

drooping leaves
fallen or withering leaves and buds
stems and leaves become limp
fallen lower leaves

Signs of waterlogged flowers:

the plant grows slowly
leaf rotting
the plant becomes softer
old and young leaves fall off
the edges of the leaves turn brown
noticeable mold on flowers and buds

What to do if the soil in the flowers is too dry?

To save overdried flowers, the soil in them should be properly moistened. But in an overdried state, it absorbs moisture very poorly, as it becomes too dense, and the water simply flows into the drainage holes.

To moisten such soil, you should find a suitable large container and fill it with water, place a pot with a flower in it and gently press it so that it does not come off the bottom. You should wait about an hour until air bubbles stop coming out of the soil. After this, the pot can be removed from the container with water and left for a while to drain excess water.

After this procedure, you should water the flower moderately for another two weeks so that it does not rot.

What to do if a flower is flooded?

In flowers flooded with water, the roots suffer the most - they begin to rot. Therefore, if possible, remove the plant along with the substrate from the pot and let it dry at room temperature, making sure that there are no drafts or bright light in its location. Remove damaged parts of the root system. The substrate can be wrapped in rags so that it draws out moisture. The next watering should be done only after the substrate has completely dried.

If you notice mold or smell mold and the edges of the leaves turn brown, don't despair. The plant can still be saved provided that the rotting process has not affected the plant stem. In this case, it is necessary to replace the substrate with a new, slightly damp one. Watering should be carried out no earlier than two weeks later.

If the stem begins to rot, the plant is destined to die. But even in this case, use the situation to the greatest advantage. You can use plant branches as cuttings and start over.

How can we understand that this is a plant suffering from waterlogging? Leaf falling is one of the symptoms. In a number of plants, such as citrus fruits, they literally fall off - they darken and fall off. In others, for example, in aroids (Aglaonema, Dieffenbachia) or arrowroot, they darken, but still stay on the stems for a long time. In plants that form rosettes of leaves or pseudo rosettes (yucca, dracaena), the leaves do not darken immediately, but first become discolored and become pale yellow. But in other cases, a characteristic difference between leaves that die from waterlogging is darkening of the leaf. The leaf doesn’t just turn yellow, it actually darkens, the color changes from a healthy juicy green dirty-swamp shade, gradually turning into brown. If waterlogging is preceded by overdrying, the leaf first turns yellow, then the leaf petiole and the leaf itself darken.

Rotten roots peel off, upper layer the root becomes dirty gray, peels off if you run your fingers through it, leaving a thin, hard core. These roots all died from waterlogging.

And these are healthy living roots - green, yellowish or whitish, in some plants of succulent Brown.

Sudden or gradual falling of leaves, blackening of shoots, damp, sour soil...

The trunk still seems alive and green, but the roots have rotted and the plant can no longer be saved.

When a plant does not have enough water, the leaves always turn yellow, while the leaf tissues may lose elasticity, droop, or remain dry. After watering, turgor is restored and the leaves become elastic again. If there is insufficient nutrition, then interveinal chlorosis may appear; the leaves do not droop, continue to grow, but become smaller. When overmoistened, the leaves may lose their elasticity and droop, but after watering the elasticity is not restored, and the darkening of the leaves, on the contrary, increases. Sometimes the leaves can fall off even without darkening - still green. But leaf fall can also occur due to watering. cold water. Ideally, the water temperature for irrigation should be 2-3°C higher than the room temperature, but not lower than 22°C. Cold water is not absorbed by the roots, causes the death of the suction roots from hypothermia, and, as a result, the falling of leaves.

As for water hardness, it cannot be the reason for the sudden falling of leaves and death of the plant. If you water plants with hard water, even the most capricious ones, sensitive to excess salts, the plants will not begin to lose leaves en masse. All the damage manifests itself gradually: first, chlorotic spots appear, the tips or edges of the leaves turn brown, one or two leaves turn yellow, new leaves grow small and the plant looks depressed, but leaves do not fall off.

In case of massive leaf fall, when leaves fall off not one by one, but dozens at once, the reasons may be the following: sudden hypothermia (for example, during transportation home), watering with concentrated fertilizer (burning roots), severe drying out, and only hygrophytes and mesohygrophytes fly around en masse (and there are few of them), and waterlogging. Naturally, the first two reasons can be easily calculated, and it is also possible to distinguish overdrying from overwatering, but for this the plant must be removed from the pot. It is not always possible to feel the soil with your finger at depth (for example, the roots have grown greatly), and only by removing the plant from the pot can you determine whether the soil inside the root ball is wet.

