Hi all,

I am babysitting my friend's gardens and plants for a month while she is halfway around the world visiting her daughter. Her farm is 30 minutes away, so my plan is to visit 2x a week to water, if we get less rain than we've had recently.

She mentioned there was a hanging basket with blue flowers that gets very unhappy if it goes even a couple of days without water, and I might want to bring it home with me. Well, upon arrival for my first watering, I found a very unhappy scaevola. The soil was moist from recent rain, but the stems were very droopy with only a single flower at the end of each stem. It was clear that this plant had suffered watering neglect long before I arrived on the scene!

I brought it home to keep a close eye on it, and after a couple of days it wasn't looking much better. It was a large plant with 1 1/2-2 ft. stems, all with crispy or droopy leaves along the stems. However, it was not dead.

I cut it back to the rim of the large hanging basket, as I would do for petunias that had gotten leggy. I gave it a weak dose of Bill's Perfect Fertilizer with a little Superthrive added (hey, I don't know if the stuff works, but I figure that it can't hurt with a plan under as much stress as this one!)

What do you think the chances are that it will rejuvenate from the shortened stems (like a petunia would) and is there anything else I should be doing for it?

I'd really like my friend to come home to a healthy plant! :-)

Lois