How To Revive Your Wilted or Drooping Plants
Inexperienced gardeners and green thumbs alike have all, at some point, experienced the frustration of a dying plant. Unfortunately, many plants are very picky and will go limp or dry out at the slightest environmental change. Luckily, there are ways to bring life back into plants, even when they look pretty far gone. Keep reading to learn how to revive your wilted or drooping plants.
Check for Over or Underwatering
It’s obvious that plants need water to survive and grow, but some plants require pretty specific amounts of water. When you see your plant looking a little lifeless, your first thought may be to water it, but you could be doing more harm than good.
An overwatered plant will have wet soil with yellow or brown, wilted leaves. Your best bet is to change the soil or add more for the water to disperse more evenly. An underwatered plant will typically have dry tips that are brown and start to fall off, and you may even see cracks in the soil. In this case, you can either submerge the plant entirely for a few hours or water more at consistent levels and intervals.
Determine Lighting Needs
Believe it or not, some plants thrive in low light while others do not. If your plant is growing abnormally slow, the leaves look pale or yellow, and it looks like it’s reaching or leaning towards the sun, it needs more light. Plants that are getting too much light will have signs of leaf burning, with darkened or bleached patches and very crispy leaves. To remedy this, you can look up the specific lighting needs of your plant, and they will fall into a category: indirect, direct, or partial sunlight. Once you’ve determined its lighting needs, you can move it or provide it with shade.
Remove Dead Parts of the Plant
Removing dead parts of the plant isn’t just for aesthetic value; the difference is you’re trimming for the health of the plant as opposed to pruning. You don’t want dead parts of the plant to fight for the nutrients that the rest of the plant could be using—if the leaves are dead or dying, it’s time to trim them off. You can cut off any dead branches, roots, leaves, or flowers, too. Sometimes you can get away with cutting the tips off dead leaves, but if it’s more than 50% dead, it should be removed.
Now that you know how to revive your wilted or drooping plants, your final step is to wait. Some plants can take weeks, even up to a month, before they begin showing signs of revival. Keep giving it the water and light that it needs, be patient, and it should come back to life.