Some gardeners wait until the last minute, not wanting to remove the plant and inspect the roots. They are either selflessly confident that there was no waterlogging, or they are afraid that an unscheduled transplant will damage the plant. But if there is even the slightest suspicion of waterlogging, there is no need to doubt it - take it out and inspect the roots. Sometimes the root system of plants grows in this way: at the top the roots are not dense, the soil dries out easily between them, and in the lower part of the pot the roots form a tight ring, the intertwining of the roots makes drying difficult and in the lower part of the pot the soil dries for a very long time. This is especially aggravated by the fact that the holes at the bottom of the pot are small and clogged with pebbles or grains of earth.

The tangerine is the result of waterlogging and acidification of the soil. Chlorosis is a lack of various microelements.

This deplorable condition is the result of hypothermia of the root system: watering with cold water or the plant is left with damp soil on a cold balcony or outside.

There is also a deplorable symptom that is characteristic of severe, prolonged waterlogging - darkening, blackening and wilting of the tops of the shoots. If a similar picture occurs, then the matter is already very neglected, and often it is simply impossible to save the plant. If the tops of all the shoots have rotted (yellowed or darkened), there is nothing left to save. A similar picture is possible only with severe hypothermia of the roots, and never occurs when the roots are overdried. When overdrying, wilting begins with old leaves, with lower shoots, and the trunk becomes bare from below. When overmoistened, the leaves wither in any part of the crown, but more often from above, from the tops of the shoots.

And of course, any softening of the stems or leaves of plants with fleshy parts of the body, and these are yuccas, dracaenas, dieffenbachias, any succulents (crassulas, adeniums, etc.), cacti - a sure sign of excess moisture.

Another symptom that is not entirely correct and does not always indicate a specific plant, but still makes you think, is the presence of fungus gnats. If a swarm of midges flies up from the pot, it means that you watered the flowers too much, perhaps it was once or twice, or perhaps you have become a habit of over-watering. Unlike mosquitoes, poduras (colembolas) are white or dirty-gray insects, about 1-2 mm, jumping on the surface of the ground in a pot - a sure sign that the flower is flooded more than once.

Measures to save flooded plants

When you have determined that the plant has been flooded, you need to take immediate action. If you establish the fact of waterlogging after removing the plant from the pot, then you will have to replant. If the fact of waterlogging is determined by indirect signs (falling leaves, damp soil to the touch), then the need for replanting depends on the severity of the situation.

If the plant has lost one or two leaves, or one branch in the mighty crown has withered, and the soil in the pot is quite light, then you do not need to replant the plant, but only loosen the soil. After watering, especially abundantly, the soil spreads out, and after drying, a dense crust forms on its surface. If this crust is not destroyed, the roots suffer from lack of air. If seed plantings are watered, the seedlings may not reach the surface of the earth and die from hypoxia.
If the pot has small drainage holes, you can widen them or increase their number without removing the plant from the pot, using a knife heated on the stove.
Personally, I never try to just loosen the soil; this is not very reliable and justified in cases where the flooded plant is very big pot, replanting is difficult, or when the plant is transferred from a cold room to a warm one, and the very increase in temperature will speed up the drying of the soil.
In all other cases better plant transplant.

Signs of flooding in orchids - phalaenopsis leaves turn yellow, they are sluggish, wrinkled. The bark takes a very long time to dry, and the roots rot from constant contact with the damp surface.

Rotten roots must be cut off. In some cases, new pot you will have to choose a smaller size than it was.

So, you take the plant out of the pot, and you need to determine the condition of the soil and roots. Still, is the soil damp and how damp? Count when you last time watered it until it dried. Sometimes a person is convinced that the soil has been dry for a long time, say, a week has passed since watering, but upon inspection it turns out that the soil inside the pot is still very damp. Then try to remember what the weather was like, how it happened that the soil did not have time to dry out! It is important to at least try to analyze in order to prevent this from happening, or to calculate which plants could still be flooded. For some people, floods occur systematically over and over again. This suggests that it is necessary to radically reconsider the care system: perhaps change the soil in the pots to a more structured, loose one, increase the drainage holes, add more drainage to the bottom of the pot; water with less water; move the plants to a warmer room or water less often when the soil dries out more. Sometimes you have to literally slap your hands so that you don’t rise with a watering can over the plant ahead of time...

