Help with Heather's

Evening all,

I purchased some heather plants online and planted them temporarily in a plastic planter, until their new home is finished.Have both summer and winter ones.

Anyway, they seem to look dead to me, they haven't really changed colour or anything since they have come a few weeks back.

Can somebody help me with these. They are planted in peat free compost, with sand added in for drainage. I've also added some iron sulphate for acidity. But this doesn't seems to be helping

Kind regards
James

 

I find winter flowering ones are reasonably OK on what I would call normal soil but summer flowering ones really need acid conditions.

Ordinary peat free compost is probably likely to be neural so may not be acidic enough.

Iron sulphate is not likely to do much, I dont think, if it is a soil acidity problem, you need either sequestered iron or chelated iron.

Having said that, I'd not expect any real amount of new growth just yet.

 

Yeah they all turned up like that. Any way to get the half dead ones back up and running?

I'll try for a refund but I can see them saying no due to being flowers

 

Who did you get them from @Jblakes ?
The mix you have them in doesn't sound ideal, but if they've not been there for very long, it shouldn't have made much difference, and you say it's only been a few weeks.

It deosn't make any difference that they're flowering plants either - a good company should refund anything that isn't thriving - and those certainly aren't thriving. Have you contacted them?

 

Morning,

I don't want to say who it is, I've contacted them and waiting a response.ill let you know what they say.

What should they be planted in? Heard Ericaceous Compost, but then plenty of people have said normal pest free with added iron is perfectly fine, so did that because that what I had to use at the time.

Can somebody educate me as to what they need?

Regards
James

 

Compost is no use if they're going to be in a container long term @Jblakes , rather than planted out. You need a soil based medium - and you can buy those in GCs etc.
Grit or fine gravel is far better for drainage - mixed through it.
If you know which varieties they are, that helps, because although most like a bit of acidity, some are perfectly happy even with some alkalinity. A fairly neutral medium works best if you aren't sure. If you need to water, rainwater is best if your tap water isn't ideal. I agree that one of them looks ok.
Many of them get pretty big - they spread a fair bit, so you may need to pot them separately - if they live. Unfortunately, I don't think that's very likely unless there's some new growth coming away near the base.




This site will give you a few pointers as to the likes/dislikes etc though
Growing & Aftercare FAQ – Heather World