Hydrangeas can wilt and die due to various environmental stressors, including inadequate watering, insufficient light exposure, and pest problems. The most common cause is drought stress, which occurs when the soil is too dry or exposed to too much sunlight, causing the leaves to wilt and turn brown. Overwatering or underwatering are the most common reasons for hydrangeas to die after planting.
Poor soil conditions, nutritional deficiencies, transplant shock, and being planted in a container that’s too small can also contribute to hydrangea wilting. To address these issues, it’s essential to evaluate the plant’s water, light, and nutrient needs.
Dehydration, excessive sun exposure, or nutrient deficiencies can cause hydrangeas to droop, especially in high-water-draining soils. To revive hydrangeas, trim ends and dip them in hot water. Additionally, hydrangeas may have a root rot disorder, which can be caused by overwatering, fungal diseases, or transplant shock.
Lack of water or sufficient water can also cause wilting symptoms, especially in very high-water-draining soils. Trimming ends and dipping them in hot water can help revive hydrangeas.
Furthermore, hydrangeas may need hardening off before being planted outdoors due to their fragile root system. In summer, excessive exposure to strong sunlight can cause blackening of leaves. Overwatering, low temperatures, and pest problems can also contribute to hydrangea wilting.
In summary, understanding the causes of hydrangea wilting and dying is crucial for their survival. By addressing these issues, you can help your hydrangeas regain their vigor and thrive in their beautiful environment.
📹 Why is My Hydrangea Dying? – Kelly Lehman
This video Why is My Hydrangea Dying? – Kelly Lehman will explain a few reasons why your hydrangeas may be dying and how …
📹 Why Does My Plant Look like It’s Dying Right After Planting? 🤔🥀💚// Garden Answer
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I can remember my sweet mama breaking off small branches from the trees in the woods to “shade” her seedlings in her garden when she planted them. She’d pull off a few leaves and stick the branch in the ground around her plants. Usually around three per seedling. The leaves would last a day or two most times. Then when they turned brown and crispy, she removed them. Mama always had a beautiful garden. Of course the rotted manure pile she kept for fertilizer (from the dairy cows) helped too! Thank you for your articles. I look forward to them every day.
Thank you for your very informative article! I have learned so much gardening since I started perusal your Chanel, it so great! When I went to Indiana to visit my daughter, I watched your website all the time, and my daughter doesn’t do gardening but she loved your website! She said “I love to watch Garden Answer now, it’s so de stressing, just to watch her beautiful Garden”
After planting 25 new shrubs and perennials and replanting 2 boxwoods this week, I soo needed to hear this. It’s hard, but I shall be patient! LOL! Thank you for this article, Laura; the timing was perfect for me. 🙌🏻😅☺️🧡🌾🌿 Edit: I would like to humbly request a article discussing hydrangea leaf issues, possible bacterial/fungal/rust treatments. Also, spider mites and common problems that can occur on boxwoods and non-fruit baring ornamental crabapple trees. (Clearly I have many issues … 😐😬, lol.) Thanks, Laura!!! 😘💖🌸
EXCELLENT Laura! Thank you! I work in a garden center, and 90% of the time it’s a watering issue that causes plant death/stress. I planted an entire garden with annuals, perennials, Bobo hydrangeas and roses on a close to 100 degree day in July for my kids. I asked them to water everyday for the first few weeks. They did and they had zero loss. That first year of consistent watering is crucial. 🤗🤗
So happy I watched this at this exact moment..because in another hour I would have ripped out the 7 coral drift roses that was planted in Spring of 2018…although this year they seem to be trying to look the way I want them to, I now know they need me to give them at least another year to try and reach their full potential….so, they are getting a reprieve for now Thanks to You 😉…✌️💜💋
What a timely article! I just planted three hydrangeas for my darling daughter in law. Even though we are in September and the nights have been cooler…. the days have been really hot. Two of the three have scorched on the leaves. I keep reassuring my daughter in law and son that they will be fine and to leave them be and keep them watered as they still have some nice green leaves. Soon they will be dormant down to their sticks once frost hits. I feel they will come back strong in the spring. Planted them as you suggested on your article including Bio-tone! Thank you for sharing your most valuable information, tips and suggestions! I absolutely love your website!!!!!
