Magnolia left at Post Office for a week..Help?

cazziebo

I ordered a Magnolia on line quite a while ago, and unfortunately it was delivered while I was on holiday. It's been sitting in a big brown envelope fin the sorting office for a week. Any hints on how to revive? I sat it in a bowl of water last night to try to get some moisture in to it.


I realise it might be too late...:(

Primrose

Was it sent bare rooted and with leaves on? If so, dehydration will have been a big problem for it. You did the right thing soaking the roots. I'd be inclined to leave them in water for another 24 hours at least to try and give it a chance to recover. It's advisable to get it planted as soon as possible, but suggest you try and delay planting for 2 or 3 days if very hot or very windy weather is forecast as this will dehydrate the plant even further. Give its planting hole a thorough soaking when you do plant it out, and keep well watered.
It's never a good time to plant such shrubs in the height of summer, but as you've got no alternative, just keep the roots well soaked until you can do so, and preferably mist the leaves as well if that's possible. It may be worth contacting the supplier to tell them of your problem. Many reliable online plant suppliers will first check with a customer to ensure that they're not going away on holiday when a plant is likely to be delivered & delay despatch until they return or will deliver to an alternative arranged address to ensure that somebody else can care for it until the customer returns home.

cazziebo

Thank you for such a full response, Primrose.

The plant has no leaves - just a stem with some (very dried out!) buds on it. It was bare rooted. I'm in Scotland so not quite full summer yet (or maybe today was our summer )

I've now planted it into a well watered pot. I'll keep it watered with some intensive TLC and see how it goes. Thanks also for the advice re contacting the supplier. I think it was a special offer but I think they still had a "if you're not 100% happy guarantee"

Thanks again!

Primrose wrote: »

Was it sent bare rooted and with leaves on? If so, dehydration will have been a big problem for it. You did the right thing soaking the roots. I'd be inclined to leave them in water for another 24 hours at least to try and give it a chance to recover. It's advisable to get it planted as soon as possible, but suggest you try and delay planting for 2 or 3 days if very hot or very windy weather is forecast as this will dehydrate the plant even further. Give its planting hole a thorough soaking when you do plant it out, and keep well watered.
It's never a good time to plant such shrubs in the height of summer, but as you've got no alternative, just keep the roots well soaked until you can do so, and preferably mist the leaves as well if that's possible. It may be worth contacting the supplier to tell them of your problem. Many reliable online plant suppliers will first check with a customer to ensure that they're not going away on holiday when a plant is likely to be delivered & delay despatch until they return or will deliver to an alternative arranged address to ensure that somebody else can care for it until the customer returns home.

knithryn

Keep it somewhere cool and shady for a while to allow it to recover.
Magnolia are expensive - I'd agree about contacting the supplier.

cazziebo

Thank you - your advice seems to have worked!! :j The magnolia is back from the dead.

I now have little green shoots coming out of the bottom of the stem. My question now is whether I should cut the stem back or leave it? The shoots further up the stem are obviously dead.

What do you think, experts?

Kay_Peel

I'd leave it for the time being. Cutting the stem might cause the Magnolia to go into shock and it won't send out any more shoots.

Just take it one step at a time. It sounds pretty robust if it's sending up new shoots already - so well done to you for the effective First Aid treatment!

Primrose

Glad you've managed to rescue your magnolia bush. Now that it's convalescing, I'd also suggest leaving well alone for the rest of the summer as the plant is still working hard to recover. I'd wait until autumn and all the leaves have fallen off before attempting any pruning of dead parts. By then the plant will be going into dormancy for the winter and you can then snip off any dead shoots without causing too much shock.. Continue to keep it well watered, especially in windy weather as that can cause further dehydration to the new young leaves.
Incidentally, I've noticed that you've got your magnolia planted in a pot. Bear in mind that these shrubs have the potential to grow into very large plants/trees and that it will be very quickly become pot bound. I'd check the root growth every Spring and if necessary transfer it to a bigger pot before growth restarts and before it's too large, start thinking about moving it to a permanent position in your garden if you want to continue enjoying its full splendouir.

cazziebo

Thank you both, Primrose and Kay. I'll leave well alone.

The plant was destined for my front very sunny garden (well it's in a good position for sun but we do live in Scotland so we're lucky if we see a lot!) but I didn't want to plant it out until I knew it would be okay.

Guess you're all advising not to re plant this year, just tlc until next?