How to save a wilting Basil plant!?

[spellbound55]

I bought two beautiful sprigs of living Basil at the market, complete with root balls. When I got home I potted them, watered them generously, and left them in a sunny window. They were tall and full and beautiful, but this morning they are drooping down in a sad, limp, wilted ball! It looks awful. What do I do? Is it in shock? Will it perk up? I want to save it!

[WatchMeShove]

They probably are in shock. A lot of people say that when you repot things that you should keep them out of the sun for one week to let them recuperate. The basil shouldn't die unless you seriously damaged the roots, which is probably unlikely unless you decided that cutting off a lot of the roots was a good idea. When you re-pot plants it's sometimes a good idea to take off some of the top growth to put a little less strain on the roots. Including a picture for us to see could help us decide if the plant is going to live or not. Most plants wilt when the get re-potted and just when you think they are about to die, they usually come back. In my opinion, killing a plant is actually hard and they don't want to die so unless you seriously damaged something I wouldn't worry about it dying. Something you should invest in is called superthrive. I would never re-pot any of my valuable plants without superthrive. Some people use it for re-pot, some people call it plant steroids, and in some states it's illegal because of the potency. You could probably take off all the roots, throw in some root hormone and some superthrive and the plant would live. Sorry for rambling on good luck!!

[chefzomagic]

I bought two beautiful sprigs of living Basil at the market, complete with root balls. When I got home I potted them, watered them generously, and left them in a sunny window. They were tall and full and beautiful, but this morning they are drooping down in a sad, limp, wilted ball! It looks awful. What do I do? Is it in shock? Will it perk up? I want to save it!

You may have over watered. Basil doesn't want a lot of water. If your soil is still soggy when you put a finger down into it, go outside, and replace some of the wet soil with drier soil. It could be shock, but everything I read about basil before planting all my herbs this spring said basil really doesn't want a lot of water. So, don't water them again until the soil is completely dry. I mean it could be shock, but since you said you watered "generously" I would suspect their roots are not happy.

Whatever you do, though, even if you don't repot them, STOP giving them a lot of water. They don't want it. If the soil isn't bone dry, it's not time to water them yet.