Wimpy cutting growth. Need some advice.

[brettjm]

I have a bunch of first year plants in 1-7 gallon pots. Many have not done great in the GA heat....to the tune of just a few leaves, stunted growth, and recently some have been dropping leaves. Loooots of wilting in the sun, and the pots get really really hot. I have 2 or 3 plants with just 1 leaf left! I made the executive decision this morning to move all of them to nearly full shade (2-3 hours of filtered sun, shade the rest of the day) until the temps drop back into the mid 80s (late August if I'm lucky? lol).

That leaves me with some short term and long term questions though:

1) Is that a good move? Think they'll recover? I've got my late blooming cuttings in the same spot, and they're growing, albeit slowly.
2) What should I do with wimpy figlets come winter? Store indoors? Or would an outside shed still work? Alternatively, we have a moderately sunny room in the house if I wanted to keep them going through witner...dunno if the S.O. would approve though...haha
3) If they put out a bunch of growth (here's to hoping) in the spring, is it possible for them to have enough growth to shade their own pots? Is that a thing?

Thanks for the insight.

[fitzski]

Yes, I think it's a good move and they should recover. I've had a few cuttings do that in the past to the extent that they lost all their leaves but they pulled through and are now growing well in their 2nd season.

I leave the other questions to those who are in your climate zone.

Good Luck!

[Harborseal]

If you keep them in the shade all day the new leaves that come out will need to be acclimated to the sun. What I would do is put them in morning and early afternoon sun but let them be shaded from perhaps 2-3:00 on. Also, fertilize them. The plants that I had that were sun sensitive responded better to fertilization than anything else I did. Even if I left them in full sun all day. Some varieties, like VdB droop no matter what you do but they always perk up in the evening.

[brettjm]

"Some varieties, like VdB droop no matter what you do but they always perk up in the evening."

Hah! True that....my VDB cutting is an absolute wimp.

[brettjm]

Appreciate the input everyone. I'll re-acclimate them to the sun when the time comes. I've got the "spots" in the yard figured out for gradual changes. Glad to hear I made a good call....moving 20 pots across the yard is tough work!

[lilfiggy]

mine are in shade when shade trees shed their leaves this fall they will get sun. Just too hot in the blazing sun for any new plant except bananas and citrus.

[don_sanders]

Hasn't been very hot here but sips and shading pots has been working well for me so far.

Putting the black nursery pots in large light colored pots seems to help a lot with the soil temp.

I'm having to fill my 5 gallon reservoir for 9 plants of various sizes every few days at this point.

[AscPete]

Brett,
Shade the pots not the trees.
Also ensure that they get as much water and fertilizer as they need or want (this is where 5 gallon SIPs excel).
IMO, If they are 1 gallon and larger plants with hardened roots they shouldn't need to be coddled.


Attached are before and after photos of a 1 gallon (single node) plant that was up potted into a Colander SIP (Easy SIP or Alaska Grow Bucket), http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox....55&postcount=9 in early May 2015. It was acclimated to sun for 2 weeks and is currently growing on an elevated concrete stoop in full sun.

[brettjm]

Noted. I might bite the bullet and make SIPs next year. To be fair, these poor guys get 8+ straight hours of direct GA sun from 10 AM till dusk. Its been 95 or above almost every day for the past month. Plan B is to get a ton of leaves and just make a pile to stick all the pots under, but I think I want to give them time to recover a bit.