What a gorgeous spot where you’re sitting has become! That Japanese maple in the pot and your other plants look so inviting. That’s what I created this spring in our front yard… but I have more of a rock garden in the shade. I get so many compliments as people walk by. They cannot believe the transformation, even children want to know what pretty plants are growing there. I had a stressed Japanese maple, all the leaves fell off and I was worried but I did as you said… I watered and gave it shade. It came back full force in one season. I’m more proud of that tree than anything else. It is a labor of Love. ❤️
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! I do not have a green thumb and in the past if a plant came to my house – it came to die. After perusal your articles for a while I was inspired to rip out the 20 year old “builder bushes” from my front beds and try something different. I ordered 10 BoBo Hydrangeas and talked hubby into helping me convert our sprinklers in that bed to drip. I did everything that I have watched you do for new plantings but I had one little bobo that was looking like he just could not even, and was dropping leaves. I went out and cleaned up the little mess around the plant, made sure it was not a bug or water issue, then we sat down for a talk. 🙂 Seriously though – your advice in other articles made be give pause and just wait for a bit to see what would happen. The plant looks much better and is just smaller than the others. Also thank you for reminding me that it could take a few years to possibly get blooms. I am in Zone 8A so I baby these plants. Now I am getting excited to started working on my naked backyard.
Just planted a peach sapling last weekend and the poor thing went through one of our state’s biggest hail storms THAT NIGHT, all of the leaves are curled and browned and spotty now and i’ve been terrified! Seeing your hail’d tree is giving me some hope. Just going to keep watering and hoping for the best!
Our ginger wine ninebark got powdery mildew REALLY bad the second spring we had it in the ground. I treated it and waited all summer for it to rebound but once the leaves fell off it was done for. I cut it back almost to the ground this spring and now it’s 6 feet tall! And, we were able to get on top of some aphids and powdery mildew before it overwhelmed the plant this year! Can’t wait to see what it does next year!
I needed to hear this. Thanks Laura for being so informative. Better go check on those plants. I moved this week. My plants were looking beautiful and now they look all dead and scorched. They must’ve taken a hit with the new location. I was a bit sad, but this has helped me understand them a little better. I’m going to put up a shade for my hydrangeas. ☂️
This is such an encouraging article!! Thank you!! 🙌🏼 I have a brand new build and started my landscaping from absolutely nothing. Thousands of dollars in plants and I just kept thinking they were all dying. Now I know they are mostly “stressed” 🙂 I might go cut some way back when it cools outside a bit,
You are awesome! I have an endless summer hydrangea next to my front stoop that we planted 2 years ago and I’m thinking of moving it. It gets sun in late spring – mid summer for about 8+ hrs and come July the sun scorch starts up. I’m zone 7 (Virginia). First year I did the umbrella. But our HOA asked me to stop. This year I covered it with a wet cloth every day by 11 am. But come July – August if I missed a day the leaves and blooms start burning. Ugh!
Lovely coffee with Laura article this morning and thank you for all the information! I can’t wait to get some things started for next spring in our classroom and hopefully we will be getting our playground spruced up as some trees need to be cut back and we are going to make new garden beds!!! This information helps me to inform the folks I work with as to what we can and maybe shouldn’t do right now!!!!
I planted limelight hydrengia after perusal your article and my hydrengia got burned and I cut the burned bloom in mid summer. I got nice foliage but no flowers now yet. I hope I didn’t kill my limelight 😥. Thanks for your informative article. Thanks to you. You are my inspiration and you are amazingly energetic person. I am also mom of 11 months old baby. I somehow find time to watch your article and planted few perennials. I am hoping for the good result.
I needed this article today, I recently planted a Russian sage…..I look at it and go..oh you are so dead!! BUT maybe there is hope …Im going to wait til next spring and see if any new growth appears…this is my 1st experience with “oh geez the plant died” Ive planted lots of plants and all survived….and yesterday I was going to pull it up and return it…but I’m going to wait…luckily it has a warranty with the nursery..so waiting it out wont hurt. So thank you for this timely article.
I really needed to hear this. I am trying to expand my gardens and make my property look better. I started out enthusiastically but sadly, I think I will lose two or three of my new perennials. Hearing this is normal makes me so much happier and willing to deal with it next spring and replant as needed. I will be taking careful note to apply the information in this article. I really love your articles, instagram articles and instagram stories so much. Thank you to both you, Laura and you, Aaron for all the hard work.
