Potato Bush & Dianthus

We have Gary in Louisville. ‘I have a Potato bush out in front of my house on the south side, and it’s like four years old. It’s done very well up until this year. This year it seemed like the leaves weren’t as big when it first came up. I cut it about six inches from the ground during the winter. Basically, about once a week I put the all-purpose Miracle-Gro plant food on it. We got stone put in two years ago, I know with the heat and everything, it probably doesn’t like that.’

They do like their roots cool. That might be something that’s going on, especially as it heats up. It would be a good idea to kind of pull it back away from that and maybe use a regular mulch or something on top of the roots there. They do like their roots cool, especially because the heat of the rocks can come up too and scorch the plants themselves. That might have something to do with it, causing it to wilt and so forth?

They’re weird because they like the sun, but the roots don’t. You need to be able to kind of cool the roots a little bit, so it could be kind of scorching the plants. That does sound like what’s going on, especially if you are fertilizing it.

It does sound environmental, I was going to think it was a lot of it because it would be a little bit rainier and cool. But the rocks can heat up really well, and I have seen that put stress on Clematis.

Leave the rocks outside, but put some mulch around it and just keep it watered, keep checking, maybe cut off what’s dying. You probably won’t have to water it as much, especially since it’s somewhat established. So I would kind of just let it do its thing, but I would put mulch around the base. I know we’re getting some more rain here coming up and everything, so I would just kind of check it like you were, but that’s going to help.

When you put the mulch down, you don’t want to mount the mulch up on the stem of the vine either. I’ve seen people throw handfuls of mulch down, and it’s actually up on the stem itself. You want it to be down just on the soil on the root system.

We have Connie in Canton, who asks, ‘I had these dianthus, beautiful flowers, planted along my walkway. I mean, they spread like a blanket, they’ve been just coming up every year for the last three or four years.. They were beautiful, like pinkish purplish. And I’m in a condo association that came and put mulch that must have stuck under them and around them. They’re dying. They’re almost dead. Is there anything I can do?’

Sometimes the mulch can burn plants like that. I mean, if you can get some of the mulch off of it, that is going to be the best thing to do. And cut off any of the dead, you know, that you see of the dead plant. That will help it regenerate. But that’s going to be the best thing to do.

Sometimes when the mulch is too thick and then it heats up, a lot of times it can burn it. Like if they did it and it got really hot the next day, it can happen like that. So I would just recommend just getting the mulch as far off as it can.

You can give it some fertilizer too, you know, even the all-season granular pellets. Then you could do a liquid on top of that as well, just to kind of help it push out a little bit more growth.

It might be needing some phosphorus and nutrients in the soil too. So I would fertilize it. That would be a good idea. You don’t usually have to use any special fertilizer on Dianthus, an all-season would be just fine. That will help it regenerate.

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