Yesterday, I made a run to the garden center to get some more soil to pot up my lovely, fast-growing, two-tone marigold, a bushy lobelia plant and another shade of petunia to add to my large grapevine-embossed pot containing two other petunias which were beginning to bush out quite a bit. It was a gorgeous color scheme I had going on too: Surfinia Sky Blue, Night Sky and Royal Sky.
Well, apparently the winds kicked up a lot last night and into today as well. The lobelia I bought along with all my other plants - potted (including my tallest geranium which I keep staked) and not potted seem just fine - even the marigold seedlings I started amid the strawberry patch held up. The marigold and petunias, however, not so much.
When I looked outside, I noticed my marigold was laying almost flat over the pot. Once I was in the garden, I saw the wind had split the central stem a couple of inches up from the base.
I've never had this this happen before - a few little branches or some flower buds of a plant, sure, but not this. I'd read it is possible to put a plant stem in a makeshift cast so that it might heal itself so I improvised. Not having any plant tape on-hand, I took some Scotch tape, cut out a wide strip from some card paper to form a cast and then used a chopstick as a kind of splint for the marigold. So far, the plant has not gone limp, is looking spry and is sitting in my conservatory until the winds die down (or some time beyond that).
If it continues to look well and seems to be on the mend as I baby it, when should I remove the 'cast'/'splint'? And should I wait until then to put it back outside again? I live in England along a coastal area so the weather here can be unpredictable.
My beautiful petunias are another story. Of course, there were many torn and damaged blooms but there were also a lot of stems broken right down to the base. I had to cut all those off so that I no longer have a lovely, growing mound of trailing petunias of varying shades of purple (two kinds with white speckles - one with none). Now they look quite sparse, each plant so reduced in size with far more soil visible than either leaves or flowers.
I'm familiar with petunia care and so know they have to be cut back at least once or twice each summer, but these were just getting going and cutting back doesn't generally mean all the way to the base of the plant like I just had to. I did not tape/cast/splint them like I did the marigold. I tried, but it was too difficult and awkward with it being multiple broken stems and on trailing plants no less. Can the petunias still recover and grow out fully - even being cropped to the base in several areas? Do I need to move them to another part of the garden (they're currently in the conservatory as well till the winds die down, but I normally keep them on the patio, in full sun) or even get a cloche?
I am thinking I'll give these plants a couple of weeks and see how they fair. If not well, I guess it's back to the garden center for replacements.
Thanks for any help!
