gardening advice sought

[That's probably a stupid subject line, as I'll get too many hits from Googlers seeking their own gardening advice...]

A few weeks ago I made a trip to a plant nursery and bought a grevillea, a bottle brush (both about 1.5m tall), a lophomyrtus and another shrub I don't know the name of. At the same time a friend gave me a big lavender shrub.

I didn't get around to planting them until three weeks later. They're all in very sunny positions and it's mostly been pretty hot.

Two days after planting the bottle brush flowered, which I thought was a good sign. But the flowers only lasted two days and since then it's been looking progressively sicker. It has a lot of dead brown bits on it and the green leaves which were originally pointing upwards are now curling.

The grevillea looks okay though some of it is less perky than it was originally.

The nameless shrub looks absolutely fine. The lavender leaves have gone slightly yellow (over-watering?). The lophomyrtis, which is in a big pot, has a lot of dead leaves on the inside. It still has a lot of green, good-looking leaves on the outside, though today i noticed some of them are half yellow (another sign of over watering?)

I was watering them all every evening until a week ago, when they first started to look a bit unwell. Then I discussed it with a friend who said to only water once a week. It rained here yesterday, so that's their weekly watering. But the lophomyrtis label says to keep it well watered and what I've read about bottle brushes on the Web says they can tolerate moist conditions very well.

I'm confused. Any Australian gardeners reading this?

Comments

[Janet]

I'm guessing that your plants may be undergoing transplant shock. Which can be worse in bigger plants, even more so if they were a bit root bound. I use dilute seaweed extract from the supermarket when I transplant seedlings and bigger plants. Dilute wormfarm juice might be another good tonic. Tip pruning might help too. Lavenders don't like to be pruned too harshly though. Watering can be hard to get right as it depends on the soil and how well drained it is and whether the root get a chance to "breathe". Might be a case of wait and see. Hope this a bit helpful..

[Lori]

I've had mostly good luck with bottlebrushes and grevilleas...I'm not a gardener but I've found it's hard to kill them...Some of the bottlebrushes haven't ever grown but they didn't die either. I've had lavender go yellow after flowering and they don't often recover until the next season. I agree with Janet that it could be a transplant shock going on. Often the plant will look unwell for awhile then it will perk up once it starts establishing roots. Anyway, hope they recover soon...Btw, our bottlebrushes tend to bloom during late September or early October and the flowers are often gone within a couple weeks. Now that ours are bigger and established they flower several times a year.

[Link]

I heard someone on a gardening show yesterday say that he only recommended watering natives every ten days for their first two years of life and then not at all. He also said that grevilleas like to be pruned, dead flowers snipped off which will encourage many more flowers next time around.

Lavenders' don't like wet feet at all and need a bed that drains well. So not too much water--they are pretty hardy, but with soggy feet will yellow off. I'd only water them every ten days or so too-- if that, keeping in mind that Sydney's pretty humid.

[Bernice Balconey]

Could be that the nursery stock wasn't hardened off enough - the plants get raised from either cuttings or culture, reared on huge amounts of fertilisers & water, spring up green & fecund & then promptly die when planted at home & having to experience heat, then rain, cold then more heat etc etc all the usual things that happen in your outside non-climate controlled garden. The dilute seaweed is a good idea & make sure your soil is actually absorbing the water - if in doubt, nick a bit of your rinse water from the laundry & apply to your garden beds - it'll act as a cheap wetting agent. & mulch mulch mulch.

[susoz]

Thanks for all the suggestions and encouragement - I did buy some mulch on the weekend and put it on the beds. I'll look for the seaweed juice too (though I have a lot of worm juice which I should use.) So far nothing is deteriorating further - they've all stayed the same for the past week, so hopefully it is transplant shock (and weather shock - 36C and 16C in the same week!)