Sick, Droopy Lupin

Hi All,

One of my Lupins are looking very sickly, it's curling its leaves a bit which doesn't look great. I fed it a few days ago and did wonder if that was the cause but it was a very very small amount.

It was slightly pot bound and the lower leaves were starting to yellow so I potted it on a few days ago and was expecting it to have perked up by now.

Of course it may just be the heat, but I've checked in the evenings and it's no better.

 

Your lupins don't look too happy Dan.
They do make a very big tap root - so maybe those pots are not big enough - but I have seen them doing well in pots for other people.
My guess would be - root bound, underwatered, starving, that kind of thing.
I think they would be happier in the ground if it's possible to do that.

 

Hi Alice, Thanks for that.

Unfortunately I don't know where it will be going yet so I didn't want to plant it out. The other two are rescues from the garden center yesterday (£1 each) but the white one has been with me over a month (it was in a smaller pot though).

Maybe I'll keep an eye on it for the next few days and just see how it goes. I may have over watered it from reading a few things online they don't like to sit in water and rather be on the dry side.

Dan

 

Hi Dan,

One of my lupins that I have in the ground over at our allotments have gone exactly the same as yours in the photo.One of the flower spikes on ours has gone limp but the other flower spikes are healthy.The leaves look like yours, some healthy and some shriveled.I put it down to it being very hot weather last Saturday so gave the plant a really good watering when we were over there yesterday afternoon despite us having lots of rain saturday evening and overnight on saturday.

Yours look like the plants could do with a feed as the leaves look a bit yellow.I would wait until the compost dries out a bit though before you feed them as too much water at the moment could drown the roots as the compost is wet enough.

Keep an eye on them and keep us posted as to how they are getting on over the next few weeks and Good Luck with them

 

I tend to agree with Alice.

Lupins want to be big, fleshy plants and your pots look rather small. I have two large lupins in my border and need to give them 5 litres of water each every other day to keep them perky.

 

Well, for a few days last week (when it wasn't quite so hot) the lupin perked up a bit. Still looking a bit yellow though, even in fresh compost with a 50% weekly feed. Maybe as it was so pot bound before it has a sickly root system.

Can someone remind me which plant food I should go for to encourage root growth?

 

Those lupins look healthy compared with mine! Mine have finished flowering now. They are all in pots, as my whole garden is now a pot garden. My problem with lupins is that they have become thoroughly infested with a horrid grey bug. These things are like armies! They form neat rows all up the stalks and are positively itch-making. I've Googled but cannot find out what they are. A friend suggested I spray them with diluted washing up liquid, but I can't afford to use all of that for the garden. Does anyone know what they are? Help!!!!
Hoka [new member]

 

Hi Hoka and welcome to the forum.The pest you are reffering to on your lupins is called a Lupin Aphid.Horrid little blighters and I have found the best way to get rid of them is to spray them with Pravado Ultimate Bug Killer which you can get in an Areosol spray can.

It is a systemic bug killer which means that it gets right into the plants system and when the aphid sucks the sap from the stem they take in the chemical and kills them dead on the spot.

I tried using the washing up liquid method but it didn't do any good and even blasting them with a hose pipe only worked for a short time.

Read the instructions first because I think the compost or soil has to to be damp first and I think it is best to spray the plants when there isn't hot sun shining on the plants.

Hope this helps a little