I am a long term gardener and I am still struggling with figuring out how to water plants to the right amount. Here in Florida, it seems if you over water, especially in a pot; you end up with a mold problem and it kills the plant. I have a Hibiscus sitting on our paver driveway; which also generates heat. This hot sun in July and August wilts the plant even when the soil is damp. I think I will try putting stones in the saucer under the plant and keeping some moisture in that. I am really struggling with the gardening switch from Pennsylvania to Florida. Do those moisture gauges actually work for telling you how much moisture is in the soil of the pot or plant in the ground? I have read pros and cons about moisture gauges. You are my favorite gardening website. I have learned a lot from you even though I have been gardening a long time. I love how you are going as environmentally friendly as you can. I think you are changing peoples minds of using so many nasty chemicals in gardening.
Great timing. I put a Bali Hardy Hibiscus in the ground at the beginning of the week and forgot to include fertilizer. I’ve been worrying about it all week. But it was watered in well, filled in with fresh potting soil, topped with 3″ layer of mulch, gets shade until noon, and we’ve had at least one heavy rain storm since planting with more on the way in the next two weeks…..so I think it might be okay. Now to worry about my pumpkins. I’ve neglected them and now they have an infestation of cucumber beetles and powdery mildew and my neem spray just isn’t cutting it.
I am a beginning gardener and I just bought a bunch of David Austin roses online and also at Lowes that I stumbled onto. I live in Florida and tried to plant hydrangeas and wasn’t successful. I think I put them in an area that was too hot. If you have any advice for hydrangeas or roses in hot humid climates that would be awesome! I love your hydrangeas with those purple flowers!!!! That is amazingly gorgeous!! God bless!
Thanks much for this article! Can you perhaps address issues like verticilium wilt? I’ve lost several of my Japanese Maples and I’m distraught. I have an organic garden and use compost. Here in the Northeast, it’s endemic to the soil, but I’ve taken a huge hit because of it. I’ve had a tree service come in and they soil soaked with a fertilizer that’s supposed to be helpful, but I’d be so grateful for some advice! Thanks so much for considering!!🍃💚
Thank you, Laura! Can you tell me what to do for a 2 ft Colorado Blue Spruce we planted late this spring that has burned the new growth it put on, on the top and some on the south side of it from our intense heat and sun this year. I guess I should have given it some shade but I didn’t and now it is stressed😰! I have been watering it consistently and the leaves that aren’t burnt are still nice and soft. I was thinking about trimming the very lowest branches to help it have more strength for the others. They are very close to the ground. What do you think??? And, what do I do about the little stems that have turned completely brown. Should I trim them or just leave them? Should I give it some more slow release fertilizer now that it has cooled off a bit? You also gave me hope for a pink blooming dogwood we planted last summer. To start with it was a rescue from Home Depot. We live in the Texas Panhandle and have very similar weather to what you have except our winters are not quite as cold. We do get a little below 0 but never -17!!!,Wow, and not as much snow. The poor thing scorched last year but still put on berries and bloomed so cute this spring! Then, the spring rains came and we didn’t have any big hail but every time it rained we had pea to marble sized hail! Poor thing just got badly ripped up ! Then the rains stopped and the summer sun kicked in and we had high 90s and 100s for over 2 months. We are finally down to the upper 80s and lower 90s but the leaves just look awful again.
Just planted 4 “Autumn Blaze” maple trees (about 6 footers). It’s been a week, and I’ve been watering them daily. The leaves are wilting, and I’m worried they’re going to die. I’m not sure if I’m overwatering, underwatering or just need to chill and let them adjust. They were purchased in #5 pots and planted in loose, pretty good topsoil. Everything I read was that these trees are very low maintenance and shouldn’t need any special care. The one thing it said I should do is water well until they get established. Is a week of daily watering enough? Should I stop and just let nature take over?
I have a question – I have a dragonlady holly that was planted next to other bushes. We had to pull out the bushes, and we see that the holly grew on some sides, but not really on the one side that was against the bushes. I would really love to prune it and shape it up, including removing some height because it just looks like a crazy holly. haha I’m hoping that growth will happen on the one side as time goes by. So my question – can I prune this plant? Can take off some of the height too? This plant is the only one left in front of our house, and I don’t want to get rid of it, but I also can’t move it. It’s an established holly.
I’m a new planter and I’ve been wondering about this, has it’s been bothering. When i watch YouTube articles i see guys mangling their plants and roots violently when transplanting them into a bigger pots, and here i am being extremely gentle and careful not to sever any root and mine still die and theirs don’t. Smh not fair.