Inspect the roots. Rotten ones can be seen immediately - they separate, if you grab the root with two fingers and pull, the skin slides off it - it is brown or dark gray, under it there remains a bundle of vessels that looks like a wire, a hard rod. If such separation occurs, the root is rotten. Healthy roots do not separate; if you run your fingers over the surface, the top layer will not come off. In some cases, the roots do not exfoliate, the fleshy, succulent roots rot completely, and this is also immediately visible - they are dark, dirty gray or brown, sometimes softened. You can often identify healthy roots and rotten ones by contrast. appearance, some are light, white, light brown, others are dark, not only on the outside, but also on the scrap or break areas.

There are times when rotten roots break off easily and, when the plant is removed from the pot, fall off along with the soil. If you haven’t found any definitely rotten roots, but the soil and root ball are damp, you need to dry them. To do this, we blot the measles lump in any hygroscopic material: in a pile of old newspapers, in a roll toilet paper. You can even let the plant with its root system exposed (without a pot) dry for several hours.

Having discovered rotten roots, you need to cut them off, no matter how many there are. This is a source of infection, there is nothing to regret here. We cut everything down to healthy tissue. If the roots are fleshy, juicy, watery, then it is advisable to sprinkle the cut areas with charcoal (charcoal, birch) or sulfur powder (sold in pet stores). If there is neither one nor the other, crush the tablet activated carbon. If there are very few roots left, much less than there were, you need to transplant the plant into a smaller pot.

I have already said that a too spacious pot in itself, not filled with roots, does not contribute to rapid growth plants, and in some cases even harms them. It is easier to fill a plant in a spacious pot. And even if you water carefully, the plant strives to grow the root system, develop a large surface of the earth, and only then enhances the growth of the above-ground part.

Substrate for aroids, bromeliads and other plants. Instead of a pot, a basket, substrate: soil, coconut fiber, coconut substrate, wine stopper, pine bark and moss (just a little of it). A decaying anthurium, transplanted into this mixture, bloomed a month later and released its third bud.

If you tend to flood your plants, then use clay pots to plant your plants. But there is one important point: The inside of the pot should not be glazed. If the walls clay pot The inside is covered with glaze, it is no better than plastic.

So, you need to choose a pot for the root ball remaining after removing the rot. IN in this case, the rule will be effective: a smaller pot is better than a larger one. It’s okay if the pot is small, healthy roots will grow and notify you of their appearance from drainage holes, and you just transfer the plant into a larger pot and that’s it. During the growing season, plants can be replanted at any time and more than once. Most plants, if they get sick after transplantation, stop growing, this is most often due to improper care after transplantation, and not from root injuries.

After transplantation, plants should not be placed in the sun, even the most light-loving ones; they should remain under shade for a week. You cannot water plants on the same day, especially those that are being rehabilitated from overwatering - these plants generally need to be watered for the first time after 2-3 days. You cannot fertilize transplanted plants for 1-1.5 months. And when transplanting sick plants (including flooded ones), you cannot add dry fertilizers (neither manure, nor litter, nor granular fertilizers). Do not clog the transplanted plant in plastic bag. This very package sometimes becomes pure evil. The fact is that transplanted plants, deprived of watering, in the first days need to be placed in conditions high humidity. And many people try to put the plant in a bag and tie it tightly. In this case, the importance, of course, increases. But the availability of oxygen is reduced. As we remember, the plant breathes both roots and leaves; if the plant has been flooded, it especially needs fresh air, and if pathogenic microorganisms have developed on it - various spots of fungal or bacterial origin, then it simply needs fresh air!

Here you can do this: place the plant in a transparent bag, straighten the edges, but do not tie it. If the weather is very hot, then you can spray it 1-2 times a day; if the plants do not tolerate water getting on the leaves, then simply place the pot on a wide tray with water on an inverted saucer.

If the plant has rotten crowns or ends of the shoots, they must be trimmed back to healthy tissue. If possible, at the same time cut the plant - cut off healthy branches for rooting, in order to be able to save at least something if the flood has already led to irreversible consequences. Sometimes it happens that the roots rot completely, but some of the shoots still remain vigorous until they wither (this is temporary) and cuttings can still be taken from them. In some cases, when the roots rot, toxins enter the vascular system of plants (the aforementioned swamp gases, products of bacteria and fungi) and cut cuttings, even healthy-looking ones do not take root, they are already doomed...

After transplantation, the flooded plant can be sprayed with growth stimulants (epin or amulet), only in dark time days (most stimulants decompose in light). If there are dark spots on the leaves, rotten tops of the shoots, then it is advisable to spray the plant with a fungicide, or add a fungicide to the water for irrigation. Suitable fungicides include: Fundazol, Maxim, Khom, Oksihom (and other copper-containing preparations). 3-4 days after transplanting into fresh, dry soil, the plant can be watered with a zircon solution.

