Need help with my Lemon Verbena

[King]

Hi, I'm very new to gardening and even newer to these forums.

Not to long ago my friend being the beautiful human-being that he is gave me one of his Lemon Verbena plants. I mostly use it's leaves for cooking and tea so I was thrilled to have one of my own. I live in an apartment so I have a bit of a potted garden on my balcony. The largest pot of which holds my Lemon verbena, it's quite large, maybe three and a half feet tall?

Here's some pictures: https://imgur.com/a/LjMEf

Recently it's been getting a lot of dry patches and the leaves have been drooping quite a bit. I got worried because it wasn't getting enough sun, and most of the research says they love sun. Yesterday I moved it into the sunniest spot I could, and I hope that'll help it out, but I'm worried it might also be the soil.

Everyone says it needs to be well drained, but I'm not really in a position to pick and choose soil options. I mostly have dry dirt from my area, or what appears to be more rich dirt from my in-law's. Given the choices I opted for the good stuff, but I mixed it through with a lot of long since dead leaves and grass from their backyard as well to try to make the soil a bit more hospitable for it.

I don't really know anything about fertilizer, but I hear these plants love the stuff. Oh, also it's quite windy on my balcony, and I live in Australia Sydney area; so it doesn't really get that cold here. I'd really appreciate any and all advice that can be given in how to care for this plant as I really want it to do well, and really have very little idea as to what I'm doing.

[rainbowgardener]

Yes, your verbena is not doing very well. It should be a lot bushier:



Garden soil does not work very well in pots. All the articles about lemon verbena care stress the necessity of good drainage. Garden soil in pots compacts down and gets heavy and moisture holding, opposite of good drainage. You can't just buy a bag of potting mix?

And it looks like it is not getting enough sun, making it grow tall and stretched. Lemon verbena is a sun lover. Balconies by definition don't have full sun, because they have a building behind them blocking the sun for half a day. And in a field, the plant would be getting sun from all directions. On the balcony it is only getting sun from one side. If you have a choice to move your pot somewhere else that would be good. If not, just be sure it is in the sunniest spot on your balcony and keep rotating the plant.

Lemon verbena responds well to being cut back. At this point, I would cut off a lot of the lanky growth and damaged leaves. Snip off leggy stems just above a leaf whorl. Keep cutting it back regularly through the season.

[King]

Yes, your verbena is not doing very well. It should be a lot bushier:



Garden soil does not work very well in pots. All the articles about lemon verbena care stress the necessity of good drainage. Garden soil in pots compacts down and gets heavy and moisture holding, opposite of good drainage. You can't just buy a bag of potting mix?

And it looks like it is not getting enough sun, making it grow tall and stretched. Lemon verbena is a sun lover. Balconies by definition don't have full sun, because they have a building behind them blocking the sun for half a day. And in a field, the plant would be getting sun from all directions. On the balcony it is only getting sun from one side. If you have a choice to move your pot somewhere else that would be good. If not, just be sure it is in the sunniest spot on your balcony and keep rotating the plant.

Lemon verbena responds well to being cut back. At this point, I would cut off a lot of the lanky growth and damaged leaves. Snip off leggy stems just above a leaf whorl. Keep cutting it back regularly through the season.

Thank you so much for the reply!

As luck would have it I was able to get a bag of "premium potting mix" It wont be enough to replace the entire pot, but it should be enough to at least replace the immediate area around and below the plant's roots. I might be able to get more, if it's not a good idea to replace only some of the soil, but it would take a few days and, I'm very worried that I might need to act quickly before it dies.

Also in regards to trimming it down, would I have to trim it down to a living set of leaves/leaf whorl, or would ! be cutting it down to where it's clear a Leaf whorl use to be before the leaves fell off?

Being in Australia we're moving into fall/winter, that being said it only ever gets down to about 47-48 °F at coldest. Is it wise to trim it down now or should I wait until the coldest days have passed?

Also thank you agan for the information you've provided so far!

[applestar]

I think this is a good time to trim and harvest all the good leaves. Once temperatures start going down to the 50's and 40's, the leaves will start to brown/deteriorate and fall. Does yours actually go dormant at that temperature? I'm used to mine losing all the leaves if left in the cooler temps unless I bring inside BEFORE this happens.

Trimming to leaf nodes just above where the stem has developed bark FEELS safer even though it does grow new green buds out of the hardened wood. I do both just in case. The semi-hard wood will root relatively easily as cuttings in 50/50 potting mix and sand, so you may want to grow some extra plants for back-up. You can the cuttings in water for a few days until ready to plant.

You don't want to NOT trim/prune because it will get lanky. I hope someone with similar climate can advise you on how much to cut down. I tend to be over-cautious because mine need extra care to keep and grow due to deep-freeze winter climate -- never knew they could grow so big, actually.

[laurie basler]

You really need to get rid of all outside dirt. It is full of nasty things indoor plants have no defense against. Inside pots and even outside containers have to have potting soil.