Hi Laura! I love perusal your articles and have learned so much. I’m fairly new to gardening and trying to figure out where I want things planted so I’m going to be moving some perennials and shrubs that have only been in the ground since spring. I also want to start using the bio-tone starter plus. Is it ok to use it when you relocate a plant whether you used it the initial planting or not?
You’re like a therapist! A few days ago I planted three hydrangeas along the side of my house. Currently, we are in a terrible heatwave in California. The side of my house, where I planted them, gets the morning sun. They look terribly wilted. The beautiful large blue blooms I fell in love with have turned a bluish-brown. I have taken to heart the watering tactic, in the appropriate amount. I’m going to just “chill.” I’m not going to panic. This freak climate change induced heatwave, that has shattered several records here, will soon pass and my little plants will get a much needed break. I’m going to just chill…
I’ve had issues with 3 knockout red roses. I made the mistake of planting them in the middle of summer but I couldn’t resist that they were on sale and I’ve had great success with my 2 other rescues as I like to call them; Lowe’s was drowning them and they’ve thrived ever since. But my new knockouts have been a pain to keep watered. I water them every other day to make sure I’m not overwatering them but each time I water them they bubble like crazy. I do have them in pots, only for the time being until I can buy a house; but they always look like they’re not getting any water. They’re trying to put on new growth so I know atleast for now they’re not totally stressed. Should I cut them all the back now or should I wait until February?
I planted a butterfly maple and it immediately burned and stressed. I kept watering it and tried defoliating some if the leaves. I think when it started pushing new leaves, it stressed out even more. I now have the black spots on branches and the new leaves have fell off and I’m stressed. Will it survive and just go dormant thus winter?
Buy a lot of stressed plants and you have to give them a chance. Most of the time they come and look really good they just needed to be out of the cans they were in. Only problem when you do this is that your plants don’t look really pretty or lush from the start. I only do this to perennials that I now they will come back next year.
That maple behind you has some sun burn needs more water. when that tree in the fall drops it’s seeds, get a big flat 2″ of potting mix put in 3 to 4 hundred seeds into it. wet down to moist over winter cold storage, spring all seedlings into small pots around garden in shady areas a little sun well watered every day good drainage in 3 to 4 yrs you will have 3 to 4 hundred nice plantable 3ft MAPLES
Great timing. We planted a tree out front at the end of spring. We don’t get really hot weather here during the summer except for the low 90s for about a week in the summer. But freakishly this summer, we had about three weeks worth of 90 degree days. And we made a 45 minute trip from a low elevation garden center to our high elevation home with the tree, having had it completely wrapped and covered for the whole trip home. Discouragingly, the tree seems not to be happy at all. However, we did everything else right that I know of that you stated here, except for the Biotone Starter fertilizer though we did give it some great fertilizer when we planted it. However, its leaves look more than sad, having become dry and most falling off already. I hope it comes back better next year. I guess we’ll see.
I have another tip – if your new plant is not feeling well and you’ve exhausted all other options treat it with broad spectrum organic fungicide, bc stress can suppress plant’s immune system and make it more susceptible to diseases. But don’t use baking soda in your garden, as some people suggest, or it will poison your soil! People who advise to treat plants with baking soda obviously didn’t study chemistry, agriculture etc. 🤦♀Hope it will be helpful for someone. Marina from Russia 🙂
Thank you so much for you’re article’s! Were do you live because everything is growing so well? Do you have a gardener? Am I allowed to give you some advice too? I love how you use you’re planter-concept in you’re garden too but maybe you need a LandscapeArchitect for the overal basics. For the routing, for the horizontical- and vertical depth in you’re outdoor space; just to get a natural layering like groundlayers / shrubs / trees and deal with the hard materials (pavement) Sure I’am a LandscapeArchitect myself for over 35 years now and won some prices and even designed a World Exibithion representing The Netherlands. I’am not inviting myself! Don’t get me wrong! I just want to inspire you to get to the next level in GardenLandscape! I send you the name of my biggest inspirators to google: Piet Oudolf and Mien Ruys (both from the Netherlands too) and Burle Marx! Again thank you so much for youre article’s! I always made screenshots when you put out the name of the plant i like! Keep up the good work and looking forward to you’re next article! Greetings and Love from Hendrik