Over pruned roots

Question

I am new to gardening and over-pruned the roots on a new plant I bought from a nursery in Hawaii during the process of potting that plants into a larger container. I meant to just prune it a little bit so that it would be able to get nutrients from the newer soil but the plant is not doing well at all. The plant is a Heliconia. It arrived about 3 feet tall with about 2/3 of the leaves intact. After my too aggressive handling and pruning of the roots, the plant’s leaves are drying out and turning yellow. Does this mean that it is now not getting the nutrients and water from the root system? What should I do? Thanks for any help, I feel quite bad about what happened to that poor plant, I swear to be more careful in the future. Thanks for any assistance you can provide.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, about the only thing you can do is give it plenty of water and perhaps even some fertilizer while it recovers from the heavy root pruning.