If a plant that has a wide rosette of leaves in the form of a funnel, like bromeliads, is flooded, then it is necessary to dry the bases of the leaves. To do this, you first need to turn the plant upside down with its leaves. When the water drains, pour 2-3 tablets of crushed activated carbon into the outlet. After 3-5 minutes, carefully remove it with a soft fluffy brush. Many bromeliads rot when they are watered through a rosette of leaves in winter. Read more carefully the recommendations for growing a particular plant, and especially care in winter.

Another important point: after flooding, the soil in the pot turns sour: the roots of the plants continue to release carbon dioxide, the renewal of humus slows down, and humic acids accumulate, which increases the acidity of the soil, many nutrients turn into a form that is indigestible by plants. For example, iron goes into an oxidized form (F3+), which causes a rusty-brown crust to form on the surface of the earth. Oxidized iron is not absorbed, and as a result, the plant shows all the signs of its deficiency - severe chlorosis. This is especially noticeable on fruit plants: signs of calcium, iron, and nitrogen deficiency appear. At this stage, some gardeners do not pay attention to the condition of the soil and rush to treat the effect rather than the cause. As a result, the plant continues to suffer and turn yellow. At times it gets better (for example, after spraying with ferovit), and after applying fertilizers to the soil it gets even worse.

In such a situation, the only way out is complete replacement land. And if you are in a hurry to apply fertilizer, then it is advisable to rinse the roots under running water when replanting warm water. Then dry, remove rotten ones, sprinkle with coal and plant in fresh, dry soil.

If a white or red salt crust forms on the surface of the earth, this is a signal: the earth is taking a long time to dry! Such a salt crust must be removed and the top layer of soil replaced with a fresh one.

What to do if the plant is flooded?

Place the pot in the sink and let the soil dry naturally. If this is not possible, empty the pan as soon as it is full. Keep the plant at 18 ° C, avoid drafts. And no bright light! You should water it next time earthen lump will be dry to the touch 4-5 cm deep or will easily come away from the sides of the pot. If you have flooded the plant so much that the pot smells of mold, and the leaves have drooped or there are spots on the edges of the leaves. brown spots, try changing the substrate. Remove the plant from the pot, squeeze the soil ball to squeeze out the water, and remove as much of the wet substrate as possible. Transplant the plant into a new substrate, slightly damp.

Do not water the plant for at least 15 days. If the plant has dense foliage, leaves that are tough, dense, or a succulent, do not water for a month.

How to water plants suspended from the ceiling?

Contrary to popular belief, plants suspended from the ceiling should not be watered as usual. Water is poured into the pan. You do not wet the leaves or soil. Check that after an hour the plant has absorbed all the water. Squeeze off excess with a sponge. This is especially important in winter.

Bokarne bent needs very little water

How do you know if a plant is thirsty?

The first signal will be given to you by the pot. It becomes lighter and produces an “empty” sound if it is made of clay. The substrate moves away from the walls of the pot, it is lighter than the wet substrate, dry to the touch on top and in the depths. The plant's foliage may droop. This happens with balsam and spathiphyllum. Sometimes the leaves turn brown and dry at the ends, becoming papery. Flowers and flower buds may fall off. But these symptoms can also appear with excess water. Always check the condition of the substrate with your fingertips. With a lack of water, the leaves and stems of succulents fade and shrink, but do not become soft.

To check whether a plant is thirsty or not, do the “bamboo” test. Take a thin bamboo stick and stick it into the substrate until the very bottom of the pot. Leave for a minute, then remove. If soil is stuck to the stick or there are stains on it, there is no need to water it.

How to “revive” a plant that lacks water?

In order to properly saturate the entire earthen lump with water, it is best to immerse the pot in a basin of soft water room temperature. When air bubbles stop appearing on the surface, the substrate is completely wet. Place the pot in the sink to allow excess water to drain naturally. Then return the plant to a place where there should be no drafts or bright light. If the substrate has not reached its previous volume, replace it. Then water regularly, do not let the water stagnate in the pan!

The substrate of a newly purchased plant constantly dries out. What to do?

The substrate in which this plant was grown undoubtedly consists of high-moor peat, which dries out very quickly and is difficult to re-soak with water. If this flowering plant, wait until the end of flowering and transplant it into the substrate best quality, which allows water to pass through well. In the meantime, water the plant as much as necessary. It is best to immerse the pot in water. And do not let the water stagnate in the pan. If this is a plant with decorative leaves, immediately transplant it into another substrate, for example, with granules that retain water. After removing the plant from the pot, remove most of the old substrate, being careful not to damage the roots.